Bishop MuseumExplore

Journeys

The expeditions, reassembled

Every dated label is a diary entry. Read a collector’s labels in order and the voyage comes back: the islands in sequence, the days at each, the specimens from every stop. 9 journeys so far, 1930 to 1934, 19,981 specimens between them.

9 collectors and expeditions566 days in the field88,141 km between stops18,359 photographed specimens

Donald Anderson

34 islands · Apr – Oct 1934

Donald Anderson across 34 islands, April – October 1934

8,872 specimens · 35 stops · 202 days · 16,221 km

Clarence H. Cooke Jr.

26 islands · Apr – Oct 1934

Clarence H. Cooke Jr. across 26 islands, April – October 1934

3,369 specimens · 39 stops · 184 days · 14,736 km

F. Raymond Fosberg

32 islands · Apr – Oct 1934

F. Raymond Fosberg across 32 islands, April – October 1934

2,503 specimens · 85 stops · 201 days · 23,387 km

Elwood Curtin Zimmerman

21 islands · Feb – Oct 1934

Elwood Curtin Zimmerman across 21 islands, February – October 1934

1,714 specimens · 56 stops · 248 days · 12,587 km

Harold St.John

7 islands · Sep 1932 – Jan 1933

Harold St.John across 7 islands, September 1932 – January 1933

929 specimens · 23 stops · 113 days · 8,847 km

Samuel Wight

16 islands of French Polynesia · May – Oct 1934

Samuel Wight across 16 islands of French Polynesia, May – October 1934

733 specimens · 24 stops · 156 days · 7,021 km

Martin L. Grant

8 islands of French Polynesia · Nov 1930 – Feb 1931

Martin L. Grant across 8 islands of French Polynesia, November 1930 – February 1931

822 specimens · 31 stops · 90 days · 1,081 km

Yoshio KondoKay Kondo

8 islands · Jul – Oct 1934

Yoshio KondoKay Kondo across 8 islands, July – October 1934

620 specimens · 10 stops · 91 days · 1,948 km

Anderson

9 islands of French Polynesia · Jul – Oct 1934

Anderson across 9 islands of French Polynesia, July – October 1934

419 specimens · 12 stops · 91 days · 2,313 km

How a journey is found

Every specimen with a full date (year, month and day; a bare “1 January” is treated as a missing day) and a named collector is a diary entry. For each collector the days are read in order, each day given the place most of its labels name. The place where a collector spent more than forty percent of their days, and at least sixty of them, is home: days there are left out.

A gap of more than 21 days between collecting days ends one journey and begins the next. A journey must run five to four hundred days, hold at least forty specimens and touch at least two places. Within it, consecutive days inside the same or a neighbouring tenth-of-a-degree cell (about eleven kilometres) are one stop; the stop’s point is the mean of its labels’ coordinates, or the island’s centre when none carry any.

Companions are collectors whose own labels put them in the same cell on the same days. Staff can name a journey, write about it, feature it or hide it; those words survive every rebuild. Everything else is read off the specimens and rebuilt by harvest.mjs expeditions as the records improve.