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. 11 journeys so far, 1950 to 1958, 2,296 specimens between them.

1 collectors and expeditions271 days in the field83,295 km between stops1,877 photographed specimens

Harold St.John

4 islands · Oct 1950 – Feb 1951

Harold St.John across 4 islands, October 1950 – February 1951

459 specimens · 38 stops · 97 days · 7,479 km

Harold St.John

11 islands · Oct 1957 – Feb 1958

Harold St.John across 11 islands, October 1957 – February 1958

325 specimens · 61 stops · 125 days · 23,583 km

Harold St.John

4 islands of the United States · Sep 1952 – Feb 1953

Harold St.John across 4 islands of the United States, September 1952 – February 1953

271 specimens · 28 stops · 151 days · 1,245 km

Harold St.John

6 islands · Nov 1955 – Jan 1956

Harold St.John across 6 islands, November 1955 – January 1956

293 specimens · 22 stops · 65 days · 13,814 km

Harold St.John

7 islands · Nov – Dec 1953

Harold St.John across 7 islands, November – December 1953

254 specimens · 14 stops · 33 days · 9,010 km

Harold St.John

4 islands of the United States · Nov 1954 – Feb 1955

Harold St.John across 4 islands of the United States, November 1954 – February 1955

193 specimens · 22 stops · 97 days · 1,375 km

Harold St.John

16 islands · Jun – Aug 1956

Harold St.John across 16 islands, June – August 1956

140 specimens · 31 stops · 69 days · 26,065 km

Harold St.John

3 islands · Oct 1951 – Jan 1952

Harold St.John in Maui, Oʻahu and Maug, October 1951 – January 1952

115 specimens · 15 stops · 85 days · 313 km

Harold St.John

4 islands of the United States · Jun – Jul 1955

Harold St.John across 4 islands of the United States, June – July 1955

96 specimens · 11 stops · 34 days · 411 km

Harold St.John

Oʻahu and Ujelang Atoll · Feb – Jul 1952

Harold St.John in Oʻahu and Ujelang Atoll, February – July 1952

66 specimens · 18 stops · 160 days

Harold St.John

Kauaʻi and Oʻahu · Dec 1956 – Jan 1957

Harold St.John in Kauaʻi and Oʻahu, December 1956 – January 1957

84 specimens · 8 stops · 14 days

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.