Kaiser Wilhelmsland Expedition
The Kaiser-Wilhelmsland-Expedition of 1896 (also First Ramu-Expedition) was a German scientific expedition initiated by the colonial department of the Foreign Office and sent to Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land . Kaiser-Wilhelmsland was the name of the northeastern part of the island of New Guinea , which until 1914 belonged to the German colony of German New Guinea .
The research trip was scientifically accompanied by the Berlin Geography Society and financially supported by the German Colonial Society with a grant of 5,000 marks . The German Reich spent 18,074 marks on the expedition, the total cost of which was around 33,000 marks. The New Guinea company also took part in the project.
The botanist Karl Lauterbach was appointed as director. Other participants in the well-equipped expedition on the on April 29, 1896 Stettin Friedrich-Wilhelm-port reached, the former official of Guinea's Company were Ernst Tappenbeck as the organizer and the doctor Hermann Kersting . From Stephansort , the members of the expedition set out on the march inland with the task of finding the sources of the Markham River and exploring the land's economic viability. From May 1896, they collected and mapped the mountain ranges of the Oertzen and Bismarck mountains .
The most important result of the expedition was the discovery of the Ramu River . As early as 1886 Vice Admiral Georg von Schleinitz came across the mouth of the Sepik while returning from an expedition . Schleinitz named the river Ottilienfluss after his ship, the steamer Ottilie . On July 10, 1896, Lauterbach came across an unknown river flowing to the northwest instead of the Markham. He followed the Ramu, which he had discovered with it, about 250 km downstream by canoe, but when supplies ran out, he returned to the coast on September 8, 1896 on the same route. On September 16, the expedition participants returned to Stephansort.
Since the Bismarck Mountains consist of crystalline rocks, Lauterbach suspected gold deposits in the western tributaries of the Ramu. The research trips determined that the large fertile area between the Sepik and the Ramu river valley is suitable for the economic cultivation of crops . Furthermore, on this research trip the Hagen Mountains were discovered for the western culture area and named after the director of the New Guinea company at the time, Curt von Hagen . The second Ramu expedition led by Ernst Tappenbeck was able to prove the identity of the Ramu with the Ottilien River in 1898 .
Lauterbach documented 150 bird species in their taxonomic classification as well as the sighting of crocodiles . The collection pieces of the expedition, including the first time encountered three-speed Laubenvogel , (Chlamydera lauterbachi, also Lauterbach's Bowerbird (Engl.)) Came into the Zoological Museum Berlin.
literature
- Karl Lauterbach: The geographical results of the Kaiser Wilhelmsland expedition. In: Journal of the Society for Geography 33, Berlin 1898, p. 141 f.
- Anton Reichenow: On the bird fauna of Kaiser Wilhelms-Land. Journal für Ornithologie., Vol. 45, 1897, pp. 201-224.
- Anton Reichenow: New bird species from Kaiser Wilhelms-Land. Ornithological monthly reports, Vol. 5, 1897. pp. 24-26.
- Anton Reichenow: On the bird fauna of Kaiser Wilhelms-Land II. Journal for Ornithology, Vol. 46, 1898, pp. 124–128.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rudolf Hafeneder: German colonial cartography 1884-1919 , (PDF, 1.4 MB) ( Memento of January 6, 2014 Internet Archive ). Dissertation to obtain the academic degree of a Doctor of Engineering, University of the Federal Armed Forces Munich, Faculty of Civil Engineering and Surveying, 2008 p. 125.
- ^ Markus Schindlbeck: German scientific expeditions and research in the South Seas until 1914 . In: Hermann Joseph Hiery (ed.): The German South Sea. A manual . Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh, Paderborn 2001, pp. 132-155, ISBN 3-506-73912-3 , pp. 150f.
- ^ Lauterbach, Carl Adolf Georg Cyclopaedia of Malesian Collectors, Nationaal Herbarium Nederland