Preface

Nine years ago there appeared a brief history, prepared by the

writer, of the natural history museum in South Australia; it dealt with

the vicissitudes of the collections in different buildings during four rather

distinct periods of time. The same plan, with considerable amplifica-

tion, is carried out in the present volume to cover a century of activities.

An effort has been made to outline the process of gathering together

and housing, despite set-backs and difficulties, of the present important

collections — ethnological, zoological and mineralogical. Most of the

families notable in the progress of South Australia assisted the Museum,

and one cannot speak too highly of those who devoted so much of their

lifetime to the welfare of the institution.

It has been quite impossible, of course, to name more than a few of

the tens of thousands of donors of zoological, ethnological and other

material. Furthermore, space will allow mention only of the more

important accessions.

Recognition is due particularly to the public spirited citizens who

helped the limping Museum along its thorny path during the first half-

century of its existence. It is hoped that as a result of this history the

problems and difficulties arising in the establishment of natural history

collections worthy of the State will be appreciated; also that the various

means whereby these collections were secured may prove of interest. Today

none can doubt that the effort has been successful, and the Museum has

much to be proud of. The significance of the collections as study material

is evidenced by the fact that research workers from far and near visit

the South Australian Museum; their enquiries are varied, ranging from

subjects as far apart as meteoritics and mites, giant extinct marsupials

and minute radiolarians.

Here is a legacy not only of value for posterity but with the passing

years becoming increasingly important—indeed essential—to students

in fields both economic and academic.

The unsuitability and insufficiency of the accommodation provided

for the functioning of the Museum must be stressed. This fact is evi-

dent throughout the whole history of the South Australian institution and

is emphasised in the hope that the mistakes of the past may never be

repeated.

In conclusion I wish to express appreciation of assistance rendered

by Messrs Norman B. Tindale and Herbert T. Condon, of the South

Australian Museum, while my best thanks are due to Mr. J. McLellan, of

the Archives Department, for his able co-operation in gathering some of

the data recorded herein.

Herbert M. Hale.

Foreword

This is the story of a struggle to establish a Natural History

Museum in an Australian State which for a long period was far from

wealthy.

The Author, Herbert Mathew Hale, O.B.E., has been associated with

the South Australian Museum for a long time, He first came on the

staff in 1914 as assistant to the late Edgar Ravenswood Waite, Director

from 1914 until the time of his death in 1928. At a relatively early age

the Author of this History in turn became Director. Throughout his

recapitulation of activities of the Museum during 100 years there runs

a thread of difficulties and disappointments, showing how its fortunes

have fluctuated with those of the State.

Notwithstanding a perennial lack of adequate accommodation the

South Australian Museum now possesses large. and important collections

—=in some cases unrivalled collections. I might mention, for example, that

the Australian ethnological material, particularly from South Australia

and the Northern Territory, is probably the largest and most represen-

tative in existence today: that insects in the entomological collection

number two million or more: that the mineral collection, particularly as

representing Australian mineral occurrences, rank§$with the best in

Australia and the tectite collection is unique in the world.

Although much of the fauna of South Australia, particularly that

occurring in the vicinity of Adelaide, was sent abroad during the pre-

vious century, the Museum is indebted indeed to its earlier enthusiastic

supporters. It is obvious from the Author’s account that, from its

inception, the Institution has been fortunate in having a long procession

of enthusiastic curators and research workers, while it owes a great deal

to influential citizens who have rendered sterling service, quietly and un-

obtrusively, ever since its first beginnings.

In the culmination of this century of concerted effort, undoubtedly

much eredit is due to Herbert Hale himself. During his period at the

helm the Institution has gained stature by the quality and merit of its

research and publications.

In sifting the records and compiling this historical review nobody

could have been better qualified than the Author. He is to be con-

gratulated on the result achieved.

Douglas Mawson.

Contents

Preface.) ee Be Sieh ec Sone

Foreword by Sir Douglas Mawson ..... _......

List of illustrations _......

1. The South Australian Institute Museum.

2. The West and North Wings. 1882-1895

3. The North and East Wings. 1895-1915

4, Expansion. 1915-1928 2.0000 00.00.

5. Reorganization. 1928-1940 ... _.....

Troublous Times. 1940-1946...

The Last Decade. 1946-1956

. What of the Future? ....

Indexeer es ai

List of Illustrations

Facing Page

Bark shield and returning boomerang of South Australian

DORI PINES te ee Title Page

North Terrace, Adelaide, 1864 2.0000 2. ee es 9

Frederick George Waterhouse 2.0000 et es 11

Turtle-bone log of survivors of Gothenberg, 1875... __..... 20

Architect’s drawing of the buildings proposed for Museum,

Library and Art Gallery of South Australia, 1878 __...... 39

Walhieim=Hagcke =... = ss.2 = ae 38

Amandus Heinrich Christian Zietz 9 2... em 41

Johann Gottlieb Tepper .... __..... mio 41

Hdward Charles Stirling. Be. 51

South Australian Museum Exhibit in Colonial and Indian

Exhibition, London, 1886 0000, sees 63

North wing of Museum. =... 69

Skeleton of Diprotodon and attempt to represent the living

animals es ee ae en aN ee 78

Douglas*Maws0nc 3. 2a a ee ae 90

Arthur: Millselieaeseweetr. 2 hc ee ee 92

Edgar Ravenswood Waite =... ne ee ee 95

Entrance to eastern wing of Museum ...000 eee 98

Cast of Basking Shark (Cetorhinus maximus) .. oue 104

Dogs used by Scott, 1910, and Mawson, 1911-12, in the

PAST eee WN ameter et sce gan ey 2 Sirus, eae a 110

Buildings on Destitute Asylum grounds, 1854... 119

North Terrace, Adelaide, 1915 2.0000 2 tees 138

Portions ofArmourye'809 << oc tg ee Ge 140

Western wing of Destitute Asylum, 1867 ee eee 143

“Reflections in Adelaide.” Cases in north wing, 1932 ae 147

Rookery of the Pied Cormorant. Diorama in South Austra-

lian Museun, 1059 = ee 148

Wedge-tailed Eagle. Diorama in South Australian Museum,

NOS. Bese ee ate i en 149

Moulding face of aboriginal in Central Australia .... _..... 152

Plaster face-cast as removed from mould ans 153

Face-casts ready for exhibition 2.0000 2, ee en 153

Stranded Blackfish, or Pilot Whales 0.000 ee 180

Plan of Lands and Buildings 2.00 2.00 wu pee aes 186

Maori models in South Australian Museum, 1949 .... _..... 192

Apparatus for cutting meteorites tte 202

The South Australian Institute Museum

1856 - 1882

Early Days

On August 29, 1834, there was founded in London a short lived

society “The South Australian Literary Association”; this was just a

fortnight after South Australia had been erected as a British province;

the members were “gentlemen intending to emigrate.’ Three months

later the title was amended to “The South Australian Literary and Scien-

tific Association.”

An inaugural address was delivered on September 5, 1834, by Richard

Davies Hanson to a group of people, some of whose names were to

become famous in the history of our State. South Australia owes much

to Hanson, then a young man. A quarter of a century later he became

Chairman of a Select Committee which led to the foundation of the South

Australian Institute and its Museum. He was the second Chief Justice

of the colony, the first Chancellor of the University of Adelaide (Kt. Bach.

1869).

Inspired by Hanson, members of the “South Australian Literary and

Scientific Association” then set out to increase their knowledge of the

newly discovered country they were about to adopt and a series of papers

was prepared during the same year. Amongst addresses submitted, one

by W. M. Higgins dealt with the geology of Australia; another by Dr.

Edward D. Wright was “On the Phrenology and the Natural Character

of the Aborigines of South Australia,’ while a third “On the Natural

History of Australia’ was presented by Dr. John Palmer Litchfield; the

latter detailed the structure and habits of the dog-faced dasyrus, the

wombat, the platypus and the kangaroo. Litchfield later became one

of the pioneer medical men in South Australia.

These people, eager to learn something of the new country, soon

experienced at first-hand the problems and perplexities confronting the

2 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

colony; they encountered the Australian aboriginal and the curious fauna

and flora which already had attracted so much interest.

On December 28, 1836, the first Governor (Captain John Hindmarsh)

landed at Glenelg and established the Government; the population of the

colony, apart from aboriginals, then numbered 546. Interest in the

fauna, flora and minerals of the new colony was intensified in Institutions

overseas and the British Museum was soon in the field. In 1838 Lord

Glenelg, Secretary of State for the Colonies, sent to Governor Hindmarsh

a despatch making known the desire of the Museum of London to receive

“Specimens of the Natural History of the Colonies” |The despatch in

detail was printed in the South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register

and it was noted that 300 copies were available ‘‘of a brief Code of Direc-

tions for Collectors of Natural History, drawn up by the Officers of the

Museum, and containing some suggestions which may be useful to per-

sons inexperienced in the selection and preservation of Mineralogical, Zoo-

logical and Botanical Specimens”.

A few of the colonists, amateur naturalists, commenced to gather

together, for their own pleasure and information, geological, mineral-

ogical and natural history material, and so formed a number of small

private ‘museums’. Some examples of these early day interests have

been preserved, including the oldest specimens in the Museum — 29 South

Australian birds, collected and mounted in Adelaide and sent to the Lon-

don Office of the South Australian Company. The letter advising their

despatch to London bore the date of October 22, 1888. Through the

good offices of H, P. Moore (then Adelaide manager of the Company,

and a member of the Board of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gal-

lery of South Australia) these were presented to the South Australian

Museum in November, 1928. The birds, mounted approximately 120

years ago, are still in good condition. ,

During the years 1838—1841, the second Governor, Colonel George

Gawler, encountered serious difficulties which culminated in financial

disaster. Commencing from mid-1841, however, the rigid administra-

tion of Gawler’s successor, Captain George Grey, aided by expanding

agricultural and pastoral production, and the effects of the discovery

of rich deposits of copper at Kapunda and Burra, gradually brought the

state of the Colony into a favourable condition.

While Governor of South Australia, Grey sent to the British Museum

many animals which are nowadays rare. For instance, amongst the

material forwarded to England by him were specimens of a Rat-Kangaroo

(Caloprymnus), of which no further examples were seen until 90 years

later! It was not realized for a long time that animals and plants readily

obtainable at this period might not easily be replaced.

EARLY DAYS 3

In 1838-9, during his expeditions in Western Australia, Grey dis-

covered the so-called Mountain-Devil. A year or two later Gray of the

British Museum described Grey’s specimens of the new lizard, naming it

Moloch horridus; not long afterwards this spiny reptile was found to

occur also in South Australia.

Little attention seems to have been given at the time to the de-

sirability of retaining in Adelaide a series of the weapons, baskets and

other utensils of the local aboriginals. Today we have a mere handful

of specimens relating to the Adelaide tribe, (Kaurna), apart from the

numerous stone artefacts obtained from the long-deserted camp sites and

the food-remains in kitchen middens.

With finance in a happier state in the youthful colony a number

of private individuals became more interested in securing and forward-

ing what were at the time “curiosities” to their friends in the Old

Country; so much so that there was sufficient work for a local taxi-

dermist and professional collector. In the Adelaide Evaminer, January

7, 1843, there appeared the following enterprising notice:

PRESENTS TO ENGLAND

The undersigned begs to inform his friends and the public that he

has on hand an extensive and very superior collection of STUFFED

BIRDS AND PRESERVED INSECTS AND REPTILES, well adaptea

for the selection of those who desire to send to England, choice and

unique specimens of the Ornithology, Zoology and Etymology [sic] of

this colony. He will be happy to treat with gentlemen or ladies intending

to send collections to their friends or who may be returning to England.

Robt. Hall.

Ornithologist.

Currie Street.

Robert Hall procured a living specimen of the Spiny Anteater

(Tachyglossus aculeatus) which he showed to all who called at his

establishment. It was fed upon bread and milk and white ants (ter-

mites) and remained alive for several weeks. He obtained also several

specimens of the Platypus “which he stuffed with great care”; Charles

Algernon Wilson, a naturalist and prolific writer to the press, sent one

of these to a relation in London, who wrote to say that, “it is not equalled

im size....4. by any in the British Museum”. This last remark is sig-

nificant as it suggests that the specimens may have come from South

Australia. Ellis Troughton in his Furred Animals of Australia,

1951, states that the inland race of the Platypus “occurring west of the

Dividing Range in New South Wales, and along the River Murray, into

South Australia, considered to be decidedly larger, was named

Ornithorhunchus anatinus triton”. Grey, while Governor of the Pro-

vince, 1841-5, sent a specimen of the Platypus to the British Museum.

4 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

Founding of the Museum

The establishment of a natural history museum in South Australia

was considered at a very early stage in the history of the State. An

evanescent body, the “Natural History Society of South Australia”, was

formed on December 13, 1838, “at a meeting of gentlemen held in the

court-house at Adelaide”, with His Excellency Lieut. Col. George Gawler

as Honorary President; it had “for its object the cultivation of the Science

of Natural History in all its branches, and more especially of the Natural

History of South Australia”. Among resolutions unanimously adopted

was one stating that “Donations of books and specimens towards the for-

mation of a library and Museum will be received by any of the Officers of

the Society”. (South Australian Gazette and Colonial Register, Dec. 15

1838, p.4.). That this desire for a Museum was quickly implemented to

some degree is evidenced by “Government Notice No. 35”, July 10, 1839,

emanating from the Colonial Secretary’s Office, to the effect that:

His Excellency the Governor acknowledges the receipt from Mr.

Williams, Deputy Storekeeper, for the Colonization Commissioners,

a collection of weapons and instruments used by the natives in the neigh-

bourhood; from J. B. Harvey Esq., collections of shells from Kangaroo

Island, for the Colonization Commissioners and for the Museum at Adel-

aide; and from J. Gould, Esq., F.L.S., a Synopsis of the Birds of Aust-

ralia, in four parts, for the Adelaide Museum. (South Australian Gazette,

July 11, 1839, p.2)

In these early efforts, however, by far the most potent influence

was that of The Adelaide Philosophical Society, founded early in 1853

and about 27 years later becoming The Royal Society of South Australia

under the Patronage of Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Very soon after

its inception the Society pressed indefatigably for the establishment of a

South Australian Institute, with as one of its functions the formation

of a Natural History Museum. As a result of influence brought to

bear upon the Government of the day, The South Australian Institute Act

was passed on June 18, 1856, The preamble states that “it is expedient

to establish and incorporate a Public Institution, to be called “The South

Australian Institute’ to comprise a Public Library and Museum”. The

Institute was to be administered by a Board of six, three appointed by the

Governor and three by the Societies which it had authority to incorporate.

The Act also set forth that:

It shall and may be lawful to and for any person or persons, bodies

political or corporate, society or societies, their heirs and successors, and

particularly for ‘The South Australian Library and Mechanics’ Institute’,

to give and deliver to, grant, assure, devise or bequeath, to the use and

benefit of, or in trust for the said Body Corporate, any messuages, lands,

tenements, rents, annuities, and hereditaments whatsoever, and any

FOUNDING OF THE MUSEUM 5

library books, maps, prints, pictures, goods, chattels, minerals, specimens

or any other effects or articles whatsoever, calculated for the formation

of a Museum; all which messuages, lands, tenements, rents, annuities or

hereditaments, and all which library, books, maps, prints, pictures, goods,

chattels, minerals, specimens, or effects as aforesaid, the said Body Cor-

porate are hereby authorized and enabled to receive, accept, and hold.

A short amending act was passed during the same session of Par-

liament to clear up some defects in the original act.

The South Australian Library and Mechanics’ Institute mentioned

in the act was in fact the precursor of the South Australian Institute; it

was formed in 1848 by a coalition of two previously separate bodies,

“The South Australian Subscription Library” and “The Mechanics’ Insti-

tute”, At the time of the passing of the act the Library and Mechanics’

Institute was housed in Neales’ Exchange, situated slightly south of

Gresham Place in King William Street, a site now occupied by the Com-

mercial Bank of Australia Limited.

Not long after the act was passed the Government appointed as its

representatives the Rev. James Farrell, Anthony Forster, a member of

the Legislature, and Benjamin Herschel Babbage, a member of Parlia-

ment. The new Board met for the first time on July 18, 1856, at the

library of the Legislative Council Chamber. The question of taking

over the books, furniture and other effects—as well as the liabilities—of

the Library and Mechanics’ Institute was discussed. All formalities were

completed by the end of the year, when the recently appointed Secretary

(Nathaniel Hailes) produced a document authorising the Board to ad-

minister the property of the late Institute; the transfer was signed by the

Chief Justice, Charles Cooper (Kt. Bach. in 1857), the Colonial Secretary

(B. T. Finnis) and the Colonial Chaplain (Rev. James Farrell) as trus-

tees of the former institution.

The Legislative Council provided accommodation for the first four

meetings of the Board; thenceforth they met in the former committee

room of the Library and Mechanics’ Institute in Neales’ Exchange, which

was to become the rented headquarters of the South Australian Institute

until 1860.

In August 1856 the Institute received its first grant, the Govern-

ment having paid to the South Australian Banking Company the sum of

£350 to the credit of the Board.

Within two months of taking office, the Board began its endeavours

to obtain material for the Museum; in September, 1856, it was reported

that the the Directors of the South Australian Mining Association and

others had been approached and had promised mineralogical material.

As a result what was then regarded as “a very extensive and interesting

6 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

collection’”’ was presented from the Burra and other mines. Before the

end of the year offers of further donations were received—geological

specimens from Kangaroo Island, copper ores and, from the afore-

mentioned Charles Algernon Wilson, who was now a member of the Phil-

osophical Society, the earliest entomological collection to be mentioned.

In a long article “On the Formation of a Museum” published in

The Examiner (Adelaide, May 14, 1853), Wilson had referred to his and

other entomological collections in South Australia:

The insect population is exceedingly abundant varied and beautiful,

but this is if possible less known than any of the other classes of

our Natural History; and as far as I am aware, there are not half a dozen

private collections that will bear that name in this colony. If the for-

mation of a Museum were determined on I would gladly offer to begin

this (the Entomological) department with the donation of my duplicates;

and add to them from time to time from my collection, now of fifteen

years standing. I could also offer many English specimens, interesting

as being those of the native place of most of us; and to these I would

also add others as soon as obtained from the mother country. There

are now 2,000 distinct South Australian species in my cabinet. .. . This

class of Natural History being so numerous in Australian species, which

are much prized by English Entomologists, I have at different times

sent home upwards of 6,000 specimens, and about 20,000 have passed

through my hands during my residence here.

Early in 1857 the minutes of the Board record the first request for

exchange of Museum specimens; this took the form of a circular from

George French Angas, the eldest son of George Fife Angas, and then

Secretary of the Australian Museum in Sydney.

Before the end of the same year there had been landed in South

Australia the first gift to the South Australian Museum from its erst-

while Governor, Sir George Grey (previously Captain Grey), who showed

a practical interest in the institution for a long time. This donation con-

sisted of ‘‘a collection of specimens” from Cape Colony.

Insofar as fossil vertebrates are concerned, the first really exciting

discovery was made about July, 1857, when a certain Thomas Wigley

discovered bones in the bank of the River Murray ‘above Moorundee’’.

In September, C. A. Wilson offered to convey these bones to England

and to submit them to Professor Richard Owen for examination. Wilson

was asked to see Wigley, prepare the bones for transport and endeavour

to obtain others in possession of Captain A. H. Freeling, (Surveyor Gen-

eral of South Australia) for transmission also. This was done, and

Wilson shortly after left for the Old Country, on the Havilah, with both

collections,

The first purchase of zoological material is noted in 1858, when

£50 was expended in order to acquire a large collection of Mollusca.

FOUNDING OF THE MUSEUM 7

An item of interest in 1859 was the purchase for £4 of fossils “taken

from the quarry” near Government House. Two cases of birds, acquired

during the same year, probably constitutes the first purchase of recent

vertebrate material.

So began the accumulation of specimens for the embryo Museum

and at its first meeting, held on October 12, 1857, the Board expressed

its opinion that:

As regards a museum the prospects of the Institute are most sat-

isfactory. Extensive collections of great and varied interest await only

a room for their reception. The proprietors of mines in this colony

have, in all instances, complied with the request of the Governors to he

furnished with specimens characteristic of their several properties, so

that at its opening the museum will exhibit an epitome of the mineral

riches of South Australia. Many valuable presents are also promised

by private individuals. His Excellency Sir George Grey writes from Cape

Town, in reply to an application made on behalf of the South Australian

Institute, that he has directed numerous interesting specimens to be col-

lected and forwarded hither, including a complete series of the copper

ores of the colony over which His Excellency presides. The Governors

believe that when the museum is established numerous other additions

to its contents will be received from abroad, and that many of our own

colonists, who are known to possess miniature museums, will be anxious

to incorporate them with the public collection.

Meanwhile a search was being made for suitable quarters but with-

out satisfactory results; in fact, within three months of their appoint-

ment, members had come to the conclusion that the best plan to pursue

would be to ask the Government to grant £3,000 “for the purpose of

erecting rooms on public land”.

In April, 1857, the Secretary to the Board was instructed to prepare

a letter asking that a larger amount, £4,000, be placed on the estimates

of expenditure for erection of a building for the Institute. The follow-

ing month a reply was received from the Chief Secretary stating that

if new Parliament Houses should be decided on the present Legislative

Buildings would be dedicated for use of the Institute and that “should the

building not be available for this purpose at all, or only at some distant

period, the Government will have designs and estimates prepared for

the erection of a suitable building for the Institute in some other local-

ity’.

Three months later, members of the Board inspected two proposed

sites for a new Institute, in the neighbourhood of the Houses of Parlia-

ment.

The Adelaide Philosophical Society, anxious for affiliation with the

Institute, again became active. The Honorary Secretary, John Howard

Clark, penned a letter to the Board, who received it in September, 1857,

8 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

enquiring what steps were being taken to procure the restoration of the

required amount of £4,000 to the estimates for 1858 and stating that

it was the wish of his Society to co-operate in any movement that might

be made with that object in view. Next month Clark was elected to

the Institute Board to replace Babbage, who had resigned, and he re-

mained an influential member for 15 years.

Further appeals in most urgent terms were made to the Government,

Clark acting as it were in a dual capacity, having at heart the interests

of both Institute and Philosophical Society. Clark was held in such

high esteem by the last-named Society that in 1864 he was presented

with “a beautiful and complete photographic apparatus . . . in acknow-

ledgement of unwearied and valuable services rendered by him during the

period of his Secretaryship”. It is practically certain that were it not

for Clark’s strenuous efforts the South Australian Institute may not have

been founded at so early a date.

A year later the Board had high hopes of “‘speedily obtaining a build-

ing adequate to the objects of the Institute, and not discreditable to the

intelligence and opulence of the colonists’. The Governors were then

in communication with the Commissioner of Public Works and the Col-

onial Architect concerning a site as well as the plans for the building

and had “reason to believe that the one will be chosen, and the others

prepared, with all possible expedition.”

The site of the new Institute now became a matter of much pub-

lic interests, and much controversy. The site already mentioned, and

situated in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament, by no means met

with popular approval; public meetings of protest were held and deputa-

tions arranged. Again the Philosophical Society came to the fore and

‘members expressed forcibly their opinion of the site in a memorial

‘to His Excellency Sir Richard Graves MacDonnell, at the time President

of the Society. Clark prepared the draft which read:

Your memorialists have learned with regret that it is proposed

‘to erect a building, to be devoted to the objects of the Institute, in, a

locality which appears to them to be objectionable in many respects;

inasmuch as the site selected is so much lower than North Terrace, that

not only will the building (which should ultimately become one of the

chief ornaments of the city) be almost hidden from sight, but its situation

will be neither convenient for public access, nor advantageous for meteor-

ological observations, whilst the steep gradient of the City Bridge Road

will necessarily render the approaches to the building unsafe for the

large number of vehicles, on the occasion of lectures or soirees connec-

ted with the Institute or its affiliated societies.

etapa cs Inasmuch as the Houses of Parliament are, and long will be,

amply sufficient for the requirements of the colony, it is needless to

leave unoccupied the excellent site for an important public building,

sosodand Aaopey FY pure Aaeiquy

Of poyeolpop AyJUenbesqns puvp pue oNyysuy uBTTR.ISNY

POST “ACIWIACV “ADVUYAL HLdON

‘uMosnyy yNosg SurLMoys

FOUNDING OF THE MUSEUM 9.

which could be made available at the corner of North Terrace and the

City Bridge Road, and which is at present said to be preserved for

future new Houses of Parliament. Your memorialists pray that Your

Excellency will be pleased to direct, that the building for the S.A. Institute

may be erected upon the site last mentioned, or upon some other site

better suited to the present requirements and ultimate importance of

the Institute than that now in contemplation.

As the result of this and other public disapproval the site finally

agreed upon by the Government was that upon which the Institute

stands today, at the corner of Kintore Avenue and North Terrace.

In October, 1859, the Board expressed pleasure at the rapid pro-

gress being made with the Institute Building, and voiced the hope “that

long ere the time comes round for the next annual meeting this much-

desired object will have been accomplished and the South Australian

Institute have been permanently established in an edifice which will be a

credit to the colony of South Australia, an ornament to the city of

Adelaide, and a means by which the Institute will be enabled to step

forth from its present character... . . and become a most important

means of promoting the intellectual advancement of the whole colony”’.

During the year 1860 there was a delay, apparently due to misunder-

standing about shelving and other fittings, over which a great deal of

argument occurred between the Board, and the Colonial Architect and

members of the Government.

Finally the building itself was completed and the fourth annual

meeting of members of the South Australian Institute was held therein in

October 1860. This great occasion was marred by the fact that the rooms

were unfurnished and the arrangements for lighting incomplete. It was re-

ported that as circumstances made it absolutely necessary that the

Institute be removed from the rooms which it had previously occupied

the Board was compelled to enter upon the occupation of the new build-

ing as early as possible.

A special request for a retort house to provide gas for illumination

had been made some time before and as this was now erected at the rear

of the Institute everyone was looking forward to the prospects of an in-

augural soiree, with which it was proposed to open the new Institute.

The holding of evening social gatherings was quite a feature in the

early years, the first of them having been arranged soon after the

Institute was inaugurated; they were attended by all prominent persons

of the day in Adelaide. The formal opening of the new building by

the Chief Justice, Sir Charles Cooper, duly took place on January 29,

1861, at a soiree held for the occasion; arrangements were made for

providing refreshments for 1,000 guests and visitors.

10 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

After the opening of the Adelaide Town Hall in 1866, a soiree was held

in that building, as attendances in the Institute had become limited to

700 because of insufficient accommodation. The following year, how-

ever, these functions were discontinued by the Board of the Institute

as so many entertainments of a similar character were being arranged

in the city.

Free lectures also were delivered in the Institute, and apparently

were well patronised. The amounts expended on _ these activities

for a while exceeded the sum spent on the Museum, apart from salaries.

The Adelaide Philosophical Society became affiliated with the South

Australian Institute in October, 1859; incidentally, it may be noted that

clause 3 of the terms of incorporation states:

That the Philosophical Society be allowed to preserve and exhibit

in the Museum of the Institute any specimens of natural history or other

objects of interest it may from time to time become possessed of, such

specimens being thenceforward regarded as the property of the Insti-

tute.

The Board of six allowed for in the act of 1856 was not complete

until 1859. The three original Government appointees had carried on

until the library subscribers, regarded as a body incorporated for the

purpose of the act, in 1857 elected John Howard Clark, who it will be

remembered was also secretary of the Philosophical Society. Now, in

1859, the South Australian Society of Arts as well as the Philosophical

Society had become incorporated with the Institute and appointed re-

spectively as their representatives William W. R. Whitridge and B. H.

Babbage; the last named had resigned in 1857 as a Government appointee

and had been replaced by a member of the Legislature, Lavington Glyde.

In 1863 a new Institute act was approved, under which the library

subscribers were authorised to elect two representatives on the Board,

which thus was increased in number to seven.

Although a relatively large collection had been acquired during

the three years following the establishment of the Institute Museum,

it soon became apparent that more active steps should be taken if

adequate representation of the local vertebrate fauna was to be ensured.

The Board in 1857 had reaffirmed its view that the formation of

a museum was “one of the principal objects for the attainment of which

the Institute was established”. Far-sighted men, they foresaw the even-

tual depletion of the indigenous animals but could not realise just how

quickly some of the then familiar creatures would cease to be readily

available. The Board pointed out in its third annual report that in

its opinion it “is highly desirable, and, indeed, almost a national duty, to

preserve for posterity the forms and semblances of the various singular

FREDERICK GEORGE WATERHOUSE

Curator, 1860-1882

THE FIRST CURATOR 11

and beautiful animals and birds, reptiles, and insects now inhabiting

Australia, ere they shall have finally disappeared before the footsteps of

the white man”.

This is as true today as it was nearly a century ago—but time is

running out.

A wistful desire by these early colonists for the culture denied them

by their isolation is revealed in a decision that overseas collections must

be brought to South Australia in order that the rising generation might

know something of the Old World. That the feeling of isolation was

real is indicated by the following statement; “remembering that though

we are, most of us, if not all, familiar with the museums and collections

of the countries we have left, yet the boys around us, the future men and

women of Australia, are not, and as regards the majority of them

probably never will be”’.

The First Curator

Frederick George Waterhouse was the first Curator of the South

Australian Institute Museum. He was the youngest brother of George

Robert Waterhouse, the first curator of the Entomological Society of

London. He came to Australia in 1852 and was at first engaged in

surveying, but as an ardent naturalist he collected a good many Z00-

logical and other specimens before his appointment to the Museum in

1860. He was born in 1815, so that when he took office at the Museum

he was not a young man.

Waterhouse, writing from his home “Wandeen” at Burnside, sent

a letter to the Institute Board in June, 1859, offering his services in

the capacity of Curator of the Museum. In September of the same year

it was resolved “That it be proposed to appoint him Curator of the Mu-

seum whenever the time arrives for filling up the same, at a minimum

salary of £50 per annum and increasing in proportion to the time occupied

to a2 maximum of £200 per annum and that meantime he be requestéd

to prepare an order to the extent of £50 for materials to be obtained

from England.”

The Board, obviously pleased with this development, reported to the

following annual meeting of members of the Institute that they had

“already appointed to be curator of the Museum Mr. F. G. Waterhouse,

a gentleman, whose connection with the British Museum, and general

scientific and practical knowledge of zoology, and of the management

of museums in particular, point him out as eminently qualified for the

office. The appointment is, however, for the present, honorary, the

regular duties and salary not commencing until the building is completed.

At the request of the Board, Mr. Waterhouse has drawn up a list of such

12 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

articles as are required for preserving, preparing, and mounting speci-

mens, an order for which will be sent to England by the next mail”.

Waterhouse did not receive the first instalment of his small re-

muneration until October, 1860, at which time the salaries for the whole

Institute “including cleaning and gas making” totalled £534/10/-. He

at once commenced the task of classifying and arranging for exhibition

the material in hand, and also communicating with persons likely to be

of assistance in obtaining representative collections of the fauna, min-

erals, etc. of the Colony, and likely to present some of the foreign material

which, throughout the whole period of his curatorship he strove dili-

gently to acquire.

It was in 1860 that the Museum secured as a donation from William

Owen, M.P. a large series of articles from Fiji, including tapa cloth,

clubs, spears and clothing, and also some Malayan models of pirate

praus; thus, as far as can be ascertained, the Museum secured the first

of its now extensive Pacific Island and Indonesian collections.

At this time the Government was asked to provide wall-cases for

the three rooms originally allotted for Museum purposes and after some

delays a contract for their erection was accepted. The Philosophical

Society had already expended £50 for the purchase of standing cases

and these had been installed, an earnest of the firm resolve of the Society

to stand behind the Museum, even at a period when the Society itself

was rather poverty stricken.

In October, 1861, the Board was complaining that the decreased

grant made by the Government during its previous financial year (July 1,

1859 to June 30, 1860) had interfered considerably with the progress

of the Museum; when the estimates for this year had been laid before

Parliament it had been found that the grant proposed for carrying on

the affairs of the Institute was no more that the minimum sum named

in the act, viz—£500. Despite their straitened circumstances, how-

ever, the Board arranged for the purchase of John Gould’s celebrated

books dealing with the birds and the mammals of Australia. They had

been anxious to acquire these books for a long time and record the fact

that they considered the plates to be amongst the most valuable and

beautiful illustrations of natural history that had ever been published;

this statement scarcely could be challenged today. The great cost

had prevented the purchase of Gould’s works, but George French Angas,

as already noted then Secretary at the Australian Museum, had written

to Adelaide, enclosing an extract from a letter he had received from

Gould, expressing anxiety that one of the few remaining copies of his

works was not in the colony of South Australia and offering to send the

books at once and to receive payment at the rate of £30 per annum.

THE FIRST CURATOR 13

Fortunately, it was considered that so liberal an offer could not be

refused and that a more favourable opportunity of acquiring Gould’s

books might never recur—and so they were ordered,

The grant for the following year was increased to £1,000, so that

steady and perceptible progress was achieved. The cases for the Mu-

seum having been completed and the available specimens arranged there-

in, the Museum, then occupying only one room, was opened to the public

at the beginning of J anuary, 1862; prior to this the aforementioned Fijian

collections had been exhibited from time to time.

As yet the Museum had received very few skins of native mammals

and birds; indeed, when the Museum was opened, a pair of white swans

comprised the sole ornithological exhibit. In spite of various appli-

cations and resultant promises, the only mineralogical specimens which

had been forwarded by the various mining companies in South Australia

were those from the copper mines at Burra and a couple of samples

from Wallaroo, although some minerals, fossils and geological material

from various parts of the Colony had been presented by private indi-

viduals, Then an appeal was made to the public by the Board. “The

growth of the Museum must greatly depend upon the liberality of private

individuals and the interest taken in it by the public at large, and the

Board are anxious that it should be generally known that the Curator is

now able to receive any contributions, and that he will be glad to com-

municate with any one who may be disposed to assist him in procuring

suitable specimens, either of animals, birds, insects, fishes, snakes, or

minerals’’,

Notable names began to appear in the lists of donors of money or

specimens. In 1864 for example, 142 persons, as well as the Australian

Museum in Sydney, are mentioned, among them being His Excellency the

Governor in Chief, the Lord Bishop of Adelaide, the famous John Gould

of London, E. Pierson Ramsay, the well known ornithologist in Sydney,

and Edward Stirling, M.L.C., the father of Edward Charles Stirling who

15 years later was to begin his career as one of the most important

figures in the history of the Museum in South Australia; nine members

of the Legislature together with nine members of Parliament were con-

tributors, as well as George Fife Angas, who knowing the difficulties

being experienced, contributed a liberal and timely donation of £50 “for

the advancement of the Museum”. None could doubt the encouragement

and interest of the small community.

It appears that a Museum had been established in the Gawler Insti-

tute in 1861, for the accounts of that year show that the latter pur-

chased material from the South Australian Institute Museum. Gawler was

then a rising agricultural town, 25 miles north of Adelaide; years later the

Gawler collection, quite large and still carefully preserved, was handed

14 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

over to the South Australian Museum. Country museums soon appeared

in some of the other associated Institutes of the Colony. At Mount

Gambier was assembled a good collection, the remnants of which were

transferred to Adelaide in 1952.

In 1861, very soon after his appointment as Museum curator, Water-

house was sent to Kangaroo Island by the South Australian Government

and there collected a large number of insects and plants, the last in-

cluding approximately 100 species which passed into the hands of Baron

F. von Mueller, who described those which were previously unknown.

Following this, Waterhouse was engaged by the Government as

naturalist to accompany John McDouall Stuart’s sixth expedition, from

December 1861 to December 1862, when the continent was crossed

successfully. He made a collection of birds, 17 of which were sent to

London, where they were reported upon by John Gould; amongst this

collection was the first known specimen of the Princess Alexandra Parrot

(Polytelis alexandrae) Waterhouse thus being the discoverer of this

beautiful bird, today coveted by aviculturists and zoological gardens.

Apparently the first record of Cretaceous fossils in South Australia

is furnished by Waterhouse in his report on the fauna and flora, natural

history and physical features on the line of Stuart’s route across the

Continent (South Australian Parliamentary Papers, 1863, ii, No. 125,

pp.2—4).

Waterhouse, among other members of the party, received a Gov-

ernment “bonus” of £100 when the expedition returned.

According to unpublished portions of McDouall Stuart’s diary, re-

lations between Waterhouse and himself seem to have been somewhat

strained at times, due probably to the preoccupation of Waterhouse in

collecting creatures which he had never seen before but which were

of only passing interest to Stuart, who was absorbed by his desire to cross

Australia from south to north. One can imagine the difficulties of

Waterhouse and appreciate the vast amount of work carried out by this

naturalist in collecting zeological specimens, skinning birds and mam-

mals, and preparing the material for safe transport. In general, know-

ledge of the animals and plants of South Australia in these early years

is due in no small measure to the splendid efforts of Waterhouse, whose

activities and influence are perhaps not sufficiently known. He was a

Corresponding Member of the Zoological Society of London and a mem-

ber of the Adelaide Philosophical Society, before which he exhibited

numerous natural history specimens “thereby adding to the interest of

the meetings”; he was elected a Vice-president in 1869. Waterhouse

apparently read only two papers before the Society “On a remarkable

insect-— Stylops” and “Observations on the Palaeontology of Australia”

He contributed an article on “The Fauna of South Australia” in

THE FIRST CURATOR 15

South Australia: Its History Resources and Productions, — by

William Harcus, 1876.

According to notes made by Waterhouse on his return from the

Stuart exploring expedition the zoological collections at the Museum were

not supplemented materially until 1863. At the end of that year there

were in hand 200 bird skins, mostly from South Australia and col-

lected by Jacob Gardner of Gawler, a taxidermist who was each month

supplying 20 to 30 specimens at a very moderate charge. The mammal

collection consisted of a few skins and about a dozen mounted specimens,

mostly marsupials. Included in the 20 fishes was a fine tiger shark and

“five species of undescribed fish from the interior”. Among the 25

stuffed reptiles Waterhouse notes “two large undescribed snakes of the

boa tribe from the interior”. Insects and Mollusca were represented by

about 2,000 specimens each, and the collection of South Australian

minerals was relatively small—that of fossils still smaller. A case of

minerals and rocks, 300 in all, together with a series of fossils, had

been lodged in the Museum by the Philosophical Society. The promised

collection of copper ores from South Africa had been received from

Sir George Grey who, as mentioned earlier, retained always his interest

in the South Australian Museum.

A mining fever had been sweeping South Australia for the preceding

three years and more than 1,500 claims had been applied for. Twenty

years before, the first of the copper-mines had been discovered at

Kapunda and now many, mostly for copper, had been opened in the Mount

Lofty and, particularly, Flinders Ranges—Burra Burra, Moonta, Yelta,

Wallaroo, Matta Matta, Yudanamutana, Nuccaleena, Wheal Blinman and

two score others, some of them quite close to Adelaide. Attracted by the

relatively high wages, sturdy Cornish miners had come to South Australia

—269, mainly from Cornwall, arriving in 1854. The company controlling

the Burra mine, one of the richest and opened in 1845, had paid out more

than one million pounds in wages by 1863. J. B, Austin published an

interesting review of the mines of the colony at this time and describes

in amusing detail the events leading to control of Burra Burra. After

copper had been discovered in the area by a shepherd, it became necessary

to purchase from the Government a_ special survey of 20,000 acres.

One survey was taken by a body called the Princess Royal Mining Com-

pany; another was taken by a second group which became incorporated

with the South Australian Mining Association. The two were known

as the “nobs” and the “snobs” respectively, one representing the aris-

tocracy, the latter the more humble tradespeople. Neither alone coula

find the cash for the purchase, and so the two groups united for the pur-

pose. Immediately the survey was completed, a line was drawn through

the centre of the area from east to west and lots were drawn; the snobs

16 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

became the lucky owners of the portion on which was located the rich

copper deposit. Although few specimens were coming to the Museum,

the ores being obtained were attractive, red oxides, rich blue and green

carbonates and malachite, as well as native copper. Numbers of people

made the 100 mile trip from Adelaide to see the Burra mine, no mean

feat at that time, and there collected some of this showy material. Austin.

notes that many very beautiful specimens were “to be seen ornamenting

the mantelpieces or cabinets of an immense number of houses in the

colony”.

During the hey-day of the South Australian mines, those associated.

with them and particularly the Superintendents or “Captains”, many of

them “Cousin Jacks”, were gathering for their own pleasure the cream of

the roinerals coming from the near surface material; it was not until

the twentieth century that most of their collections, some large and

comprehensive, were donated to the Museum or, more often, were acquired

by purchase.

During this year of 1863, relics of Burke and Wills were brought

to the Museum by John McKinlay the explorer, who in 1£61 had been

chosen by the Government to head a party deputed to search for the

ill-fated expedition. McKinlay had collected some minerals also during

his search for Burke’s party and these were added to the specimens

obtained during the expeditions of McDouall Stuart.

A great deal of fossil vertebrate material was sent by Waterhouse

to the celebrated Sir Richard Owen, who studied and reported upon Aust-

ralian extinct mammals for 30 years or so. For example, numerous

bones of the Pleistocene marsupial Diprotodon were discovered in various

localities in South Australia. Prior to the Stuart expedition the

Surveyor General, George Woodroffe Goyder, was the first to direct the

attention of Waterhouse to the occurrence of remains of this huge

creature in northern South Australia (South Australian Parliamentary

Papers, 1863, ii., No. 125, p. 2). At about the same time James S.

Wilson collected some bones at “Portland Bay, South Australia”. Water-

house notes as of unusual interest a collection made by Percy Wells in

1869 at Gum Creek, in the county of Stanley. The same year Filgate,

of Wentworth, presented fossil remains. of a Rat-Kangaroo, a Diprotodon,

and according to Owen N ototherium also, found by Filgate in New South

Wales, near Lake Victoria; Owen records this as Lake Victoria, South

Australia. Portion of the tibia of a large bird said to have come

from a cave at Mount Gambier was sent to Owen in 1872; this belonged

probably to the giant species named Genyornis 30 years later. One of

the most noteworthy fossil deposits was discovered by R. M. Robertson

in the Normanville (Second Valley) district in 1879. The fossils were

in a swampy area, with numerous springs, not far from Robertson’s

THE FIRST CURATOR 17

house near Salt Creek, a rivulet flowing into the sea about four miles

north of Cape Jervis. | Waterhouse noted that the material included

“Diprotodon, Phascolomys, Thylacoleo, and Macropus.”’ Many of

these displayed characteristics differing in some respects from other

specimens already in the Museum, recovered also were portions of leg-

bones of the extinct Ratite bird Genyornis. During the following year

Robertson donated still further collections from the same swamps and

R. F. Sullivan, of Cowarie in northern South Australia, found “remains

of similar character” in the Lake Eyre Basin.

Material sent to Sir Richard Owen was returned to South Austra-

lia and at the present time, over 70 years later, research is being carried

out on it and other mammalian fossils in the Museum.

With taxidermists Gardner, F. Schultze and in particular F. W.

Andrews employed as collectors, the zoological accessions grew apace

and by 1867 there were 1,000 skins, comprising upwards of 500 species,

in the bird collections, while the mammals numbered 170, including 46

species of marsupials, several rare and some recently discovered. The

reptile collection had been enriched by specimens from New South Wales,

Western Australia and the Northern Territory, as well as South Australia;

the ethnological material, in addition to William Owen’s noteworthy

Fijian collection, included many specimens of the utensils and weapons

of the natives of Australia and Africa.

Lack of accommodation and of financial support adequate for mair

tenance of the growing Museum became apparent early in the history

of the Institute. By the end of 1865 contracts had been made for the

purchase of exotic material and the commitments were making the Board

a little anxious; already Waterhouse was “obliged to fill his cases rather

with reference to their utmost holding capacities than to the proper

arrangements of their contents”.

A sum of £1,000 was placed on the Government estimates for 1864-5

to finance the whole activities of the Library and Museum; the last-

named received £250. It was proposed that the same sum be allotted to the

Institute for the year 1866, but the Board successfully made out a case

for a grant of £1,500, of which £500 was applied to the Museum. When

pressing their claim, the Board baldly stated that if this amount were

not granted they would be compelled “absolutely and definitely to stop

all expenditure on the Museum after the end of 1865”, and thus risk

losing the services of Waterhouse; and so continued the struggle for

adequate grants. 7

Unfortunately neither Waterhouse nor his Board realized the im-

portance of retaining immediately large and comprehensive Australian

collections; exotic material was coveted and was solicited in exchange

for specimens of our fauna, particularly birds and mammals which we

18 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

would be glad to have in the Museum today. Exchanges were conduc-

ted with other Australian Museums, however, as well as with private

individuals and so the scope of the Australian collections was widened;

notably, good collections were received from Western Australia and

Tasmania.

Dispersal of Collections

As early as 1865 Waterhouse had set aside a large number of well-

preserved duplicate bird skins to be used as exchanges. Limited re-

sources for purchase of representative collections from other countries

certainly was responsible to some extent for the lavish export of material

which followed. Urged by the desire to acquire overseas fauna, and

possibly influenced also by the expressed wish of his Board to show the

younger colonists some of the unfamiliar animals from abroad, Water-

house continued with enthusiasm to carry on exchanges with Museums

in Europe as well as in Australia, yet in 1867 he still had available as

“duplicates” for this purpose “About 500 Australian birds’ skins, a few

skins of rare marsupial animals, a great variety of reptilia, and various

miscellaneous objects...” He regarded the field work of taxidermists

Andrews and Schultze, operating as collectors for the Museum in various

parts of South Australia, as useful in that they were supplying “specimens

valuable for effecting exchanges”,

By 1867 the Board had become concerned at the increasing diffi-

culty of securing South Australian ethnological material, both for re-

tention in the Museum collections and for exchange, seeking by advertise-

ment donations of material, but with limited success.

During the next decade or so Waterhouse sent collections of birds,

reptiles and other animals to Dr. Peters of the Royal Museum in Berlin,

and to the noted Professor Kaup of Darmstadt, to the Museums at

Durham College, Ile de la Re’union, Brussels, Calcutta, Nagasaki in Japan,

South Africa, (Cape Colony and Natal) as well as the Museums of Aust-

ralia and New Zealand; to John Gould of London and E. Pierson Ramsay

with his private Dobroyde Museum in Sydney; to John Leadbeater of the

Melbourne Museum; to Sylvester Diggles of Brisbane, and to a host of

private collectors. Leadbeater in 1876 sent for a pair of Blue-billed

ducks (Oxyura australis) in exchange for a Night Parrot (Geopsittacus

occidentalis) and four other birds from the interior of South Australia.

Altogether Waterhouse sent away at least 2,000 skins of birds from

South Australia and the Northern Territory. H. T. Condon, the present

Ornithologist at the South Australian Museum, has gone carefully through

the exchange lists and diaries which, like accession books, were kept

by Waterhouse from 1860 to the time of his retirement; Condon states

definitely that the named skins thus widely distributed would together

DISPERSAL OF COLLECTIONS 19

have constituted a very good representative collection of the species of

birds from our State and the Northern Territory.

Certainly some noteworthy accessions of extra-Australian specimens

were received by Waterhouse as overseas exchanges—South American

birds from Berlin, British birds from the Durham Museum, 80 birds

collected by Alfred Wallace in the Indian Archipalego, and a mass of

material in all groups which it would be tedious to detail.

Some of the specimens from nearer home are of more interest today.

Thus in 1868 Waterhouse was sent 55 New Zealand Birds (45 species)

recent and fossil Mollusca, and leg bones of the large extinct Moas from

the Geological Survey Office and Colonial Museum, Wellington; the

birds, according to a letter from James Hector constituted “as complete a

collection ... . as I can spare”; he states that they are “in return for the

very valuable collection of Birds which you forwarded to us”. Hector

regrets that he cannot supply a Tuatara (Sphenodon punctata) which

he states is “very rare now”. Adelaide secured a spirit specimen of

this Rhyncocephalian two years later from Thos. Kirk of Auckland who

(May 8, 1870) wrote that “it is almost extinct and has not been discovered

elsewhere”. -

A collection of bird skins from North Queensland was obtained from

Samuel White, Ornithologist from Reedbeds, South Australia in 1870.

Some rare creatures were sent from the Tasmanian Museum at Hobart in

1871-2, including a skeleton and two skins of the Tasmanian Tiger

(Thylacinus cynocephalus) a species possibly now extinct.

The almost complete skeleton of one of the gigantic Moas from

New Zealand was sent to Adelaide from the Canterbury Museum by Dr.

Julius Haast, who on November 25, 1872 wrote to Waterhouse stating

that this, together with leg bones of three other species was being sent

per S.S. “Rangitoto”, Waterhouse promptly, in December of the same

year, sent to Haast 153 bird skins, comprising 104 species, together with

three mounted lizards; all material, as usual in the case of birds, was

identified. Haast was so pleased with this series that in acknowledging

them he promised to put aside for Waterhouse Moa bones “until you

have as fair a representation of these extinct giants as anywhere in the

world”.

It appears that in arranging exchanges Haast developed a pen-

friendship with Waterhouse, as in a letter dated November 8, 1875, he

writes “I beg to enclose my photo, so that the features of your N.Z.

correspondent and friend will not remain unknown to you. I hope you

will return the compliment”. One wonders whether a picture of Water-

house is still somewhere in the Canterbury Museum.

During the year 1873 Waterhouse made contact with J. Wood-Mason,

Curator of the Indian Museum at Calcutta. Letters show that his

20 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

nephew Captain J. Waterhouse, Assistant Surveyor General at Calcutta

and Wood-Mason’s friend, was the intermediary. Wood-Mason, a stu-

dent of Crustacea, as might be expected asked Waterhouse to supply

as many Australian species of the group as, possible, marine, freshwater

and terrestrial; he laid stress on the fact that he desired particularly

Squillidae (Mantis Shrimps), in which he was interested. He offered in

return for spirit specimens of Crustacea “Indian animals, birds, reptiles,

fishes, Mollusca and skeletons of all groups”; he asked further for a

good set of Australian fresh water Mussels (Unionidae), many of our

rarer mammals and so on.

For years Albert Molineux, a South Australian naturalist, actively as-

sisted Waterhouse and freely lent his small trawl-net for the securing

of marine specimens in St. Vincent Gulf and off Kangaroo Island. A very

considerable collection of fishes, crustaceans and other marine creatures

which Waterhouse considered to be peculiar to the Gulf were secured, and

all dupticates were set aside for exchange purposes, Molineux was a

foundation member of the Field Naturalists’ Section of the Royal Society

of South Australia; that he and his family were born naturalists is ob-

vious; his son, Albert Edward, showed the same interest, while today his

grandson, Albert Claude is an ardent field naturalist.

Waterhouse was on duty at the Museum from Monday until Sat-

urday at noon and these dredging ventures were carried out during week-

ends. It would seem that often he paid the necessary expenses out of

his own pocket, being rather chary of approaching the then Secretary of

the Board, Robert Kay, who kept a close hand on the slim institutional

purse. This gave rise to some incidental enquiries at a Royal Com-

mission appointed to enquire into the affairs of the Institute in 1874.

Police Inspector Paul Foelsche was one of the outstanding contrib-

utors of ethnological and zoological material from the Northern Territory

and continued to be a generous donor and collector for many years. An

extensive collection of birds and other specimens gathered by him in 1874,

together with a large number of shells collected by conchologist Walter

Bednall on the north coast of Australia, were unhappily lost when the

Gothenburg went down. This ship was wrecked on the Queensland coast

on February 24, 1875. Some of the survivors landed on Holborn Island and

there one of them, J. J. Fitzgerald, recorded their names on a bleached

piece of the bony shell of a green turtle; the bone is inscribed on the back

as “Life Log, Holborn Island”. In April 1932, this relic of the tragedy

was presented to the Museum by W. D. Cleland, a brother of one of

the survivors, thus providing a curious link with the lost collections.

A few years after this disaster, two outstanding ethnological collections

made by Foelsche in the “Territory”, were purchased by the Museum.

: eo:

. ee

. Vee SS. Sottatog

ie © Weilmesdoy 24 Sof

‘1875 ot 6-30R mM, oo

dong way é of our Cound — coi sé 6

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Turtle-bone log of survivors of Gothenberg, 1875

DISPERSAL OF COLLECTIONS 21

The first uncut Australian meteorite to come to the South Australian

Museum was discovered in 1875 by James Martlew, four miles from

Yardea Station in the Gawler Ranges, and weighed about 7} pounds;

years later a slice from this Yardea meteorite was taken to America.

A polished slice of the Baratta aerolite from New South Wales had been

acquired in 1852 as an exchange.

In May, 1875, a suggestion was made by. Charles (later Sir Charles)

Todd, then one of the members of the Institute Board, that Standing

Committees be formed for both Library and Museum. This course

being decided upon a month later, part of the personnel of the Board

was constituted a “Museum Committee”, a practice which continued with

successive boards for 65 years.

One of the initial actions of this Committee was to recommend that

the Curator be authorized to supply the Philadelphia Exhibition Com-

mission with such duplicates of specimens of the fauna and minerals

of the colony that he could spare, As a result Waterhouse forwarded

to the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition of 1876 a “choice collection”,

including 112 mounted specimens of South Australian birds besides

several rare marsupials and reptiles, and Australian aboriginal material.

Later the specimens were handed over to the Smithsonian Institution,

which sent useful material to South Australia. Unfortunately there was

included in the collections supplied for the Philadelphia Exhibition a

wallaby-skin native rug, or cloak, the best of its kind from South Aust-

ralia in existence today.

It was considered that the collection sent to Philadelphia would as-

sist in calling attention of Americans “who have the interests of science

at heart” to the colony. Interest was stimulated by Samuel (later Sir

Samuel) Davenport, who was the South Australian Commissioner at

the Philadelphia Exhibition, and Waterhouse received a number of

applications from America for Australian fauna, exchanges to be ar-

ranged in return.

In 1876, Waterhouse reported to his Board that visitors to the Museum

were becoming more numerous and “I do not doubt if I had at command

more space for exhibiting the specimens that our collections would take

a respectable position in many points of view when compared with the

collections of other colonies’.

The South Australian Commissioners at this time requested also that

an exhibit be sent to the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1878 and Water-

house forwarded about 30 mounted marsupials, 340 “different specimens”’

of South Australian birds, a number of fishes and reptiles, six cases of

beetles and, last but not least, an excellent collection of aboriginal im-

plements and weapons. He reports the fact that “considerable diffi-

22 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

culty was experienced in procuring the latter, owing to the extinction

of those tribes which formerly inhabited the country around Adelaide”.

It is rather remarkable that at this time he informed the Board that,

“having lately received a large and valuable collection of native weapons

and implements from the Northern Territory, I shall forward them with

other things to America and elsewhere at an early date.”

The collections sent to Paris were given, at the end of the Exhibition,

to the Director of the Natural History Museum in the Jardin des Plantes

and exchanges were asked for.

Two diamonds from Echunga in the Mount Lofty Ranges near Adel-

aide were exhibited in the South Australian Court of the 1878 Paris

Exhibition. These had been found by two gold diggers, John Brown and

John Glover, “rough as found on the Echunga Gold Field”. Later

they were purchased by a jeweller in Adelaide; still later, in 1949, they

were bought by the Museum from a descendant of the gem dealer in

question.

H. Y. L. Brown, South Australian Government Geologist, in his

Record of the Mines of South Australia, 1899, has something to say about

the diamonds in our State:

For many years there had been rumors of the discovery of gems,

including diamonds, in the Echunga Goldfield. The feeling that it

was desirable to test the creditability of these statements induced the

Commissioner of Crown Lands in 1879 to engage the services of an

experienced gem digger, Mr. G. T. Bean, to examine the district and to

report. He went over the field and stated that diamonds had been

found in Long Gully and in other localities, and that Chapman’s gully

presented features resembling those of the diamond field at Kimberley,

South Africa. He added that there were also other places in the

Echunga district in which it was probable that diamonds would be found,

and he recommended that a systematic search for diamonds should be

organised. It is stated that more than 50 good saleable diamonds have

been found in the district since the first discovery made many years ago,

and that the most notable gem found was Glover’s diamond, secured

weighing 9} carats. Most of the diamonds hitherto found have been

discovered accidentally in washing alluvial for gold

A few specimens of Echunga diamonds, including one of a red color

were purchased by the Adelaide Museum authorities.

Mount Kingston, near the Peake River.—A diamond weighing little

over 1 carat was received from this locality in 1894, stated to have been

washed from auriferous gravel

The Museum Committee decided to send “native weapons, dresses

and ornaments” to the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879-1880—

the first of its kind to be held in Australia. The South Australian

Commissioners for this were anxious to have a good collection illus-

trating the ethnology of the native tribes of the State. An exchange

PROPOSALS FOR IMPROVEMENT 23

was arranged after the exhibition, and the Australian Museum forwarded

weapons and implements from the East Indian Archipelago. At this

time the Museum Committee records in the minutes the opinion that

during the past three or four years the returns from other museums had

not constituted a quid pro quo.

A selection of fossils from the vicinity of Lake Eyre, together with

apparently the whole of an extensive collection sent as an exchange by

the Museum in Paris, were lent for the first International Exhibition to be

held in Melbourne in 1880-81; the Paris material comprised a large series

of reptiles, many minerals and a great variety of ethnological specimens.

Birds, fishes shells, insects and again Australian ethnological objects

were forwarded as well as some life-sized aboriginal figures in wax.

Proposals for Improvement

T. C. Cloud of Wallaroo and an Associate of the Royal School of

Mines in London was entrusted with the task of selecting and arranging

minerals sent by the South Australian Commissioners to the last-named

Melbourne Exhibition; consequently he became so well acquainted with

the mineralogical collection in the Institute Museum that he was asked

by the Board to report upon it and if possible to suggest improvements.

Cloud, with Waterhouse, made a comprehensive survey and presented to

the Board a painstaking report of about 2,000 words. He considered

the general representation of typical minerals to be good but advised

acquisition of 90 or so to fill gaps; a year or so later Cloud purchased

in London some of the necessary specimens for the Museum. He further

commented that the collection of South Australian material was far from

representative and that in his private collection alone were twice as

many minerals as in the Museum; thanks to the later efforts of Douglas

(later Sir Douglas) Mawson from 1906 to the date of publication of this

history, the collection is now unrivalled. It is intriguing to note that

Cloud advocated the system now practised throughout the whole of the

Museum collections, namely, to each specimen as far as is practicable

a number is either attached to, or, preferably, written or painted on it

corresponding to a number in an appropriate register, where full data

are given; in modern systems card catalogues are used in conjunction.

Cloud was emphatic that the system then employed of loose labels, which

were easily lost, is useless. How very true this is may be seen by

reference to our current registers of collections where an old friend

O.C. (old collections) is oft repeated in the columns reserved for the

name of the donor or collector and the locality.

It is evident that attacks of the “Museum Beetle” Anthrenus

and other pests were already causing concern in 1876 for the Museum

Committee, following an inspection, had decided that the Curator be sup-

24 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

plied with an airtight box “in which to chloroform specimens infected

with insects”’,

Reference to old records does indicate that Waterhouse may have

been untidy and careless in his methods, particularly during his declining

years. That he did not appreciate the necessity of study collections

seems probable; it is certain that he did not fully realize the importance

of retaining, and maintaining in good order, zoological material which in

later years might be difficult to replace, a contingency visualised by

members of the Institute Board more than 20 years before. Eventually

many specimens were crowded together in the exhibition cases, without

adequate labels and without interest to the public, who became vocal in

their assesment of the public utility of the Museum; it must be em-

phasised, however, that for 20 years he had been handicapped in every

possible direction—lack of space, of staff and of adequate finances. It

must have been discouraging indeed.

In November, 1881, the Museum Committee for the first time made

the suggestion that teaching series be arranged, and instructed Water-

house to prepare “a series of skulls, articulated skeletons and dissections

illustrating the most important classes of animals, which shall effect

facilities for study of students of zoology and comparative anatomy” .

During his last year of office Waterhouse still displayed enthusiasm

concerning useful incoming collections, remarking on the excellence of

the recently acquired “College series of casts” of rare fossils from

Ward’s of Rochester, New York, (a firm with whom we still deal); a

considerable increase in the mineralogical collection due to specimens

secured from the recent Sydney and Melbourne International Exhibitions

was welcomed and of more local interest and value was a good collection

of minerals from Burra copper mine, placed at the disposal of the

Museum by Sir Henry Ayers. Waterhouse regretted a decrease in the

number of zoological specimens coming in but remarks that “space for

the exhibition of such specimens has not been available’. | Waterhouse

resigned in February, 1882, because of failing health and was granted

eight months long service leave; after a visit to England he returned to

South Australia, where he died in 1898, at the age of 84. His grave, still

cared for by his relatives, is in the Magill Cemetery.

So, in the first quarter of a century, Waterhouse collector and

naturalist, gathered to himself from many parts of South Australia and

beyond—from still almost virgin fields insofar as the terrestrial fauna of

parts of the State is concerned—a remarkable collection of birds and

mammals. The fact that much of the collection was sent abroad

and the remainder not properly cared for was most unfortunate for

posterity.

TAXIDERMISTS AND COLLECTORS 25

Taxidermists and Collectors

As already mentioned taxidermists were employed as field collectors

during the curatorship of Waterhouse. One may judge from the old

accounts that in the main they were paid by results—so much per speci-

men, Jacob Gardner, a skilful taxidermist who in the opinion of the

Curator had an extensive knowledge of the habits of our birds, provided

the Museum with many specimens,

Frederick Schultze collected a great deal of natural history material,

including birds and mammals, from about 1865 to the early seventies.

Some accounts (1867 and 1868) indicate that he was paid 15/- to 18/- per

dozen for skins of small birds, 3/6 for a Whistling Eagle and 2/- to 2/6

for birds of intermediate size; his address at the time is given as Gilbert

Junction, Stockport, South Australia.

Through the interest in science of George Woodroffe Goyder,

Schultze accompanied the Northern Territory Expedition (or Survey

Party of 1868-9) and collected a great number of bird skins, some mam-

mals and much marine and other zoological material. That he was

energetic is apparent. As evidence may be quoted the following communi-

cation from him to J. Stokes Millner, Acting Government Resident at

Port Darwin; the letter was addressed from Fort Point and is dated

January 29, 1870; like the lists of materials supplied it is written by a

hand other than that of Schultze.

I have the honour to hand herewith particulars of specimens of

Natural History and Botany collected by me, since 25th September last.

The collection consists of thirty-five Boxes which have been shipped on

board the Gulnare for transmission to Adelaide.

This is signed “Fredr. Schultze, Naturalist and Botanist’”. Thirty-

five boxes filled in four months is no small effort. Schultze also supplied

details of all the contents of these boxes. Every species of bird, whether

represented by one or more specimens, had its own package number

within the box. A remarkable range of material was shipped on this

occasion; 282 bird skins; reptiles, crustaceans and other marine inverte-

brates; marine algae; dried plants etc. Botanical specimens also in-

cluded seeds of which he supplied a “Catalogue” giving the numbered

packets and for each the number of the plant, if any, in his “Botanical

Note Book’’, which seems not to have been preserved.

Schultze was meticulous in his methods; another of the lists gives

details of specimens being forwarded from Darwin to Adelaide “per

Barque Bengal” and dated July 1, 1870. Listed are the contents of 21

boxes containing birds, reptiles and amphibians, insects of all the main

classes, shells and other marine material; apparently during the previous

six months Schultze had skinned 350 more birds, representing 90 species.

26 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

Many of the creatures are referred to by at least the generic name and

in the birds a specific name is often given.

A considerable number of the bird skins secured by Schultze and by

Andrews were sent by way of exchange to theother museums in

Australia, particularly those in Sydney and Melbourne. Many found

their way into the private collection of E. Pierson Ramsay of Sydney.

Frederick William Andrews, field naturalist and bird observer as

well as taxidermist, in 1864 commenced his long and valuable Museum

association. Donations of specimens were made by him in the sixties and

seventies, but in one way or another he was commissioned to collect for

the South Australian Museum over a period of 20 years. During this

time he collected and sold to the Museum large quantities of birds from

widely separated parts of South Australia.

In 1874-5 Andrews was the collector attached to the Lake Eyre

Exploration Expedition under J. W. Lewis. He collected north of Lake

Eyre, in 1874, six specimens of the Eyrean Grass Wren (Amytornis

goyderi) of which two are now in the British Museum and one in the

Australian Museum, Sydney; the species has not been seen since and is

not represented in the South Australian Museum bird collection.

Andrews secured a Night Parrot near Lake Eyre in 1875 and between

1875 and 1880, in the vicinity of Gawler Ranges west of Spencer Gulf in

South Australia, he made skins of at least eight other examples. Almost

all of this material was utilized for exchange purposes. It went in part

to the Australian Museum and the National Museum in Melbourne,

while four skins found their way into the private collections of H. L.

White in New South Wales and E, Pierson Ramsay, then a member of the

staff of the Australian Museum. Ramsay’s specimens eventually went to

the last-named institution and White’s to the Melbourne Museum. Until

recently the South Australian Museum possessed only one poor skin and

three sterna of the species. About four years ago, however, the then

Director of the Australian Museum, with the approval of his Board, was

generous enough to donate one of the Gawler Range skins taken by

Andrews who, it has been said, ‘‘must have been about the last naturalist

to see the bird alive,” although there is evidence that the bird existed

more than 40 years later. In 1923 F. Lawson Whitlock was working in

Central Australia as a freelance collector for H. L. White, of New South

Wales. At Hermannsburg, 80 miles from Alice Springs, natives were

burning off porcupine bush (Triodia) in order to flush small game. A

single Night Parrot was captured by the natives, cooked and eaten, un-

fortunately without plucking, so that even the feathers were not available.

G. E. Loyau’s statement, in his Notable South Australians, 1885, p.

51, to the effect that most of the specimens collected by Andrews could

be seen at the South Australian Museum was far from true at the date

THE BIRTH OF A PLAN 27

of its publication. It would appear that practically all of the very limited

space in the old Institute Museum was used for exhibition and few, if any,

“duplicates” of furred and feathered animals were retained. In other

words, no serious thought had been given yet to the possibility of estab-

lishing study collections of terrestrial vertebrates as material for future

researchers.

One of the earliest taxidermists said to have prepared specimens,

from 1840 onwards, which found their way into the Museum, was George

S. Isaacs, born in London and one-time of Gawler, South Australia. He

wrote journalistically as “George A. Pendragon” for a theatrical journal

The Critic, and died on February 14, 1876.

E. Withers, of Wakefield Street, Adelaide, was by all accounts noted

for his skill and care in the preparation of bird skins; he is listed as a

donor of specimens in the early sixties. Birds were sent to him and to at

least one other local taxidermist from time to time to be mounted for

exhibition purposes.

The Birth of a Plan

By 1865 Waterhouse had become restive concerning the limited

exhibition accommodation at his disposal, reporting that for want of

adequate space for the necessary cases there were lying in storage a collec-

tion of European shells and about 1,000 named fossils calculated to be of

interest to students and readers of geology. He added that with existing

facilities it was not possible to arrange the birds systematically and that

furthermore these perforce were crowded together in the cases. The

Library was similarly handicapped and the Board, thoroughly frustrated,

expressed strongly the feelings of its members. Their remarks and their

comparisons are worth quoting.

Ten years have now passed away since the South Australian Institute

was established by the Legislature of the Province, and it may be thought

that at such an epoch it would be the duty of the Board to review in

detail the results which have been achieved during that time.

It scarcely appears to them, however, that these results in their more

tangible forms, that is to say, in the Library and Museum, are all that

might have been desired. Ten years—a very appreciable space of time,

and one which rarely passes over an old-established country, with all its

settled forms of civilizations, without leaving some very definite landmark

behind in the shape of alteration if not of development and improvement

—in an infant community like this is as a generation in an old one; and

for such a period the Board can scarcely think when they look at their

Library and Museum, that enough has been done.

They and their predecessors have spared neither time nor labour,

and have done the best they could with the means at their disposal; but

those means have been small in comparison with the needful requirements

of the Institute, and the objects to be ultimately accomplished.

28 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

Perhaps the fact that the sum annually voted for the purposes has

been so limited may in some degree be explained by an impression—which

is too common, and which can only arise from a totally erroneous appre-

hension of the purposes for which the Institute was established—that the

Institute was meant to be little if anything more than a circulating library

on a large scale, the principal object of which would be to furnish the

latest novel to its subscribers. Under this misapprehension it would

appear that the grants have been regarded rather as benefactions to a

small and special portion of the community than as the necessary public

support of a National Institution.

To this cause probably is owing the fact that a South Australian

cannot without some sense of shame regard the contrast between what

has been done here and in the adjoining colony during the last ten or

twelve years. During that time the Melbourne Government cannot have

spent upon the Public Library and the National Museum a smaller sum

than £140,000; while the whole public expenditure on the South Australian

Institute, which embraces the objects of both those Institutions, some-

what exceeds one-eighth of that sum. The Board are well aware that the

means and population of Victoria far exceed those of South Australia and

probably have done so in former years to a greater extent than now,

but the difference can be nothing like that indicated above, the present

proportion between the population and income of Victoria and South

Australia being something like 31% to 1.

These remarks must, of course, be understood as referring to the

past; from the future the Board hope better things, as an earnest of

which they have much pleasure in stating that a sum of money appears

in the Estimates recently laid before Parliament as the first instalment

of a vote for the enlargement of the Institute building.

The amount is not large, but that probably is due to the fact that

as yet the exact nature and extent of the proposed additions have not

been decided by the Government, although the Board have reported fully

upon the subject.

Before the Board have to present their next annual report, they trust

that some substantial progress may have been made with this desirable

and most necessary work,

For a decade and more, the Board, in their efforts towards expansion

of the Institute and its Museum, exhibited a tenacity of purpose which

it would be hard to excel. The State was far from wealthy; its resources

were by no means fully explored nor were their ultimate potentialities

anticipated.

Actually it was in 1863, when the Museum collections and the Library

showed unmistakable signs of rapid expansion, that the Institute Board

foresaw a necessity for increased accommodation. Members regarded

it as a matter which should be considered without delay. Following their

first approach to the Government in January, 1865, a sketch plan for the

enlargement of the original Institute building was prepared by the

Colonial Architect. This was laid before the House of Assembly in 1866,

when the sum of £1,000 was voted on the estimates for 1867, as a first

instalment of a sum sufficient for the addition. The intention was that

THE BIRTH OF A PLAN 29

detailed plans and specifications, were to be made, and that Parliament

then be requested to provide funds on the estimates of Expenditure for

1868.

In South Australia, however, the effects of the 1866 English panic,

and in 1867 of the red-rust destruction of wheat crops, were so great that

the Government was not in a position to find the considerable sum required

for Museum and Library additions.

In 1867 then, the State was undergoing a depression; pastoral and

agricultural interests were suffering and the Board dismally accepted

the fact that there was no immediate prospect of the much-needed

extension of the Institute and its Museum. As an emergency measure

wall cases were placed along the sides of the gallery leading to the

Museum, giving an additional 120 linear feet of cases and here were in-

stalled the now considerable collection of Australian birds. The much

less extensive series of Australian mammals was arranged in one of the

Museum rooms. This “temporary” arrangement was implemented be-

cause it appeared to the Board “that it was better that the public should

have some opportunity of seeing the collection which had been gathered

together, even at the expense of crowding the gallery, than

that specimens so strange and _ beautiful should lie unseen

and useless in the Curator’s room.” Shortly after this the School of

Design, until then occupying the western end of the Museum, was removed

to a large room over the Library and this additional space was soon

occupied by Waterhouse, who notes that his expenditure on purchase of

specimens was restricted for a while because of the necessity of acquiring

further exhibition cases.

Gas lighting was now installed in the three rooms of the Museum, so

that it was possible to admit the public occasionally during evenings.

The grant of £1,000 made in 1866 towards cost of a new building

remained unused because of the inability of the Government to add a

further sum on the current estimates.

The Board did not cease its representations for a new building but

matters were brought to a head when in 1870 and again in 1871 the

annual grant to the Board was reduced from £1,500 to £1,000; the salary

of Waterhouse at this period was about £200 per annum. Vexed and

anxious regarding the future of the Institution, members decided at first

to organise a public meeting but discarded the idea in favour of a petition

to the Government. Copies of this, addressed to the Legislative Council

and the House of Assembly, were left available at various places in

Adelaide and the principal townships in the State. The petition to the

Legislative Council was signed by 4,194 persons and that for the House

of Assembly by 3,929. This lengthy effort drew attention to the following

facts:

30 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

That, when in 1858 and 1859 money had been provided by Parliament

for erection of the Institute building it was intended to cover cost of only

part of a plan; hence, the north side of the building at present available

had been left unfinished. The lapsing of the 1866-7 initial vote for

enlargement is referred to, and also the overcrowding in all parts of the

Institute.

The attendance at the Museum is mentioned—1,000 per week—while

en each public holiday “according to the estimates of the policeman

on duty,” from 200 to 800 persons were visiting the three rooms. Finally

they reiterate their opinion “That the formation and maintenance of

Public Libraries and Museums is recognised as a duty by all civilized

communities, but there is little doubt that South Australia is in this

respect far behind most of the neighbouring colonies, even when due

allowance is made for differences of wealth and population.”

The Hon. A. Stow, M.L.C., was asked to present the petition to the

Legislative Council, and Mr. D. Murray, M.P., was asked to present the

petition from Adelaide to the House of Assembly, while the petitions from

the country were presented by the respective senior members for the

different electoral districts.

Subsequently motions were brought forward in both Houses affirming

the necessity for an enlargement of the building, and requesting the

Government to ascertain its probable cost, with a view to an amount

being placed on the Estimates for 1872 to provide for the necessary ex-

penditure. The motions were passed without any serious opposition, and

without a division, in both Houses, the Government giving conditional

support to them.

Following this, an amount of £3,000 was voted in 1872 as an initial

instalment towards the cost of a new wing, to be erected east of the

existing Institute and to be connected to it by a temporary corridor. The

idea of enlarging the Institute building apparently had been abandoned.

(Additions were made much later, and opened in 1907, to provide accom-

modation for the Royal Society of South Australia, the South Australian

Society of Arts and the South Australian Branch of the Royal Geo-

graphical Society of Australasia; included was a large lecture room, a base-

ment for storage, while a caretaker’s cottage, a little apart from the main

structure was erected at the same time).

In 1873 foundations for the west wing of the proposed building were

laid and designs to conform to the foundations were called for; the

building was to have two floors, the upper one to be occupied by the

Museum. Not satisfied with this arrangement, Parliament asked that a

Royal Commission be appointed to consider and report upon the Institute

and its requirements.

It appears that at this juncture Waterhouse wrote to Dr. Julius

Haast, of the Canterbury Museum, New Zealand, concerning the delay

THE BIRTH OF A PLAN 31

in building a new Museum in Adelaide, for in one of Haast’s letters (July

18, 1873), occurs the following passage:

Not only have I still some spare room, but we are going to build

another room to our Museum, having a vote of £5,000 for that purpose

besides £5,000 for College and public library buildings, all Institutions

connected with the Museum, together with a grant of 300,000 acres of

pastoral land—you see this is not bad for a provincial Institution. How-

ever, I may say that I expect very large and valuable collections from

all parts of the world; many of them on the way and that I have no doubt

that the space to be allotted to me will not be at all too great.

Why do you not work the members of your Assembly as I have done

ours, you ought to be able in your rich colony to spare a good sum

towards erecting a Museum worthy of it.

This passage is marked in pencil, presumably by Waterhouse, who

had formed the opinion that the close association of the South Australian

Museum with the Public Library should be severed, and the words “all

Institutions connected with the Museum” are scored out, also in pencil. A

little later the same year, acknowledging a communication from Water-

house, Haast pens a comment designed to be helpful:

There is a wonderful power of persuasion in having M.P.’s on your

own ground and putting their august noses upon your specimens in the

Museum. I have made many... a member who was dead against the

museum a very strong supporter. Acty, going to some trouble opening

cases after cases with specimens, showing them about and enticing their

sympathies. Do likewise and the future of your Institution will be

secured.

One wonders what the reaction of Waterhouse was to this advice as

during the whole of his curatorship members of both Houses in Adelaide

were interested in the Museum — financial difficulties constituted the

handicap.

One can imagine too, Waterhouse confronting his Board with details

of the approved New Zealand buildings, with the aforementioned passage

deleted.

The Royal Commission was formed in 1873, took their Minutes of

Evidence from January to March, 1874, and reported in April of the

same year.

The Chief Justice of the day, Sir Richard Davies Hanson, was Chair-

man, the other members being two members of the Legislative Council,

William Everard (who had been a member of the Institute Board for

seven years) and William (later Sir William) Milne, Rowland Rees (an

architect) and Dr. William Gosse.

Those called as witnesses were Waterhouse and a dozen prominent

citizens, including such well-known figures as Charles Todd, C.M.G., who

was founder of the Observatory at Adelaide, and had been a member of

32 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

the Institute Board for eight years; John Howard Angas, M.P., a son

of George Fife Angas, and at the time the member for Barossa; and Dr.

Richard Schomburgk, then Director of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

Three members of the Philosophical Society were examined; these were

John Howard Clark, Thomas Drury Smeaton, and the Hon. Lavington

Glyde. Clark and Glyde had served on the Institute Board for 15 and 11

years respectively.

It is interesting to note from the minutes that even early in the

history of the Institute there was a divergence of opinion regarding the

desirability of associating a Public Library and a Museum. Clark, the

first witness called before the Commission, submitted a number of reasons

why the Library and Museum should be governed under one Board.

Rowland Rees, on the other hand pointed out that museums often have

their own specialist libraries and that overseas museums which he named

had for long been provided with their own buildings. Clark finally agreed

with the Chairman that apart from “abstract desirability of having

institutions of this sort combined or separated it was expedient to

economize expenses by having one institute for all the various branches.”

Sir Richard Hanson referred to the comparative poverty of the State,

the obvious factor which, as in the past, retarded the development of the

Institution at this period. Some other witnesses concurred more or less

with this view. On the contrary, T. D. Smeaton, a member of the Philo-

sophical Society who had collected specimens for the Museum in the

south-east of the colony, considered it desirable to separate the Museum

and Library in different buildings and under different management; he

also submitted his opinion that the Museum would be better accom-

modated on the ground floor, in long rooms of no great height, but

continuous in length. Schomburgk stressed the desirability of a separate

building for the Museum as, naturally, did Waterhouse, who produced a

plan prepared by himself of a building to cover an area of about 119 feet

by 54 feet exclusive of a Curator’s residence to be attached. The

latter was considered by Waterhouse to be a most necessary adjunct and

in support of his contention he maintained that provision of such private

residence as part of a Museum plan was customary. He cited for example

the fact that his brother, G. R. Waterhouse, was provided with living

quarters both at the museum of the Zoological Society of London, during

his term with that body, and later at the British Museum.

The Museum proposed by Waterhouse was to cost about £5,000,

whereas it had been suggested that £6,000 be spent on the entire first

extension. It would seem that Waterhouse had one main view in his

mind when planning his building—the display, systematically arranged,

of all the material available to him, as he stated in evidence that “I

cannot exhibit half the specimens I have.” In support of his proposal

THE BIRTH OF A PLAN 33

he furnished data of interest in indicating the extent of the collections at

that time. These, in short, showed that to exhibit all collections in hand

the linear feet of wall cases would have to increase from 174 to 800 feet

and the number of table cases from 32 to 192.

J. H, Angas also declared that it was desirable to separate the

Museum, that combination of museums with other institutions was the

exception rather than the rule, and that a site near the Botanic Gardens

would be acceptable. Rowland Rees, in the course of his questioning of

Angas, asked whether lengthy articles and letters which had appeared

in the South Australian Advertiser five to seven years before had

influenced Angas’ views regarding autonomy for the Museum, but this

Angas denied.

The letters referred to appeared under the nom-de-plume “Pataecus

Fronto.” This pen name is suggestive. When Captain George Grey was

Governor of South Australia, amongst the many specimens sent by him to

the British Museum, was a single example of a curious small fish repre-

senting a previously undescribed genus and species for which, in 1844, Dr.

Richardson proposed the name Pataecus fronto. Waterhouse

himself was interested in our fishes and it is probable that few, if any

other Adelaideans had ever heard the name of the fish — rare and

economically unimportant.

Robert Kay, who had then been Secretary to the Institute for 14%

years, seemed to be somewhat concerned that the Museum was monopoliz-

ing so much of the available space. He referred to the fact that the

Museum had long since overflowed the three rooms originally intended

for it at the rear of the Institute, saying that ‘‘we have been compelled to

put things in the gallery, and in fact wherever we could find room for

them”... the gallery “ought not to have been used for the Museum.”

He claimed that unless funds were substantially increased no benefit would

result from separation of the Museum from the Library. The manage-

ment of the Victorian Library, National Museum, Technological Museum,

and National Gallery by one board of trustees divided into committees he

considered satisfactory (*) but contended that this system was essentially

different from that laid down in the South Australian Institute Act.

Waterhouse had insisted that a museum requires to be one large

continuous room “and it is highly necessary that it should be on the

ground floor,” Kay stressed his opinion that it should be on the upper floor

of the proposed west wing because of better lighting and drier conditions.

The Architect to the Government, G. T. Light, on being called was

questioned regarding the instruction issued to architects for competitive

designs for the complete additions, and he estimated these would total

(*) Eventually proved undesirable: see Pescott, Collections of a

Century, 1954, p. 152.

34 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

£85,000—a “rough estimate” allowing for increased costs resulting from

the eight-hour day innovation for labour.

A plan of the site of the proposed Institute and Museum was pre-

pared by the Public Works Officer (September, 1873) in order to show

the arrangement of the west wing, or library, and the various other

rooms and halls as then proposed. Broadly, the plan envisaged an east

and a west wing flanking a central building.

With this plan in view architects were invited to submit one or more

designs under “revised general conditions.” A premium of £200 was to

be paid for the approved best architectural design, £100 for the second

best; the Government was to have the right to purchase any other designs

which they might fancy for the sum of £50. The need for careful

husbanding of resources was present always in the minds of our early

administrators and it is noted that economy as well as architectural

merit was to be considered. It was recommended that the plinth course

should be faced with granite, any quantity of which could be procured

within “two day’s sail of Port Adelaide.” Again, however, a cautious note

is added. “It is not desired that the dressings should be of too orna-

mental a character, but both economy and effect must be studied.” An

approximate estimate of cost was to be enclosed with each design.

In its report of April 21, 1874, the Commission recommended that

the South Australian Institute be superseded by a Public Library and

Museum, to be entirely supported by the Government. The proposal to

erect a new wing east of the Institute was generally approved, but it was

recommended that both west and east wings be commenced at once, the

former to be used by the Public Library, the eastern building to be

reserved entirely for the Museum.

An amount of £5,000 was eventually placed on the Government esti-

mates for 1875-6, for erection of the west wing.

Members of the Institute Board were fretting at this delay and were

not completely satisfied with the findings of the Commission. Assembled

in September 1875 they drew up a letter to the Hon. Ebenezer Ward, then

Minister of Agriculture and Education. They did not agree with the

Commission that incorporated bodies no longer should be authorized to

elect representatives of the Board. They said said so emphatically and

desired that some freedom of action be retained rather than that the

whole Board be appointed by the Government. Canny folk, and with

past experience in mind, they pointed out that in framing a new Act for

the proposed Government Museum and Public Library, provision should

be made for a minimum annual grant for maintenance and general

expenses, quite distinct from money allotted from time to time for building.

Regret was expressed that the building vote abovementioned was so

worded as to allow the alternative of enlarging the existing building. The

SLT ‘elpeajsny yynog jo AsoTper)

}Iy pue Adeaiqvy ‘umosnyy 10J posodoad ssurp[ing oY} JO SUIMBIP Soop Ory

CRITICISM 35

suggestion was made that this item be referred back with the alternative

deleted “when Parliament could be informed that the Government intends

to proceed with the new building at once,” relying on the required

further expenditure being voted from time to time. Plans and designs

had been accepted in 1874 and paid for by the Government; the Board

agreed that these were satisfactory and that with some modification of

the internal arrangements they could be adopted. Not hoping to attain

the impossible they remark that they “have no wish to be unreasonable

in their requests”, and therefore would be content “for the present” with

the west wing, the erection of which, according to the Colonial Architect,

would be covered by the grant of £5,000. The hopeless overcrowding of

both Museum and Library was again stressed but a fresh argument was

brought to bear. The University of Adelaide was established by Act of

Parliament in 1874 and for a time functioned in the South Australian

Institute. The Board now pointed out “that if the building now asked

for be erected they will then be able to provide increased accommodation

for the University, which is now dependent upon them for room in which

to carry on its operations”.

No further action was taken until 1876, when the Colonial Architect

was instructed to prepare fresh plans, the sum of £5,000 was voted by

Parliament and a contract for the laying of the foundations of the west

wing was accepted, as the foundations laid in 1873 were unsuitable for the

new plan and were taken up.

By the middle of 1877 drawings and specifications were completed

and tenders were called for without satisfactory result; a modified set

of working drawings and specifications were prepared in 1878.

Criticism

An individual who was to maintain an active interest in the Museum

and its affairs for many years arrived in South Australia soon after the

founding of the University of Adelaide. This was Professor Ralph Tate,

and his name soon appeared in the lists of donors to the Museum. Tate

came of a celebrated family and for 40 years was a recognised authority

on geology, mineralogy, conchology, and botany, and was a prolific contri-

butor to scientific journals in Australia, America and Europe. In 1864

he was fellow and lecturer of the Geological Society of London, and was

curator of the Society's Museum. He was appointed to the Elder chair

of science at the University of Adelaide in 1875.

The University Council had arranged for a series of lectures to be

delivered in the South Australian Institute and in 1876-7 Tate gave a

course of 12 lectures. He became a member of the Philosophical Society

of Adelaide in 1876, was elected Vice-president next year, and President

in 1878, when he prepared and presented a thoughtful “Anniversary

36 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

Address” in which he recapitulated and constructively criticised the

efforts made in South Australia for the furtherance of knowledge in the

natural sciences. He summed up in a masterly manner the status

of the Museum after its 20 years of existence. He stressed the obvious

need for study collections—‘we have not only to consider the wants

of the gazing public, but also to provide for the requirements of the

special student and to afford materials for the savant in promoting

original research which functions ought not to be sacrificed for the benefit

of mere sightseers.” The contention that the Library and Museum should

be regarded as separate institutions, a view which had been advocated in

the press for some years, was strongly supported by Tate, who considered

their interests “somewhat antagonistic,” but 60 years were to pass before

this was considered seriously enough for positive action. Tate made a

prophetic utterance regarding the plans in hand for the new Institute

building:

The present Museum accommodation is lamentably deficient, and yet

a great mistake is about to be made with that to be contained in the new

Institute building, as space will be only large enough to hold the already

exhibited specimens, no provision being made for the display of objects

stored away, and of those not already collected. It moreover presents

the sad fault of an upper gallery. It would also be well to profit by the

example of the United States, who fully recognise the fact that the ex-

pense of a grand building starves the museum within.

The Plan Proceeds

There was now a further delay, fortunately of short duration,

owing to the fact that the new Institute site, on which the hopes of all

interested were centred, was included amongst the areas on which it was

proposed to erect new Parliament Houses. The Government, however,

decided to adhere to its intention and for the third time tenders were

called for, in the Gazette of December 5, 1878, and in Melbourne soon

afterwards. The tender of Messrs. Brown and Thompson of Adelaide for

£36,395 was accepted, this being the lowest; the total expenditure even-

tually incurred in construction of the wing was almost £41,000.

The Governor, Sir William F. Drummond Jervois, consented to lay

the foundation stone on June 20, 1879. The approach to His Excellency

proved over-optimistic for it was found that the foundations laid down

late in 1876 were in turn not satisfactory! It was necessary to remove

them, to deepen the trenches, and to construct a drain in order to keep

the new foundations permanently dry; the site, on North Terrace, is on

the upper terrace of the River Torrens.

In 1882 the Museum was moved out of its old and impossibly inade-

quate quarters to the as yet unopened new west wing. So ended its

period of travail in three small rooms.

THE PLAN PROCEEDS 37

Although the Institute was progressing insofar as extension of ac-

commodation was concerned, the adoption of this static plan in the

seventies, to be implemented over a long period, was unfortunate in the

extreme. The unsuitability of the west wing for efficient functioning of

either Public Library or Museum became obvious, but inevitably the dis-

advantages were repeated 30 years later, when the east wing was built.

A further amendment of the Institute Act destined to have a great

influence on the future of the Museum was passed in 1879; this gave

authority to'the University of Adelaide to appoint two Governors to the

Board, so that once more the number was raised, there now being

provision for nine members. The Board thus comprised three Govern-

ment nominees, two elected from library subscribers, one each from the

South Australian Society of Arts and the Philosophical Society, and two

from the University. This policy of University representation by right

of Parliament continued for 60 years.

The Chief Justice, Samuel James Way (then Vice-Chancellor

of the University of Adelaide) and the Rev. John Crawford Woods, B.A.,

were elected by the University in May, 1880, the delay being due to

necessary alterations in the University statutes to authorise such

election. Woods declined nomination after holding office for about 18

months and in his place the University towards the end of 1881 sent Dr.

Edward Charles Stirling, a forceful personality who for 38 years was to

play an important part in the progress of the Museum, helping it through

one of its more difficult periods, recording noteworthy discoveries and by

his enthusiastic efforts vastly increasing the collections.

In 1881, when the new building was being built and it was anticipated

that there would be added space for the Museum collections, the Board

decided to augment the staff by appointing an Assistant Curator and Taxi-

dermist. Accordingly a letter was sent to Professor William Henry

Flower, then Curator of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, asking

him, in consultation with our Agent General, to select a suitable officer

to fill the position. Acting on the advice of Flower, George Beazley was

considered to fill the bill; he was appointed, arrived in Adelaide towards

the end of August, 1881, and was given a temporary work room in the

basement or “crypt” of the new building. A sum of £50 was allotted for

tools and other equipment necessary for operations in taxidermy, the

first large purchase made for this purpose.

Shortly after his appointment Beazley was sent to Point Bolingbroke,

near Port Lincoln, to recover the skeleton of a stranded sperm whale.

Members of the Board were so much gratified with the energy and ability

“with which he executed this arduous and dangerous task, that they voted

him a special gratuity as a proof of their satisfaction.” This was an

auspicious beginning for Beazley, but later he was to cause the Board

much concern before he left the Museum.

38 THE SOUTH AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE MUSEUM, 1856-1882

The sum of £75 was paid to the finders of this sperm whale in re-

payment of their expenses and for the purchase of the skeleton, which

is still exhibited.

During the absence of Waterhouse on long service leave following

his retirement, Dr. Wilhelm Haacke, formerly assistant to Professor

Haeckel of Jena and afterwards on the staff of two New Zealand

Museums, became Acting Curator.

The accompanying photograph of Haacke, for which I am indebted

to the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand, according

to its inscription, was given to Mrs. von Haast on the occasion of her

birthday, January 21, 1882.

Haacke, an able and energetic individual, arrived in Adelaide and

took up his duties on March 22, 1882. He found part of the Museum

collections already removed to the then nearly completed west wing. He

at once moved the remainder of the material to the crypt and two small

rooms of the new building.

Harry P. Gill, one of the masters of the National Art Schools, South

Kensington, had been appointed master of the School of Design and

arrived in South Australia in September of the same year. The old

Institute Museum was then appropriated for the use of his School.

After examining the collections, Haacke in his first report to the

Board took the opportunity of expressing at great length the views he

entertained “of what the South Australian Museum ought to be.” Some

of his comments are of interest today. He wrote:

In the first instance there should be in South Australia no institution

rivalling the Museum under my care, as this would not tend to further

the scientific and educational interests of the colony. In Adelaide we

enjoy the existence of a Botanic Garden, with a Museum of Economic

Botany, and of a University with a museum for lecture purposes; a

Zoological Garden is now to be established, and we shall have a Techno-

logical Museum in the course of time. There are also small museums

connected with some of the country institutes, and the Royal Society is

endeavouring to promote the intellectual and scientific advancement of the

colony. In the interest, not only of the Museum, but of all the above

institutions, I respectfully beg you to take the following suggestions in

the spirit in which they are made.

I think it would be wise to exclude any technological and botanical

collections from the present Museum where, however, all objects of

zoology, ethnology, mineralogy, and geology should be gathered, as long

as it is not thought advisable to have special museums for each of these

branches of science.

In the Zoological Gardens to be established, only living animals should

be kept, and the museum in connection with the University should only

contain such collections as will be useful in lectures. Again, the country

museums should be satisfied in having only good educational collections,

while all objects of scientific value should go to the central institution,

which, in connection with the Botanic Gardens, the University, and the

Royal Society, ought to represent science in South Australia.

WILHELM HAACKE

ctor, 1883-1884

Dire

urator, 1882.

THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS 1882-1895

Haacke and Staff

Dr. Wilhelm Haacke, Acting Curator of the Museum during the absence of Waterhouse on his

retiring leave, accepted the position of Museum Curator on November 3™, 1882 and was appointed

Director on February 2™, 1883. This change of title was effected by the Board, doubtless prompted

by Haacke, because it considered that the “Title of Curator is likely to be misunderstood in the

Continental Museums, with which Dr. Haacke will have much correspondence”.

The West and North Wings

1882 - 1895

Haacke and Staff

Dr. Wilhelm Haacke, Acting Curator of the Museum during the

absence of Waterhouse on his retiring leave, accepted the position of

Museum Curator on November 3rd, 1882 and was appointed Director on

February 2nd, 1883. This change of title was effected by the Board,

doubtless prompted by Haacke, because it considered that the “Title of

Curator is likely to be misunderstood in the Continental Museums, with

which Dr. Haacke will have much correspondence”.

At the same time the Museum Committee recommended that the

title of the Museum be changed from “The South Australian Institute

Museum” to “The South Australian Museum’’,

Haacke wished for a building set aside entirely for the Museum;

instead, the Art Gallery was now placed in the front halls of the new

wing, while the Museum occupied the northern half of the galleries

for exhibition and the other purposes, and the northern part of the

slate-floored crypt for storage and work rooms. Thus the Public

Library was sandwiched between the Art exhibits and the Museum,

each occupying approximately one-third of the total space available.

The necessity for separate quarters for preparation and preservation

of zoological specimens soon became apparent. Obviously, for example,

the odorous task of maceration of skeletal material could not be carried

out within the walls of an occupied public building.

In 1859 no coal gas was available in Adelaide for illumination and,

as noted earlier, a plant for producing gas (from coal and later ‘Rozin”

a patent oil) was installed to light the small South Australian Institute at

night. A retort house, situated at the rear of the Institute, was com-

pleted and in working order early in 1861, when it will be recalled the

Institute was opened. It was never entirely satisfactory but was used

40 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

until November, 1863, when the South Australian Gas Company was

formed. Following this, for a time the retort house was used for various

purposes, but principally as a chemical laboratory. In February, 1882,

it was handed over to the Museum for use as a macerating house, and to

this day, with its chimney converted as an incinerator, the old “Gas

House” continues to be used for maceration and other preparatorial work.

Because of delay in completion of the new building and its fittings

the Museum was not opened to the public for three years but Haacke notes

that he was glad of the opportunity to examine thoroughly the collections

in hand; also he proposed to obtain and mount further specimens for

exhibition, including articulated skeletons.

Haacke destroyed all the zoological specimens which had suffered

long years of exhibition in the old Institute. He informed the Board that,

as the number of these was large, provision must be made for a speedy

supply of fresh specimens. Accordingly, F. W. Andrews, from whom

Australian natural history material had been purchased for so many years,

was now employed as a collector, and also to examine the condition of

specimens in the Museum. The following year, 1883, he was “permanently

appointed collector for our Museum exclusively”. Furthermore, it was

decided that a staff of scientific and technical officers was essential if the

Museum were to progress and properly carry out its functions. The

appointment of George Beazley has been referred to already. Johann

Gottlieb Otto Tepper, a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London, joined

the staff in 1883, first in the capacity of “collector,” at a salary of £150

per annum. His work was to be especially concerned with the entomologi-

cal section. Soon he became Entomologist and collector, and then for

many years was in charge of the entomological section, the coin collection

and the Museum library; in 1890 he was titled “Museum Entomologist’.

Tepper submitted a number of entomological papers to the Philo-

sophical Society of Adelaide and many more after it became the Royal

Society of South Australia. His efforts covered also botany, including

lichens and fungi and some really remarkable subjects for an entomolo-

gist; for example “On Whirlwinds,” ‘Red Rust” and “Bay of Biscay

soil of South Australia and its formation’’.

For several years Tepper assisted in many directions within the

Museum, including assistance with labelling. It would appear from the

minutes that the first type-writer owned by the Museum was purchased

in 1885. This, a “Hall,” was to be used primarily for gallery work and

it was decided that Tepper was “to learn to use the machine and print

labels as required”.

Amandus Heinrich Christian Zietz, as a result of a recommendation

by Haacke, was engaged as a preparator in 1884, the intention then

being that he would be employed chiefly in preparing Mollusca and other

[LIGL-O88T ‘ISIFopowo Uy GOGI-R88T ‘tojoolrqg JUe]sIssy

WHddaL AHVLLLOD NNVHO? ZLAIZ NVILSIYHD HOTHNINH SOONVINY

HAACKE AND STAFF . 41

invertebrates for exhibition, as well as caring for all specimens preserved

in alcohol. In 1888 he was appointed Assistant Director, under Stirling,

then Honorary Director.

Zietz was born in Schleswig-Holstein, Denmark, and prior to his

South Australian appointment was a member of the staff at the Zoological

Institute Museum at Kiel, first as a preparator and then as Curator. His

main interests lay with birds and fishes; later he was to become a

foundation member of the Royal Australian Ornithologists’ Union and

a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia.

A. Zietz was right-hand man to Stirling for 25 years, carrying out

most of the actual work of preservation of all other than taxidermy

material, the restoration of fragile skeletons, and preparation of a great

number of zoological specimens for exhibition; entailed often was the

tedious business of identifying material passing through his hands with

aid of the limited literature then available. Much of the research con-

ducted at the Museum during his long years of service would have been

impossible without the efforts of a professional officer of the calibre of

Zietz.

Acting on a suggestion from Haacke, Zietz had brought to Australia

a considerable collection of fishes and other marine specimens from the

Baltic and for these he was paid £50 by the Museum. Amongst other

activities he extended the collection of coloured plaster casts of South

Australian fishes in place of the less attractive spirit material. F. Santi,

an expert artisan, was employed at times to make plaster casts of fishes

and other objects but as he could not colour these accurately, A. Saupe

was also engaged to assist.

Zietz carried out much marine collecting, mainly in the littoral areas,

working in the two South Australian Gulfs as well as on adjacent islands

and reefs. Commander Walcot of H.M.C.S. Protector was of great

assistance at this stage. Becoming interested in the Museum he

supplied it with some large sharks, while Zietz was enabled to travel

on the ship in order to secure marine material; by 1887 he was in a

position to state that at least 200 species of fish occurred in our coastal

waters. In his later years he commenced a catalogue of the fishes in

the collection but this was never completed.

C. G. A. (Otto) Rau began his 45 years of service in the Museum

in 1883. He at once assisted Beazley in collecting and preparing skins

and skeletal material of marsupials. Under Beazley’s tuition he became

a skilled preparator and in 1894 was appointed Taxidermist and Arti-

culator.

Otho Nicolai Noake, who came on the staff as labourer in 1882 and

was made a permanent officer in 1883, later became head attendant and

did not retire until 1930, when he was 80 years of age. During the west-

42 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

wing period he acted as general assistant, particularly in the taxidermy

section, and for a while helped Zietz and Tepper in the task of labelling

exhibits.

Haacke’s lengthy reports to the Board give an impression of really

amazing activity. Before the end of 1883 the collections, particularly

those of the mineralogical and geological sections, had been enlarged by

purchase of specimens at home and abroad. By exchange, collections had

been received from the Museums in Sydney, Dunedin, Christchurch and

Brisbane. A collection of foreign bird skins was bought from George

Beazley, skeletons had been prepared for exhibition and many others

were in the course of preparation. A fine Polar bear and the skeletons

of a camel and of several ostriches had been presented. F. W. Andrews,

Haacke reports, had already obtained a large collection of South Australian

birds. Fishes, reptiles, insects, as well as crustaceans and other marine

invertebrates, had been collected by Haacke himself or had been donated

From the Australian Museum, and from a number of interested South

Australians, ethnological collections had been received, the additions com-

ing from Western Australia, Central Australia, the Northern Territory

and New Guinea.

Soon after the west wing was occupied, Stirling reported to the

Museum Committee that the crypt of the new building was damp and that

as a consequence not only had some specimens suffered but Beazley was

unwell, chiefly in consequence of working in the crypt in its damp state.

While thus absent on sick leave Beazley collected 46 zoological specimens

which he shortly afterwards offered for sale to the Museum Committee!

Also purchased from Beazley were specimens which he had mounted in

his own time and a collection which he had acquired from F. W. Andrews

prior to the appointment of the last-named.

It would seem that Beazley always had an eye for profit. At his

request he was given permission by the Museum Committee to use his

workroom at the Museum and the tools therein for the mounting of

specimens for private disposal; this of course to be in his own time. Some

transactions which appear a little strange took place between him and

the Committee. For example, the skin of a Bird of Paradise was offered

to the Museum but for some reason or other was not accepted; Beazley,

finding it a remarkably fine specimen, bought it himself and after

mounting it submitted it to the Committee for purchase—which was

approved. As a protege of the eminent Professor Flower, apparently he

was given a great deal of latitude.

Haacke had no small conceit of the superiority of some of his

practices. He stated that he had found it necessary to improve the

methods of preserving and mounting museum specimens—‘“I have tried,

I hope successfully, to rival the best public Museums in Europe in this

HAACKE AND STAFF 43

respect. By an invention not yet published, I have greatly improved the

art of mounting specimens preserved in spirits, so that these objects,

which in other Museums are lost in their bottles, will in our institution

form an attractive feature.” His method was simple—the fastening of

specimens by adhesive or thread to glass slips of various colours and cut

to fit into the exhibition jars. Again, he states that the loss by evapora-

tion of the alcohol used as a preservative had been “much minimised by

an apparatus invented by myself”.

Haacke proposed innovations in the South Australian Museum which

are commonplace today. As Ralph Tate had suggested five years before,

he wished to inaugurate study collections of Australian zoological and

other material, purely for research purposes, and arranged in the recog-

nised classificatory systems, so that they would be readily available for

scientific investigation. He desired that a Museum library of greater

scope be built up by subscription to research journals, purchase of up-

to-date monographs, and other literature. Very pertinently he drew

attention to the lack of literature which would enable specialists to

identify specimens, stating that as this was not available the only alterna-

tive was to send unnamed material, or duplicates of it, to competent

researchers elsewhere. This last course Haacke was pursuing almost as

soon as he came to South Australia.

In order to stimulate collecting, Haacke, in conjunction with E. C.

Stirling and Beazley, prepared directions for collecting and preserving

objects of natural history.

Some of the instructions are amusing. For instance:

Collect wherever there is any possibility of doing so. Collect every-

thing you come across, however common, provided it is uninjured.

If no methylated spirit or spirit of wine is at hand, brandy or

whisky will serve the purpose, but whatever fluid is employed it should

be strong enough to ignite at once when a light is applied.

In 1880 a pamphlet was issued by the Adelaide Philosophical Society,

edited by the President and Honorary Treasurer, entitled A Scheme for

the Organisation and Direction of the efforts of Amateur Collectors.

This was prefaced by the following statement:

1. The Adelaide Philosophical Society, being desirous of encouraging

the study of Natural History, is prepared to direct the efforts of amateur

collectors, and to receive from them observations and specimens—under-

taking to record original observations, and when practicable to identify

specimens. Those willing to engage in a systematic correspondence are

requested to communicate with the Hon. Secretary, Adelaide.

2. Persons co-operating with the Society in recording Natural

History phenomena in this province be entitled ‘‘Local Correspondents”.

3. A list of local correspondents be appended to the ‘‘List of Members

of the Society,” published in its Transactions.

44 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

4. Approved communications from local correspondents and members,

and records of new facts, not being of the nature of a formal paper,

be published in the Transactions of the Society under the title of

“Miscellaneous Contributions to the Natural History of South Australia,”

and that a reprint of the same be transmitted to each local correspondent.

Note:—Eminent Australian naturalists have consented to act as

referees in their respective departments.

Later in the same year when the Philosophical Society had become

“Royal” the “Scheme” was published in their Transactions and Proceed-

ings and Report.

Within a year of Haacke’s term as Director, 500 copies of the

Museum’s “Directions” had been distributed and a second edition was

anticipated.

Haacke laid out a plan of exhibits for the new Museum in methodical

order. His ideas and ideals were sound and an influence such as his was

wanted badly at the time. Actually, notwithstanding his bursting

activity, his spate of suggestions was not implemented to any great

extent.

Unfortunately, considerable collections were sent abroad by Haacke.

For example, he forwarded 1,000 zoological specimens to A. Schneider’s

establishment in Basle, having been promised in exchange, among other

things, preparations of the Zoological Station in Naples, and African and

South American fishes “unrepresented even in the British Museum”. As

in the case of his predecessor, Haacke considered that exchanges must

be conducted with vim and vigour, remarking that it “is chiefly by

exchanging with other Museums that our Museum can hope to acquire

a good reputation; most of our money, therefore, should be spent in

making collections in our colony”.

It is also to be regretted that when the collections were moved to the

west wing Haacke so hurriedly destroyed much of the Australian

zoological material previously exhibited. One can only hazard a guess

as to what was the ultimate fate of all the collections acquired by

Waterhouse’s exchanges. Certainly much of it must have deteriorated

during his declining years for lack of staff and suitable accommodation.

Equally certainly, as evidenced by his lists, Waterhouse sent at least

some exotic specimens away as exchanges. The less perishable collections

were in good order; only the birds and mammals, which do require

constant supervision and attention had suffered lamentably.

Credit undoubtedly is due to Haacke for establishing the nucleus of

some really good representative extra-Australian material. His efforts

are obvious in the overseas collections acquired during his Directorship.

It was Haacke who first suggested “that a scientific journal be

published under the auspices of the Museum—to contain notices of new

HAACKE AND STAFF 45

species of the Australian fauna, anatomical monographs thereof” etc.

This proposal was not made again until 1917, then with successful results.

Haacke became a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Australia,

and was elected to Council in 1882. He exhibited natural history speci-

mens at the meetings, including material which demonstrated ovoviparity

in the Spiny Anteater or Echidna (Tachyglossus aculeatus—formerly

Echidna hystrix). On September 2, 1884, he proudly showed “an ovum

found in the pouch of a female echidna, proving that the echidna, although

a milk-giving animal, lays eggs which are hatched in the pouch.” At the

annual meeting which took place the following month:

W. Haacke, Ph.D., exhibited two photographs and dissections of a

female Echidna hystrix, in the pouch of which he had found the ovum

shown at the last meeting. There was only one large pouch, not two small

semicircular fossae, as seen by Professor Owen. The large pouch

evidently acted as an incubator for the ovum, and probably disappeared

after the hatching of the young, only two small semilunar fossae being

left. He pointed out also that his specimen showed small tufts of hair

on the mammary aveola [sic] now discovered by him in several male

echidnae, which on being dissected were found to possess unmistakable

rudimentary milk glands, thus showing that the generally adopted belief

ee is glands were missing in the male monotremata was discredited

y facts.

It was on August 25, 1884, with O. Rau standing by, that Haacke,

in dissecting a female Echidna, had discovered a broken egg in the

pouch. Unfortunately for him, only the day before, W. H. Caldwell, of

Cambridge, then working in Queensland, had dissected a female which

had laid one egg, and had another ready to be laid.

There seems to-have been little time in Haacke’s busy life for field

work. He does mention a visit of a month’s duration in 1883 to Port

Vincent, on the western shore of St. Vincent Gulf, where, assisted by

F. W. Andrews and O. Rau, he secured some 3,000 specimens, chiefly of

marine animals, which he considered to comprise about 230 different

species.

Next year Andrews was to meet a tragic end. As earlier mentioned,

he commenced work for the Museum as bird collector and naturalist in

1864; his record in his chosen field is outstanding. He was born in

England about 1824 and before his association with the South Australian

Museum had behind him 30 years’ experience in collecting. J. B. Cleland

epitomizes his work in the following words:

In 1864 he described birds from the interior. In 1865, he was on the

River Murray, its anabranch, the Darling, Goolwa and Milang; in 1866,

at Point McLeay; in 1867 and 1868 at ‘Mingbool,’ Mount Gambier; in

the latter year at Tarpeena near Mt. Gambier also, and at the Glenelg

River; in 1871 at Lake Gairdner, Yardea, and the Gawler Ranges; in

1874 and 1875 with Lewis’s Lake Eyre Expedition; in 1878 at Port

46 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

Augusta; in 1880 at the Gawler Ranges, and from April 9 to November

with Samuel White in the Aru Islands; in 1881, at Nonning and Mount

Compass; in 1883, west of Port Augusta, at Coralbignie, Nonning,

Thurlga, Moonaree, and perhaps at Overland Corner; and again at Mount

Compass in October, 1884, where he was drowned. In 1877, from March

3 to June 16, he contributed articles on birds to “The Chronicle’. On

February 6, 1883, he contributed “Notes on the Night Parrot (Geop-

sittacus occidentalis)” to the Royal Society of South Australia. He had

shot specimens at Cooper’s Creek in 1875 and in the Gawler Ranges. Ina

note added by Professor R. Tate, it is stated that Baron von Mueller,

towards the end of 1867, transmitted a living specimen of the Night

Parrot, described as inhabiting the Gawler Ranges in South Australia,

to the Zoological Society’s Garden in London.

When Andrews was collecting naturalist attached to the Lake Eyre

Expedition of Lewis he prepared Notes on the Aborigines met with on

the trip of the Exploring Party to Lake Eyre, in command of Mr. J. W.

Lewis; this was published in G. Taplin’s The Folk-Lore, Manners,

Customs and Languages of the South Australian Aborigines in 1879.

In the annual report of the Museum Board following Andrews’ death,

Stirling recorded his appreciation:

This seems a fitting place for the mention of a loss which the

Museum and Australian Zoology in general has sustained during the

last year, by the death of Mr. F. W. Andrews, who was accidentally

drowned in a waterhole near Mount Jagged, on October 19, 1884, while

on a collecting expedition. Mr. Andrews had been collecting in Australia

for upwards of a quarter of a century, and had a large and extensive

acquaintance, from actual observation, with the Australian fauna —

especially the birds. It is probable that he has left very few, if any,

to equal him in this respect. He had long been connected with the South

Australian Museum, in different capacities, but of late years his health

had been failing, and it was not probable that he could have much longer

borne the fatigue and exposure which a collector must necessarily

undergo...

Early in 1884 the exhibition areas allotted for the Museum were

already filled. It was suggested by Haacke that the coins, a collection

of which had been accumulating for years, should be handed over to

the library or to the technological museum, should this be established, as

there was no space in which to show them; they continued to be cared

for and added to under Tepper’s charge until they became part of the

Art Gallery collections about 25 years later. Haacke wrongly considered

Australian ethnologia to be well represented. Only a few skeletons of

Australian aboriginals had been preserved. Ethnological material from

Fiji and the south-east of New Guinea was in hand, but very little other

Pacific Islands material. By this time Haacke had learnt, and commented

on, the fact that “the number of representatives of most of the species

of our native animals and plants, as well as of the aboriginals of Australia,

is rapidly diminishing from year to year”.

HAACKE AND STAFF 47

A grave difference of opinion now arose between Beazley and the

testy Haacke, who charged him with insubordination and brought other

matters against him. Apparently, not fully appreciating a “General

Order” of the Board issued in 1882, and instructing that no Museum

officers should become dealers in natural history material, Beazley it

seems did supply zoological things to various persons, and also mounted

and preserved specimens during Museum hours for the same purpose.

Amongst other quaint activities he was said to have “bred gentles (*) in

the macerating house and regularly supplied Mr. Jos. Allen, of Rundle

Street, a dealer in fishing tackle, with them.” He sent, privately according

to Haacke, fishes to the Australian Museum—the list of delinquencies in

fact was an extremely long one. In a letter to the Board advising that

Beazley’s services be dispensed with, Haacke made a curious statement.

“In explanation, I beg to state that I do not for one moment hesitate

to confess that I have a strong personal aversion against Mr. Beazley.”

A great deal of fuss and correspondence ensued; Beazley denied some

charges and explained others, until after an anxious and subduing period

the storm blew over.

Haacke’s prodigality in sending abroad so much material eventually

attracted public attention and he was freely criticised in the press, a

matter of interest in that seemingly this is the first protest by the man

in the street against undue exportations of Australian natural history

specimens, the first expression of opinion that future generations of

Australians might be interested in the fauna existing when the white

man first invaded our shores, and when the animals and the culture of

the aboriginals were as yet uninfluenced by European impacts and intro-

ductions.

This must have been a tempestuous period. Trouble arose all round,

between Tepper, Zietz, Beazley and Haacke. Beazley brought complaints

against his superiors to the Board. Part of the trouble may have been

that at this time Zietz knew little English and when he was interviewed

by the Museum Committee an interpreter was asked to attend in order

that his statements might be understood.

Following this unhappy state of affairs, and with difficulties accu-

mulating, Haacke applied for six months leave of absence on full salary

as from November 1, 1884 and at the same time tendered his resignation,

to take effect at the expiration of his leave. He also asked to have from

the Board an expression of their satisfaction of his conduct, particularly

“in the matter of Fijian collections said to have been sent to Germany”

(apparently most of the William Owen collection, donated in 1860). The

Board decided that a testimonial be supplied, divided into two statements

each to be signed by the Chairman. The result was as follows:

(*) Larvae of blow-flies.

48 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

It is hereby certified that Dr. Haacke was Director of the Public

Museum at Adelaide from November ist, 1882 to November ist, 1884,

when he resigned his position, and the Board of Governors of the Public

Library, Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia desire to express

an opinion that Dr. Haacke is a gentleman of high scientific attainments,

and that he discharged his duties faithfully and conscientiously.

In reference to insinuations published in letters to the Press that Dr.

Haacke has improperly disposed of native weapons and other curiosities,

the Board of Governors of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery

of South Australia, at Dr. Haacke’s request, certify that after investiga-

tion, the Museum Committee reported that in its opinion the Director had

not in any case exceeded his authority to effect exchanges of duplicates

with other Museums for such objects of interest as he desired to obtain.

For some time Haacke remained in South Australia and studied our

jelly-fishes, maintaining contact with the Museum Committee. Later, he

returned to New Zealand, and still later, when he became Director of the

Zoological Gardens at Frankfurt, he continued to correspond with the

Board.

Under New Management

The foundation stone of the west wing having been laid by Sir

William Jervois on November 7, 1879, his successor as Governor of the

State, Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson, opened the new building

on December 18, 1884. ;

The South Australian Institute ceased to exist on July 1, 1884, when

there came into operation the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery

Act of 1883-4. The Board of the defunct Institute, under a special

clause of the Act, became provisionally the Board of Governors of the

Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia, until the

Board provided for in the Act was appointed.

The new Board was gazetted on August 14, 1884; as had been deter-

mined it consisted of five members appointed by the Government, two

elected by the University of Adelaide, three by the Institutes Association

of South Australia and one by each of the following bodies: The Royal

Society of South Australia, The South Australian Society of Arts, the

Royal Geographical Society of Australasia (South Australian Branch) and

the Adelaide Circulating Library.

The Board met the day after it was appointed and immediately

elected five Standing Committees, including a Museum Committee of

eight members, of whom Dr. Edward C. Stirling was chairman. The

Museum Committee, not always so strongly represented and with, of

eourse, changing personnel, continued to function until a final Act

separated the three institutions in 1940.

Robert Kay, whose title had now become “General Director and

Secretary,” in 1884 was deputed to undertake the general oversight of

UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT 49

the Museum during Haacke’s leave of absence. Dr. Edward C. Stirling

was in England and was asked to make enquiries for a suitable person

to fill the position of Museum Director “at the present salary of £400

per annum.” During the four years following the resignation of Haacke

no suitable successor was available and in any case funds were so limited

that a Director’s salary could not be found. Therefore, with Kay as

general administrator, it devolved upon the Museum Committee and

particularly its Chairman, Stirling, to watch over the affairs of the

Museum.

Stirling was of Scottish descent. His father, Edward Stirling, came

to South Australia in 1839 and Edward Charles, born on September 8,

1848, was the eldest of eight children. He had a brilliant academic career.

He was educated at St. Peter’s College in Adelaide and left with the

family for England in 1865, having gained a Westminster Scholarship

the previous year. With his brother Lancelot he entered Trinity College,

Cambridge, and the two young men travelled extensively in Europe

during the long vacations. After graduating from Trinity College in

1869, B.A. with Honours in Natural Science, he became three years later

and while a student at St. George’s Hospital, a member of the Royal

College of Surgeons of England, and also was admitted M.A. and M.B.

Five years after this he was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of

Surgeons and became D.Se. (Cantab.); also he was M.D., Melbourne.

Stirling returned to South Australia in 1881 and was elected to the

Council of the University of Adelaide in June of the same year; as

already mentioned, very soon afterwards he was elected to the South

Australian Institute Board as a representative from the University. One

marvels that Stirling found the time to devote to his multitudinous

interests. Apart from representing North Adelaide in the Legislature

from 1884 to 1887, he was lecturer on physiology at the University, where

he was chief founder of the Medical School.

Stirling was at once concerned regarding the relative paucity of

Australian vertebrates (other than fossil material) in the Museum, re-

marking that the absence of anything like a representative collection of

mammals and birds was especially noticeable. Of mounted specimens

for exhibition only 12 Australian mammals and 60 Australian birds were

left. Beazley, now Taxidermist and Articulator, was asked to examine

the collections and found that, apart from mounted material, there

remained a fairly good series of skins of Australian mammals, but of birds

only 690.

The Museum, however, for the first time in its history was no longer

a “one man show.” It had a staff, small but efficient, and behind it the

enthusiasm and drive of Stirling and his Committee. From this time

onwards, as far as was humanly possible, the position was retrieved, and

50 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

with conspicuous success. True, some gaps remain; good collections of

some of our species of furred and feathered animals are not possible now.

The Night Parrot may be extinct. One of our fleetest and most beautiful

wallabies, the Toolach (Wallabia greyi) has not been seen for years, and

the mainland form of the scrub Wallaby or Pademelon (Thylogale

eugenii), seems to have disappeared, although once it was common near

Adelaide, and at the beginning of the present century was still plentiful in

some scrub-covered districts.

Kangaroos, Whales and Giant Birds

A communication received by the Museum Committee from C. G.

Thomas of Parnaroo is of interest as, in South Australia, it assisted to

fan the flames of an argument which continues to this day—the method

of birth in the Kangaroos. The letter, dated June 25, 1886, stated that

Thomas had “recently collected and opened a doe kangaroo and a doe Euro

and had in each found an embryo in the womb, and offers to endeavour to

procure specimens for the Museum of Adelaide.”

Bottles and spirits were sent to Thomas with a request for preserved

evidence. A little later in the same year, Stirling noted “that in the womb

of one of the marsupials lately sent .. . . a young one had been found.”

At a meeting of the Royal Society of South Australia he then exhibited

“a preparation of the genitalia of a female kangaroo, demonstrating the

young attached by its umbilical cord...” Three years later in dissecting

a female kangaroo he found an embryo about to be born.

This was corroborative evidence of a fact established 80 years before,

namely that marsupial reproduction, apart from the short sojourn of the

young in the uterus, does not differ materially from that of the higher

mammals. For anatomical reasons the large median uterus present in

the last-named has not been developed in the marsupials and consequently

the young are born at a relatively early stage, tiny, naked and not

completely developed. As in the case of other marsupials, the little

kangaroo soon attaches itself to a teat, so firmly that in the earlier stages

of growth it is removed with difficulty, the mouth sometimes bleeding

as it is forced from the tip of the teat, which becomes globular after the

embryo has fastened itself thereto. This often led kangaroo hunters and

other folk “in the bush” to support the absurd theory that in some

miraculous way the young is born “through the teat” or grows on the

apical portion of it.

The actual births of kangaroos and wallabies have been witnessed on

a number of occasions in the presence of witnesses and duly recorded.

The earliest record in print of the observed birth and unaided progress

to the pouch of an Australian wallaby appeared as far back as 1830, when

—

EDWARD CHARLES STIRLING

Honorary Director, 1889-1895 and 1913-1914. Director, 1895-1913. Honorary

Curator of Ethnology, 1914-1919

STIRLING AS HONORARY DIRECTOR 51

an officer of H.M.S. Success in Western Australia witnessed the birth and

the slow creeping of the young towards the pouch of the mother.

It is a remarkable circumstance that between October 1884 and

October 1889 three examples of the Pygmy Right Whale (Caperea

marginata), extremely rare in Museum collections, were stranded on

South Australian shores. This, the smallest of the baleen or whalebone

whales and not exceeding 20 feet in length, had not been observed on our

coasts before. Actually the species had not been seen in the flesh until

by some trick of fate the South Australian specimens appeared. Probably

less is known of the habits of Pygmy Right Whales than of any other

cetecean; they are rarely seen by whalers and may be few in number.

All three South Australian specimens were recovered. The first

came ashore at Brownlow, near Kingscote on the north coast of

Kangaroo Island, and its mounted skeleton still hangs in the Museum.

The second, a young male less than 8 feet in length, became entangled

in a fisherman’s net at Victor Harbour, Encounter Bay, in 1887 and the

unmounted skeleton and baleen have been preserved. The last example, a

male nearly 11 feet long, also was stranded at Kangaroo Island. The

skeleton was cleaned and was sent to the Cambridge University Museum

by Stirling, but before it was fleshed a cast of the head was made; replicas

of the cast were forwarded to several overseas Museums and in one of

them the baleen was included. Stirling, aided by Beazley, took measure-

ments and photographs of the youngest of the pygmy whales and sent

them to Professor Flower of the British Museum, who writing in acknow-

ledgement of the information stated that it enabled him to clear up “some

uncertainty which has hitherto existed as to the external characteristics

of this whale.”

The data concerning the three specimens were recorded by the writer

over 40 years later.

In 1889, the Museum Committee purchased in New Zealand for £100

a good composite skeleton of a large Moa (Dinornis elephantopus),

the sternum in this belongs to another species. A fine ostrich, still on

exhibition, was this year presented by the South Australian Ostrich

Company, founded when the plumes of the bird were demanded by the

ladies, but going out of business when fashions changed.

Stirling as Honorary Director

The year 1889 marked the appointment of Stirling as Honorary

Director, as he himself modestly put it ‘partly as a matter of convenience,

in view of correspondence with other Museums and their officers, partly

as a matter of justice, as he is doing (and has done for several years) a

large part of the work of a Museum Director”; he had been Chairman

52 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

of the Committee since 1882. This same year Dr. William Everard, one

of the Board members elected by the Government, died; Everard had

been a member of the South Australian Institute Board for 23 years, and

his useful services had continued on the new Board and its Committee.

In Everard’s place came, for one year only, William Austin Horn, who

held a seat in the South Australian Legislature from 1887-93 as member

for Flinders. A few years before, already interested in the Moonta copper-

mine, Horn had invested in the opening up of the Broken Hill silver-lead

field; his gifts to the Museum included 12,000 ancient coins, the valuable

Heuzenroeder collection, which he purchased and presented. Horn was

born in New South Wales in 1841, had come to South Australia early in

life and was educated at St. Peter’s College.

Stirling, in the capacity of Honorary Director, continued to control

the activities of the Museum during the whole of its sojourn in the west

wing. He was anxious to supplement the Australian ethnological

material and it is to him that future generations are indebted for the

initial large collections of South and Central Australian aboriginal objects.

As one instance of his enthusiasm it may be mentioned that he prepared

a circular, which was sent to police stations and telegraph operators all

over South Australia, asking that every effort be made to secure the

handiwork of our aboriginals. As a result large quantities of material

were donated or purchased. Amongst outstanding presentations was an

almost complete set of the implements and weapons of one of the tribes

of the Musgrave ranges, sent in by P. St. B. Ayliffe; this was recorded

as a “specially valuable donation.” Ayliffe also collected ethnologia from

near Carnarvon in Western Australia.

It is interesting to note the curious circumstances under which some

material was acquired. Oswald B. Lower, an excellent private collector

of Lepidoptera and then a pharmacist at Parkside, discovered at Milang

an ancient carved aboriginal waddy which was being used as a perch in

a fowlhouse! He rescued it from this unseemly fate but not wishing to

part with it lent it to the Museum in order that a cast might be made; the

Museum acquired the original 38 years later, when the important Lower

collection of South Australian butterflies and moths was purchased.

Long after his departure from South Australia, Sir George Grey

continued to send donations to the Museum at Adelaide. One of his

outstanding gifts now was an excellent example of a New Zealand

greenstone axe, or Mere; several attempts were made to steal this when

it was exhibited, and it has been replaced with a coloured plaster cast

exactly resembling the original, which is placed in safe storage.

Through the kindness of the then Governor of South Australia, the

Earl of Kintore, in 1890-1 Stirling was enabled to accompany His Ex-

cellency and his party to Central Australia and the Northern Territory,

STIRLING AS HONORARY DIRECTOR 53

travelling overland from Adelaide to Port Darwin. As assistant he took

with him Thomas Cornock, who for some years was engaged by the

Museum as collector, he having some skill in taxidermy; a man named

James Stowe drove Cornock’s vehicle. Stirling soon found that the too

rapid movement of the party northwards gave him little time for

systematic collecting, so he left Cornock behind to carry on at a more

leisurely pace. Further trouble was experienced in the Northern Terri-

tory, which was reached during the wet season, and Stirling wrote on his

return that there ‘the frequent tropical rains, great heat, and luxuriant

growth of rank grass, which sometimes reached 8 or 10 feet in height,

made the work of collecting and preserving exceedingly difficult.” Never-

theless some worthwhile material was secured. A specimen of the great

white Carnivorous Bat was found in a cave near Alice Springs. This

queer creature (Megaderma gigas) is often referred to in zoological

literature as the Great Blood-sucking Bat but much later it was proved

that it preyed upon smaller insectiverous bats. Apparently because of

changing conditions in the interior, and perhaps a decrease in the number

of small bats, the species died out; desiccated specimens have been found

since in many caves. It is known, however, that Megaderma still exists

in other Australian localities. Amongst the birds the expedition secured the

Princess Alexandra Parrot (Polytelis alexandrae); strangely enough the

specimens were shot at almost the same place, Howell’s Ponds, in the

neighbourhood of Newcastle Waters, from which F. G. Waterhouse

obtained the type material which was sent to John Gould. Prior to this

the species was not represented in the Museum collection, indeed, it

seems that the only skin available in Australia, and that a not very good

one, was in the Dobroyde Museum of E. Pierson Ramsay in Sydney; two

living specimens of the bird, however, were in captivity near Adelaide. An

example of the very rare Pig-footed Bandicoot (Chaeropus ecaudatus)

was found by Stirling in the hands of aboriginals “who had somewhat

mutilated it.” There is no doubt that the natives were generously

recompensed for their loss of a meal and Stirling was able to save a

fairly good skin and most of the skeleton. Altogether about 800 zoological

specimens were taken, comprising 250 species, of which approximately

120 were new to the collections. More than 500 ethnological objects were

secured and Stirling at this stage maintained that he did not believe that

there existed anywhere else so large a collection as that now in the

Museum; since then it has become many times as large, mostly by

accessions ‘during the present century.

The first known specimen of the amazing blind Marsupial Mole had

heen sent to the Museum in 1888. This was found at Idracowra Station

on the Finke River by William Coulthard, who, attracted by some

peculiar tracks, had followed them up and found the creature lying under

54 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

a porcupine bush. Not having seen anything like it before, he gave it

to Charles Benham, a nephew of Albert Molineaux, who sent it to the

Museum where it was examined by Stirling and Zietz. This example was

in poor condition, having been eviscerated and then wrapped in a kerosene-

soaked rag for its 1,000 mile journey south, but Stirling reported the

discovery at once to the Royal Society of South Australia and to Nature.

Some months later three more specimens were received, all males, but

only one of them was in a good state of preservation. During the trans-

continental trip arranged by Lord Kintore six complete examples

(including four females) and one skeleton were collected and handed to

Stirling, who was then able to furnish a full description of the species,

which he named Notoryctes typhlops. J. F. Bishop, the book-keeper at

Idracowra, kept the species alive for a time and made notes on its habits,

which Stirling published, together with additional notes on the anatomy

of the curious creature.

It is not known with certainty whether or not Notoryctes constructs

deep permanent burrows as does the European Mole; Wood-Jones

considers that the female may do so in order to produce her young. The

queer marsupial burrows in the loose sandy soil of our arid regions in

search of food, and it seems that it is driven to the surface after rain

when the top soil becomes a little consolidated. It is at such times, when

the surface is smoothed and consolidated by rain, that its tracks are

readily discernible by aboriginals and others interested.

In general the Marsupial Mole resembles the African Golden Moles,

which are unrelated insofar that they belong to the Eutherian or higher

mammals. Stirling was quick to note the similarity in appearance and a

few years later obtained specimens from the South African Museum for

comparison.

Notoryctes has no external ears, the tiny auditory openings being

concealed by the fine and silky hair clothing the animal. No eyes are

visible and the tail, which is carried erect when the animal is above ground

is reduced to a stump covered with hard annulated skin. The front feet

are highly modified for digging.

Miss Rosa C. Fiveash, a private art tutor, was responsible for the

excellent colour plates illustrating Stirling’s descriptions. A well-known

figure in her day, she trained pupils who sat for examinations under

Harry P. Gill, in charge of the Art Gallery and “Director for Technical

Art and Examiner.”

Following the Lord Kintore expedition Stirling visited Europe, where

he arranged many exchanges and made many purchases, paying particular

attention to securing skeletons of large mammals from Gerrard’s in

London. Prior to this the anthropoid material had been building up. A

few years before the Rajah of Sarawak had supplied three skeletons of

THE DIPROTODON 55

the Orang-utan from Borneo, four other Orangs had been “lent” by the

Zoological Society of South Australia, and from Gerrard’s had come

skeletons and mounted skins of a female and an old male gorilla. The

last-named, with its mate, has been exhibited for many years and appar-

ently none but the Museum staff has noticed that it is furnished with

teeth of a horse. A chimpanzee, mounted skin and skeleton, as well as

human skeletons had been acquired. Other good anthropoid material,

two gibbons and other monkeys had come from the Zoological Gardens,

the Council of which to this day is a welcome contributor of their mis-

fortunes.

Unfortunately for the Museum in South Australia, Stirling was

generous in his distribution of Notoryctes material and “in the interests

of science and without stipulating for exchanges” he presented specimens

to the British Museum, the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons,

the Cambridge University Museum, and the National Museums at Paris,

Berlin, Florence, Utrecht and Stockholm.

Stirling made particular enquiries and notes regarding “matters of

museum economy” in the leading British museums and there is little

doubt that this influenced for a while his future policy, especially in

regard to the arrangement of the galleries in a new building, erected

soon after for the South Australian Museum.

The Diprotodon

Walter Howchin, later to become Honorary Professor of Geology at

the Adelaide University, in 1891 drew attention to the discovery of a

skull of the extinct giant marsupial Diprotodon in the vicinity of Gawler.

A. Zietz recovered this from its matrix, together with some other bones

of the creature. This skull, not in perfect condition, was the third in

the collections; two years before a fairly good skull had been secured from

Baldina Creek, near Burra and in the same district fragments of a

smaller one.

In 1830, Sir Thomas Mitchell discovered the first recorded remains

of Diprotodon in the Wellington Caves, New South Wales. Since then

bones of this marsupial, which was as large as a Rhinoceros, have been

found in many parts of Australia and in New Guinea.

As noted earlier, teeth and fragments of bone belonging to

Diprotodon have been received by the Museum from many parts of South

Australia, including the Lake Eyre Basin; to this day remains are sent

occasionally to us, found during the sinking of wells or bores, in excavat-

ing for bridges, or in fresh-water sand pits. Apart from remains found

in caves these seem always to occur in swampy areas, or localities once

lacustrine. P

56 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

A few years before the discovery at Gawler, F. Brandis Ragless, of

Callabonna Station found in a water-course near the margin of Lake

Callabonna (until the end of 1893 known as Lake Mulligan) teeth and

portion of a lower jaw of Diprotodon and these were sent to the Museum

by his father, John Ragless. Then in January, 1892, an aboriginal

informed F. B. Ragless that large skeletons were present in the actual

bed of the lake, which these days is most times dry or boggy but not

very often a “lake” in reality. This discovery was made known to Stirling

and Zietz.

H. Hurst, who had experience in geological and palaeontological work

in Queensland, was commissioned to go to Lake Callabonna and report.

He arrived at Leigh Creek at the end of November, 1892, and left at once

for the lake. Returning in December to Adelaide he stated that the fossils

appeared to be much more numerous than was supposed; he suggested

that a larger party should travel to Callabonna, estimating the cost of

three months’ work there at £250. Judging from the minutes, the

Museum Committee had now become really enthusiastic. Stirling reported

that with strict economy for the rest of the financial year £250 could

be scraped up “‘to expend on a search for further remains of Diprotodon.”’

Accordingly Hurst, with three assistants to dig out the bones, left Adel-

aide in January, 1893, to obtain a representative collection and to report

further.

Towards the end of June a heavy fall of rain made the lake-bed boggy

and impossible to work; Hurst returned to Adelaide with his report and a

horse-drawn vehicle loaded with some of the bones he and his assistants

had dug out. He was sent back a third time to pack the rest of the

excavated specimens and it was found that about 80 Diprotodons were

represented in the bones secured by this exploring party.

Lake Callabonna lies between Lakes Blanche and Frome and is con-

nected to both by a series of channels. It is also connected with Cooper

Creek by the Strzelecki and, occasionally heavy flood-waters from the

Cooper flow along Strzelecki Creek and into Lake Callabonna, as well as

into Lake Blanche. During a dry period salt water occurs a few feet below

the surface of Lake Callabonna, and may lie on the surface in miniature

lagoons and water-courses.

The then Government Geologist, indefatigable Henry Yorke Lyell

Brown, was investigating an area not far from Callabonna at this time

and made a trip to the Lake in order to see for himself the truly remark-

able panorama presented by what is virtually a graveyard of these heavy

marsupials. Brown furnished a report to his superior, the Commissioner

of Crown Lands, and his personal impressions provide as graphic a

description of the scene as one could wish. He wrote:

THE DIPROTODON 57

The principal locality is in the lake, about two miles from the shore,

and skeletons of Diprotodon Australis are scattered over an area of

several acres. The place where each skeleton is embedded is generally

marked by a low out-crop of travertine limestone and gypsum, which

forms a coating over the place where it lies, and is doubtless due to the

decomposition of the bones. In most cases some of the bones or teeth are

visible on the surface, and indicate the position of the body. One skeleton

shows the outline of the head, backbone, and legs of an animal lying on

its side as it was found. The position taken generally is a squatting one,

the skeleton lying with back upward, the head on one side, and the legs

spread far apart, and folded up under and alongside the body, and not

embedded more than two or three feet from the surface. One remarkable

thing is that the bones, although sometimes disjointed and broken, still

lie close to the body, which seems to prove that the animal died at the

place where and in the position in which it is found, and has not been

washed down by floods...

Owing probably to the nature of the material they are embedded

in, or to the action of the salt water, the bones and teeth are very brittle,

and fall to pieces on being dried and afterwards becoming damp. Skulls

are tolerably well preserved, as also are the shoulder-blades, bones of the

pelvis, leg-bones, etc., whilst the vertebrae and ribs are generally in a bad

state of preservation. The bones of the feet have been obtained from

some specimens, showing that there were five toes on each foot, and that

the heel bones protruded a good deal. The tail bones have also been

found. The tail was small and short, and the extreme joint claw shaped.

It is doubtful whether it showed at all in the animal when living. It is

also evident that the forelegs were longer than the hindlegs.

The skull measures in some specimens three feet in length, and

the length of the animal from the tip of the tail to the snout would

probably be about ten feet; its height at the shoulder from five to six

feet. The neck is comparatively short for such a size of head. The large

size and width of the pelvis and shoulder-blades is remarkable, as also

are the thickness of the limbs and the thickness and height of the bone

which separated the nostrils. In one place marks like the casts of small

grass stems are visible on the coating of carbonate of lime which is

usually found on the surface overlying the skeletons. This may turn out

to be the impressions of bristles or hairs. The cast of what is apparently

the impression of a portion of a sole of a foot, or the fossilized foot itself,

has been found, which shows that it was covered with pointed, conical-

shaped prominences, which, from their unworn condition, indicate, that

the animal did not travel over hard ground, but either frequented marshy

places or was aquatic in its habits...

Besides the skeletons of the Diprotodon the legbones of a gigantic

bird as large as the moa, bones and teeth of a large wombat, and a

kangaroo have also been discovered by the Museum collecting party. The

footbones of this kangaroo when placed in position make the length of

the foot fourteen inches.

H. Y. L. Brown, looking to the future, made a wise recommendation,

namely that the whole area of the lake where fossils occur be reserved

58 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

for future scientific exploration. As a result, in 1901 the greater portion

of the lake was gazetted as a fossil reserve.

At this stage the Board of Governors of the institution considered

that further work should be carried on by and under supervision of a

responsible officer of the Museum. Accordingly, on August 11, 1893,

Stirling and Zietz left for Callabonna, but soon after their arrival a shower

of rain caused sheets of water to collect on the flats and filled the holes

previously excavated. Stirling stayed five days and left the camp in

charge of Zietz, being not well pleased with the methods used by the

previous expedition.

Besides Zietz, the party consisted of Thomas Cornock, some men

specially engaged for excavating, and two Afghans in charge of five camels

which were supplied by the Government. Zietz had a really tough time

for the next four months. His records show that during the whole of

that period the weather was boisterous and that the party suffered

considerable hardships. Meat and water were carried from the Callabonna

sheep station, six miles away, by the camels, but went bad very quickly.

As summer advanced, the water at the station ran short, and a supply

had to be secured from a well still further from the camp. Firewood had

to be gathered several miles away, as none was available in the vicinity.

The camels became poor, and rabbits which swarmed in the neighbour-

hood caused damage to the excavated bones in their vain search for

fresh water. The rabbits drank water from a salt spring at the base of a

sandhill a hundred yards from camp and died there, or after crawling into

the tents and packing boxes at the camp. In a frantic search for water

they gnawed holes in the water bags. “In one night at Callabonna

Mr. Ragless killed 1,400 with poisoned water, and what with drought

and the ravage of these pests, which stripped the scanty bushes of every

green leaf till they were nothing more than bundles of bare sticks, the

surrounding country presented an appearance of desolation that defies

description.”

With this combination of wind, sand, heat and the stench of dead

rabbits it is not surprising that the members of the party developed sore

eyes and gastric trouble. Finally, towards the end of November, fell

the last straw; heavy rain made further operations impossible on account

of the extreme bogginess of the ground, so the party returned to Adelaide.

Later Stirling published a generous statement, praising the fortitude and

indefatigable zeal of Zietz in continuing this arduous task, and giving

him the fullest credit for the recovery of a large amount of interesting

material.

Most of the bones taken were of Diprotodon, but extinct kangaroos

and a giant wombat (Phascolonus gigas) were also represented. Of un-

usual importance was the discovery, near the camp, of portions of skele-

MORE EXPEDITIONS 59

tons of four large extinct Ratite birds, later named Genyornis newtoni

by Stirling and Zietz; although parts of this bird had been collected long

before in various Australian localities it had not been possible previously

to diagnose its characters. The position of the Callabonna birds was indi-

cated in each case by a small heap of gizzard stones “smooth and worn

as if by attrition.” Zietz noted that bird bones were sometimes

encountered when Diprotodon skeletons were being excavated but were

unavoidably destroyed.

As may have been gathered, the institution as a whole was at this

time passing through one of its not infrequent periods of financial strin-

gency. The Museum Committee soon exhausted its funds in backing the

Callabonna project but at the critical stage Sir Thomas Elder gave

£500 towards the expenses, enabling a much larger collection to be ob-

tained than would have been possible otherwise. Elder, as a matter of

fact, between 1864 and 1894 encouraged most of the expeditions to the

lesser known parts of Australia; he endowed handsomely the Univers-

ity of Adelaide and by bequest enriched the Art Gallery in South Aust-

ralia. There is in the Museum the mounted skeleton of “Gang Forward”

a well-known English race-horse foaled in 1870 and imported by Sir

Thomas in 1876; the animal died at Morphettville in 1899 and was pre-

sented to the institution by T. E. Barr Smith.

More Expeditions

The collections made by the Elder Exploring Expedition of 1891-2

next engaged the attention of some of the Museum staff. This expe-

dition was lead by David Lindsay, who published his “journal” narrative

in 1893. An exceptionally well organised and equipped party hoped

to explore thoroughly the unknown country to the westward of Warrina

on the northern railway. They passed over the great Western Desert

and reached the Murchison District; an adverse season prevented them

from carrying out the hopes of Sir Thomas, and early in 1892 the party

was recalled.

Richard Helms, of Sydney, was the naturalist of this expedition.

Besides contributing a useful anthropological paper he collected zoolog-

ical material of which some, the reptiles, the few birds and mammals,

and a part of the insects (beetles, cockroaches, grasshoppers etc.), found

their way to the South Australian Museum; systematic reports were

made by Stirling and Zietz (vertebrates), while the Rev. T. Blackburn

and J. G. O. Tepper, dealt with the abovementioned insects.

The South Australian Museum supplied Helms with tubes, spirit

and other collecting material, while Professors Archibald Watson and

Ralph Tate, representing respectively Sir Thomas Elder and the Museum,

60 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

were deputed to supervise his equipment and to instruct him that all

specimens obtained must be handed over to the Adelaide Museum before

distribution.

The Royal Society of South Australia undertook publication of the

scientific results of the Elder Expedition but, after production of about

two-thirds of the records, ran out of funds; after a lapse of three

years, Robert Barr Smith (the noted South Australian pastoralist, mer-

chant and philanthropist) came to the rescue, and with his financial

assistance all data were published in the Transactions of the Society

between 1892-96, with Ralph Tate as editor.

In 1893, Stirling became a C.M.G. in recognition of his services to

South Australia and to science, and the same year he was made a Fellow

of the Royal Society of London. As a result of his researches he had

become well known throughout the scientific world. The Queen Regent

of Holland awarded him a gold medal for “services to art and science”

after the National Museum of Natural History in Leyden had been

enriched by him. He became an Honorary Fellow of the Anthropological

Institute of Great Britain, and an Honorary Member of the Gesellschaft

Naturforschender Freunde of Berlin, as well as a Corresponding Member

of the Zoological Society of London.

At the beginning of 1894 William Austin Horn was busy fitting out

an expedition to investigate the country between Oodnadatta and the

MacDonnell Ranges. In April of this year a special Museum Committee

was held, with the Lieutenant Governor in the chair and Professor

Ralph Tate and Sir Charles Todd present. The chairman “explained

that this meeting had been called at short notice to consider the desir-

ability of asking Dr. Stirling, if his other engagements will permit, to

accompany Mr. Horn’s expedition for the exploration, in a scientific

point of view, of the MacDonnell Ranges, in the interests of the Museum”.

So, leaving Zietz to supervise the work of installation of cases and

exhibits in a just completed north wing, which had been erected to

provide separate accommodation for the Museum, Stirling as anthro-

pologist and medical officer accompanied the Horn Expedition to Cen-

tral Australia. Charles Winnecke, surveyor and meteorologist, led the

expedition. Apart from Stirling and Horn himself, the other scien-

tific members consisted of Professor Ralph Tate of the University of

Adelaide as geologist and botanist, Professor Baldwin Spencer of the

University of Melbourne as zoologist and photographer, J. A. Watt as

mineralogist, and George Arthur Keartland, naturalist and collector.

Spencer prepared a summary of the results, wrote a narrative and des-

scribed some of the zoological material. Winnecke also wrote a

Journal of the Horn Expedition, which was published by the Govern-

ment Printer in Adelaide.

MORE EXPEDITIONS 61

Horn accompanied the party to Idracowra on the Finke River and

as all was going well returned to Adelaide. From Oodnadatta, then

the rail head, 2,000 miles were covered on camel back, the great lonely

basin of the Finke being transversed.

At this time it would seem that the Night Parrot (Geopsittacus

occidentalis) was by no means rare in the vicinity of Alice Springs. At

the Stuart Telegraph Station it was noticed that several picture frames

were covered with feathers of the bird which had been obtained from

specimens captured by cats at night.

The four volumes in which the results of the expedition are record-

ed comprise a vast amount of geological, botanical, zoological and eth-

nological data. The anthropological part was written by Stirling, in

conjunction with a paper by Francis John Gillen dealing with the man-

ners and customs of the aboriginals of the MacDonnell Ranges. Gillen

was then special magistrate and sub-protector of aborigines at Alice

Springs where for the first time he met Baldwin Spencer, who visited

him again the following year. As a result Gillen’s manuscripts, cover-

ing a period from 1894—1898, were in collaboration published as

“The Native Tribes of Central Australia” by Spencer and Gillen. Vol-

umes 2 to 5 of Gillen’s manuscripts for years have been preserved in the

Barr Smith Library of the University of Adelaide together with an un-

published vocabulary of the Aranda languages. Volume 1 was given to

Professor J. Burton Cleland, of the University of Adelaide, by the Gillen

family, in recognition of his services in writing a history, as yet unpub-

lished, of the activities of F. J. Gillen. Cleland presented this volume to

the University in 1955. The bulky manuscript is now supplemented by

Gillen’s notebooks which were presented to the Museum by his family.

The Gillen lantern slides and photographic negatives were purchased in

1910 by the South Australian Government and handed over to the Mu-

seum on conditions, prescribed by Cabinet.

The earliest of Gillen’s diaries in possession of the Museum covers a

journey from Adelaide to Alice Springs, May 26 to June 6, 1875;

this includes a ‘short vocabulary of native languages”. ‘The first of

Gillen’s published notes appears in E. M. Curr’s The Australian Race

(1, 1886, pp 416-421); wherein appear accounts by Gillen and R. E.

Warburton “of the tribe which occupies the country around the Char-

lotte Waters Telegraph Station, each accompanied by a vocabulary...”

Other members of the staff of the South Australian Museum

described sections of the Horn expedition material. A. Zeitz dealt with

the inland fishes and three of the six species which he named are valid

today. Tepper recorded the grasshoppers and the Rev. Thomas Black-

burn, as honorary entomologist, some of the beetles. Edgar R. Waite,

then in Sydney, reported on the rats, and in doing so made one of his

62 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

early contacts with the South Australian Museum, of which later he

was to become Director. A lizard, a fish and a shell were named after

Winnecke.

The Horn expedition led to some important additions to the zoological

and ethnological collections of the Museum, including type specimens

and a valuable series of the ceremonial wooden tjurunga of the Central

Australian aborigines. In 1897 W. A. Horn handed to Stirling a supple-

mentary donation of bird skins, representing 34 species, taken on the

expedition.

Exhibits and Collections

While Stirling and Zietz were thus engaged, George Beazley (Taxi-

dermist and Articulator), maybe a little apprehensive following Haacke’s

severe criticism, applied himself assiduously to his duties. Assisted by

O. Rau and Noake, he became particularly active in the mounting of

exhibits, preparation of skeletal material, and securing by purchase and

otherwise ethnological collections. He added hundreds of mounted speci-

mens, birds and mammals, to the exhibition halls and prepared hundreds

of skins for the research collections. He evolved the idea of placing

plaster casts of heads of mammals, made after skinning, in mounted

mammals instead of fastening the skin around the original skull, which

was thus not accessible for study; this to some degree may be said to

forecast mannikin methods employed today in modern museums. He

made collecting trips with Zietz to Kangaroo Island and the Pages, to

Morgan on the River Murray, and elsewhere. In company with O. Rau

he made a collection of skins of the larger marsupials at Winninninnie

Station. He suggested Museum groups which would show naturally

subjects such as a Wombat in its burrow, a Platypus in its nest, Kooka-

burras in a hollow tree, Mound-building birds with sections of their

mounds, Echidnas with a termites’ nest and so on. These proposals

were carried out long after Beazley had returned to England. A shed

was completed for housing the skeletons of the sperm whale and also

that of a Rorqual (Balaenoptera physalus) which had been purchased,

as a stranded specimen, some time before. This had been removed by

Beazley and an extension of the shed, at right angles to the original,

was soon erected to accommodate this and other material.

The Zoological and Acclimatization Society of South Australia, under

the Directorship of R. E. Minchin, was attempting to establish a museum

at the Zoo, or rather to continue to display specimens which had gone the

way of all flesh. Beazley was approached and asked to mount animals

which died at the Zoo but the Museum Committee did not regard this

with much approval, and pointed out to the Society the inadvisability

of establishment of a “rival museum” in Adelaide.

ggg, ‘Wopuoy Ur UOTIGIYXs URIpUy pue [eLUOTOF oy UL IqTEXo Unosnyy uelpeasny qyynog

EXHIBITS AND COLLECTIONS 63

Life-size figures of aborigines formed the major feature of the first

“diorama” to be installed in the South Australian Museum. A canoe was

included and the whole depicted a scene on the lower Murray; the case

was erected by Messrs. McDougall and Gow of Adelaide.

Beazley with his assistants, and in addition workmen employed

specially for the purpose, spent much of the year 1885 procuring and

preparing exhibits for the South Australian Court of the Colonial and

Indian Exhibition, held in London in 1886. A truly imposing array

was assembled—camels, various breeds of sheep (ten including a ram

were mounted) Angora goats, Australian birds, mammals, fishes and

reptiles as well as some plaster casts. Native trees and plants were

secured in order to provide natural surroundings for the different groups

to be set up. The life-sized figures of aborigines, in wax, were sent and

attracted much attention. Gold ores then valued at £150 and other

minerals also were lent for this exhibition. Beazley and O. Rau went

to Kangaroo Island and the Pages Rocks in a ketch— the Hawthorn,

commissioned for the purpose—in order to procure Sea-lions for the

Museum as well as for the Exhibition.

The exhibits staged at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition com-

prised, in fact, one of the most ambitious efforts of the Institution in

the direction of overseas display. A detailed description of the exhibit

was published in the Adelaide Observer of June 5th, 1886.

The accompanying photograph shows portion of the natural history

scene, occupying nearly one-third of the allotted space in the South Aust-

ralian Court. It is of interest in that it comprises a diorama of sorts,

which was described as follows:

In the centre of the broad and picturesque arrangement is the

wurley with its native inhabitants. On the left is the blackfellow in his

primitive canoe floating on the sheet of water whose sandy margin is

fringed with flags, and populated by the iguana and other crawling

things and birds living in the region of water. In the bushes and trees of

this part of the scene are bright-winged paroquets, cockatoos, and the

more sober-clad wattle bird, with the trunk of a tree showing opossums

with their young. Above head is a laughing-jackass following in rapid

flight the fall of a snake to the ground. An eagle holding a young

wallaby in its talons soars suspended in mid-air over another part of the

scene representing an emu in the corner sitting on her nest, and younger

ones around; wombats coming out of their holes; wallabies and kan-

garoos, some lying and some eating. The side painting of coast

scenery has a varied imaginative foreground of seals rising out of

water, of sea birds on the shore, and of a native in a rocky part light-

ing fire by friction.

Meanwhile the Jubilee Exhibition Building had been erected on

North Terrace and was opened for the first time on June 21, 1887, with

64 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

an International Exhibition to commemorate the jubilee of both Queen

Victoria and the founding of the Colony. The Museum authorities had

intended to stage a large exhibit, particularly as it was an Adelaide

show, but seemingly so much effort had been expended on the London

Exhibition, and so much urgent work remained at the Museum, that the

idea of a special display was abandoned. Some collections were sent

along, including most of the aforementioned gold and mineral specimens

from the South Australian Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition.

The gold ores had been returned by this time although some seem to

have been melted down in London. The State derived very consider-

able benefit from the Jubilee Exhibition and the Museum profited great-

ly. The Sultan of Johore had sent a splendid collection of Malayan

products, including a complete series of ethnological objects. These,

through the South Australian Government, were presented to the Museum

Committee; 150 pieces were retained and a goodly proportion, consisting

mainly of woods and vegetable products, were handed to the Botanic

Gardens Board for their museum. As a mark of appreciation a specially

bound and embossed album of photographs was prepared, after a great

deal of bother and discussion, and was sent to the Sultan as a mark of

appreciation. The photographs included two views of the Malayan

Court, and eight of the exhibition as a whole, 14 pictures of Adelaide,

24 of South Australia, seven of the far-north, and 13 of cattle and sheep.

The Victorian Commission of the Jubilee Exhibition had shown a

large series of fishes from Hobson’s Bay, and donated these; 20 of the

species were new to the collection at the time. The New South Wales

Commission had installed good New Guinea ethnological material—the

Theodore Bevan collections from “the Douglas and Jubilee Rivers”; these

were purchased, and a mineral collection was acquired which had been

named by J. F. Carne and’ Thomas Ford of the Sydney Department of

Mines.

The three wax figures of aboriginals sent to the Colonial and In-

dian Exhibition were shown again at the Jubilee Exhibition, when the

Museum Board was awarded a “First Order of Merit” for their excellence.

An interesting side-light on these Victorian times is found in the

minutes of the Museum Committee and concerns these figures, norm-

ally unclothed. When they were returned to the Museum, the com-

mittee was horrified to find that “the figure of the lubra was injured

by having large nails driven into it to hold the drapery, which a few

stitches would have done as well”.

Museum collections did suffer from this constant moving about and

a couple of years later the Committee decided “that past experience does

not encourage the Board to strip their own collections for the purpose

EXHIBITS AND COLLECTIONS 65

of enriching International Exhibitions”. This was not long after spec-

imens had been supplied for the South Australian Court of the Cen-

tennial International Exhibition of 1888-9 in Melbourne, held in connec-

tion with festivities arranged to commemorate the first British settle-

ment in Australia.

During the Jubilee year many other collections were donated. Worthy

of special note is a set of Hindoo kitchen utensils and other ethnologia

from Asia; some of these are now exhibited in an Indonesian Hall

opened in 1954 at the Museum.

It is interesting to learn from notes made at this time that A.

Zietz presented some excellent display suggestions. He proposed that

ethnological objects, such as those from Malaya, New Guinea and Fiji,

could be “explained’’ much better by the use of photographs showing

them in use. He found it impossible to secure suitable pictures but the

idea was reborn and carried out half a century later.

During this period the cabinets of Lepidoptera were enriched by

presentations by Sir Edwin Smith, L. G. Browne and others of butterflies

from Australia, India, Europe and America. An outstanding entomo-

logical collection was purchased from Mrs. Kreussler of Nuriootpa for

£210, quite a sum in those days. This was a wise purchase in view of the

rapid changes which were to take place in the insect fauna of the Mount

Lofty Ranges. A large collection of foreign Lepidoptera, contained in

two cabinets of 20 drawers each was purchased from Oswald B. Lower

of Parkside in 1892.

In the eighties, and a little after, Robert H. Pulleine, then a young

man, and for a time a cadet in the Public Library, conducted a number

of dredging ventures in Encounter Bay and secured a goodly amount

of marine material, which found its way into the collections; some of this

was described by the writer half a century later. It included some in-

teresting forms seldom or never taken since Pulleine’s trips. Dr. R. H.

Pulleine eventually became one of the leading surgeons of Adelaide. The

marine collections secured during this decade by A. Zietz, Dr. J. C.

Verco, Bednall, Beazley and others, constituted a fine beginning for

the much larger representation now in the Museum.

Among stranded marine rarities were two Sea Leopards (Hydrurga

leptonyx) which came ashore on South Australian coasts and were sent

to the Museum. The first was received in November, 1883. The

second, secured alive but exhausted, was found towards the end of

1893 and until it died was taken in charge by R. E. Minchin of the

Zoological Gardens, which then and until early in the twentieth century

possessed a seal pond. The natural habitat of the Leopard Seal is far

to the south, but single specimens occasionally make their way, probably

66 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

py accident, as far north as the southern coast of Australia. This applies

also to another Antarctic species, Weddell’s Seal (Leptonychotes

weddellii) young examples of which are stranded, though rarely, on

our south coasts.

Changes and Recruitments

Following a long period of activity, the irrepressible Beazley, for-

getting his previous contretemps, gave Stirling cause to view him with

disapproval. One does not have a complete story of all the trouble,

but it has been related that on one occasion, in exuberant mood, he

leapt on to the back of a Moose newly mounted for exhibition; to this

day the unfortunate Ungulate certainly has a decided list to port. One

has been told too, that he had entrusted to his care—again in the

famous macerating house—a living venomous snake and that shortly

he presented a pair of punctures on a finger, soliciting an order for

liquids calculated to relieve his distress. Stirling, his analytical mind

at work, measured the distance between the punctures and found this

to be much in excess of that separating the fangs of the reptile alleged

to have launched the attack.

Another practice said to have been carried out was that of re-

cording criticism of superior officers and then including the epistles

in the materials used in the stuffing of the larger mammals. If this be

true, at some indeterminate date some posthumous vitriolics may again

see the light of day.

Then there was trouble with the petty cash account and a com-

plaint from a furrier in Rundle Street that Beazley’s private commissions

were interfering with his business. He was missing from the Museum

from time to time, and although apparently he was not now breeding

maggots in the macerating house for fishing enthusiasts, his habits

“for a considerable time had been so unstable and so irregular as to

render him completely incompetent for the discharge of his duties”. His

official services at the Museum terminated at the end of August 1892,

but for a while he continued, in a private capacity, to mount specimens

for the institution, to which finally he sold his tools and other equipment

and departed from the scene, a colourful but erratic figure.

A collector of Australian birds, J. T. Cockerall, who once exchanged

skins with Waterhouse, again made a relatively brief appearance at

this period. Toward the end of 1890, the Museum paid him £12/10/-

for 300 bird skins and on two occasions in 1895 advances were made

to him for wages and expenses to be incurred on collecting trips to Yorke

Peninsula.

The services of T. Cornock were dispensed with early in 1894 and in

his place as a permanent officer was appointed Ferdinand Julius (Joe)

CHANGES AND RECRUITMENTS 67

Rau who had been employed as fireman, and towards the end of 1893

had been engaged to assist with Museum work, at which he showed

great aptitude. He and his brother Otto prepared an untold amount of

material for exhibition and for cabinet during the next four decades.

The Museum owes a great deal to the efforts of these two excellent

taxidermists.

In 1894 also it was decided that Noake’s time be wholly devoted

to the Museum as Attendant, his work to include clerical duties.

With increased facilities, the activities of the Museum officers, hon-

orary and otherwise, have left their mark in data and material during

the occupation of the west wing. It may be said with confidence that

at this period and to the present the results of individual effort within the

Museum became more apparent and it would be difficult to outline this

development without some further reference to honorary curators, who

during the last decade in the west wing were instrumental in the building

up of some sections.

T. C. Cloud, already familiar with the collections, became respon-

sible for the mineralogical section just before the opening of the west

wing and continued to supervise and add to the collections until he died

30 years later.

The number of specimens, relatively small prior to his appointment,

rapidly increased. Minerals from the Wallaroo and Moonta mines

were secured, while some of the smaller collections made by private in-

dividuals were purchased. At Cloud’s request the proprietors of the

Broken Hill Mine donated some of their various ores and minerals.

Towards the close of this period Cloud was away from Adelaide, and

Ralph Tate, then chairman of the Museum Committee, arranged the

minerals in the first building to be delegated solely to Museum purposes

—the north wing.

William Tompson Bednall was appointed Honorary Curator

of Conchology in 1886. He had been a generous donor for the previous

quarter of a century and 15 years before had commenced identification

of some of the Museum shells. Until 1886, however, these had never

been systematically arranged and classified. For many years to come

much of Bednall’s time was occupied with the molluscan collections. He

made catalogues of both Australian and exotic shells and for the first

time in the history of the Museum they were sorted out to form two

separate collections. Dr. Joseph C. Verco, whose first interest in natural

history had been fostered by F. G. Waterhouse, had commenced exten-

sive dredgings for Mollusca, of which he was an ardent collector and

careful student, and was accompanied by Bednall on sea trips off Kan-

garoo Island, in Yankalilla Bay and other localities.

68 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

With J. G. O. Tepper as salaried entomologist, the Rev. Thomas

Blackburn of Woodville, whose name has been mentioned already,

became Honorary Curator of Entomology in 1891, but for the previous

five years he had been taking home the Coleoptera a case at a time for

identification of the contents, an arrangement made with the Museum

Committee in 1886. The influence of his work on Australian beetles is

evident today. .

A fleeting appointment, but a most useful one, was that of the

Rev. William Roby Fletcher, who was Honorary Curator of Archaeology in

1893. Before this he had spent some time in Egypt and, acting on a com-

mission from the Earl of Kintore, had made worthwhile contacts and

procured a considerable number of archaeological objects which formed

the nucleus of the present Egyptian collections. The smaller Ptolemaic

mummy in the Museum was presented by Fletcher. His Highness the

Khedive of Egypt earned the gratitude of the Committee for his generous

contributions, and William A. Horn donated four very old Egyptian

bronzes.

Early in 1892 a letter was received from Miss Amelia B. Edwards,

Hon. Secretary of the Egyptian Exploration Fund, intimating that the

President and Committee desired, “on behalf of the Society, to present to

the National Museum of South Australia an inscribed column, described

as follows: Two large fragments of an inscribed column from the ruins

of the Great Temple of Harshefi (Usarphes) ... (5-ft. 2-in. and 6-ft. 8-in.

respectively) —material, the red granite of Syene, Tempo Rameses ii.

XIXth. Egyptian Dynasty—circa B.C. 1500”. Also saying that the

capital of the column is wanting but can be restored in plaster, as a

mould was to be taken of the capital of a similar column from the same

site, which had been presented to the British Museum. This Ahnas

column was duly received and with the capital reproduced in South

Australian granite, a few years later was erected just outside the

Museum.

Before his death in June 1894, Fletcher was in a position to report

that the Museum possessed Egyptian material sufficient to warrant

exhibition of the collection, but lack of space forbade this for a long time.

The North Wing

After Haacke’s retirement in 1885, Stirling, then supervising Chair-

man of the Museum Committee, found that the Museum section of the

west wing was hopelessly inadequate. All available space was filled

to overcrowding and Stirling remarked that unless additional accommo-

dation were provided little progress could be made.

How true now was Ralph Tate’s forecast made a short seven years

before—and the Museum section of the west wing had been occupied

for less than three years.

EGRT UL ApIwo Surpyinq oy) Jo uoyopdmos uo uoye) ydeasopoyd

WOASAIN AHL AO DNIM HLYON AHL

THE NORTH WING 69

It was not long after the occupation of the west wing that the

grave disadvantage of having a Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery

in one building became glaringly apparent. Museum visitors must first

traverse the Library Section and one can picture the annoyance of Robert

Kay who, though General Director and Secretary, seems to have been

interested in literature and art rather than in the Museum.

A suggestion, which if carried out would have vitally affected the

history of the Museum, had been made during the Parliamentary session

in 1882. Then the Treasurer proposed that instead of erecting a build-

ing specially for the Jubilee Exhibition of 1887 it might be advisable to

complete the original design for the whole Institute block, using it, with

exception of the west wing already built, for the Exhibition and after-

wards allowing it to revert to its proper purpose.

A Commission was appointed and unanimously approved the Treas-

urer’s suggestion. The Board of the South Australian Institute

then happily announced: “It follows, therefore, that the whole Institute

will be completed at a much earlier date than was expected”. This

was not to be, and the block in fact has never been completed. The

Jubilee Building was built on North Terrace, to the east of the Library,

Museum and Art Gallery; intended as a temporary structure it still stands.

By 1888 the Board was pressing the Government for immediate

erection of a north wing, so that this could be made available for the

Museum and at the same time free the west wing for the Public Library

only. This was to be made possible by removing the Art Gallery also—

to rooms in the front section of the Jubilee Building—and this move

was made towards the end of the following year. The Library, how-

ever, immediately occupied the extra space thus gained.

The urgent need for further expansion was stressed by deputations

to the Government which, though sympathetic, was not in a position

to appropriate an amount for erection of this second addition to the pro-

posed Library, Museum and Art Gallery buildings until the 1890-91

session of Parliament, when £10,000 was set aside for the purpose.

During the next financial year progress had been made with the

red brick building which constitutes the north wing of the block, and by

the early part of 1893 it was completed. This wing was not envisaged

in the original plan of the seventies. It runs from east to west, where

it abuts the rear portion of the west wing. It was now intended that

the west and north wings, together with the as yet unbuilt east wing,

were to form a “U”, eventually to embrace the large central building

of the plan, fronting North Terrace.

The north wing, or South Australian Museum building, was formally

opened on January 12, 1895, by His Excellency the Earl of Kintore,

70 THE WEST AND NORTH WINGS, 1882-1895

this being his final public act before leaving the Colony. Four days

later the building was opened to the public for the first time. During

the same year Stirling was appointed salaried Director.

Thus, almost 40 years after the founding of the South Australian

Institute, the Museum was for the first time housed in a building pro-

vided solely for its purposes. However, the Museum, the Art Gallery

and the Public Library, continued to be associated under a Board of

Governors for a further 45 years.

THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS 1895-1915

Stirling as Director

The next 20 years, 1895-1915, covered a period of sheer hard work within the Museum, a

concentration of detail which must have strained the patience of the staff many a time. For 15 years

expeditions necessarily were few and did not carry them far afield. No attempt is made to touch

upon all the activities of the staff. One must imagine the pickling, the stuffing, the identification of

material, the voluminous correspondence, the quick attention to perishable accessions, and all the

efforts that go into exhibition halls, as well as the building up and properly housing study

collections. All this is dealt with in the annual reports of the sections. Large and important

collections, and smaller ones far too numerous to mention, began to come in regularly, these having

been made in the course of expeditions or by enthusiastic private zoologists, mineralogists and

ethnologists — some of them amateurs but others with a specialized knowledge of the specimens

they had gathered.

The North and East Wings

1895 - 1915

Stirling as Director

The next 20 years, 1895-1915, covered a period of sheer hard work

within the Museum, a concentration of detail which must have strained

the patience of the staff many a time. For 15 years expeditions nec-

essarily were few and did not carry them far afield. No attempt is

made to touch upon all the activities of the staff. One must imagine

the pickling, the stuffing, the identification of material, the voluminous

correspondence, the quick attention to perishable accessions, and all the

efforts that go into exhibition halls, as well as the building up and

properly housing study collections. All this is dealt with in the annual

reports of the sections. Large and important collections, and smaller

ones far too numerus to mention, began to come in regularly, these

having been made in the course of expeditions or by enthusiastic private

zoologists, mineralogists and ethnologists—some of them amateurs but

others with a specialized knowledge of the specimens they had gathered.

The guiding influence during this period of occupation of the north

wing, profitable indeed in spite of difficulties, was furnished by Stirling,

who had stepped into the breach when the Museum well could have

suffered a long period of stagnation.

Inevitably, because of its constitution, the Governing Board was

divided in interests but Stirling, through his Museum Committee, con-

stantly pressed the claims of the Museum. Needless to say he met his

own travelling expenses abroad, although most of his time in other

countries was now devoted to the interests of the South Australian

Museum; his overseas contacts and connections resulted in the draw-

ing of a great deal of natural history material to Adelaide.

One can speculate as to the progress of the Museum towards the

close of the nineteenth century if Stirling, already with some experience

72 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

of museums abroad, had not grasped the opportunities which circum-

stances presented. Professor Ralph Tate, Stirling’s valued colleague,

also was keenly interested in the welfare of museums, himself, it may be

recalled, having been curator of the museum of the Geological Society

of London. Reading between the lines of Tate’s “Anniversary Address”

to the Adelaide Philosophical Society in 1878 one can sense that he

would not have been reluctant to have a finger in the affairs of the

South Australian Museum, as indeed he did. In the absence of Stirling,

Tate well may have been the driving force at this critical time.

It must be recognised that under Stirling was a staff which backed

his plans with enthusiasm. A considerable part of the mounted furred

and feathered animals on the exhibition galleries are due to the pain-

staking efforts of the two excellent taxidermists, the Rau brothers,

while Tepper, and in particular A. Zietz, rendered invaluable service.

Zietz showed some resentment when Stirling was appointed salaried,

instead of Honorary Director, feeling apparently that his administration

as Assistant Director, was not appreciated fully. He asked for divided

control, Stirling to be limited to certain sections, he to others—but after

a while difficulties smoothed out.

The small military force in Adelaide used the vacant area,

partly enclosed by the L formed by the west and north wings, as a drill

ground and soon it was realised that this interfered with the approach

to the Museum. The Committee therefore pressed the Board to imple-

ment quickly a plan which had been formulated some time before, the

planting of lawn and erection of the Egyptian column in front of the

north wing.

Professor Edward von Blomberg Bensly of the University of Adelaide

was appointed Honorary Curator of Archaeology in 1897 and resigned

five years later, after having prepared descriptive labels for the Egyptian

specimens then available at the Museum; to these had been added a series

of antiques presented by the Egyptian Government. A year after his

appointment the Ahnas column, with its capital reproduced in local

granite, was erected, this being made possible by a donation of £200 by

Mr. George Brookman (later Sir George), an art lover who soon after

was appointed to the Board; he became also a member oe the Legislature

in South Australia,

A. Zietz, assisted by the small staff, had laboured assiduously and

well in the transfer and exhibition of the collections to the north wing.

So rapid was the progress made in occupying the two floors of this

building, 230 feet in length, and so pleasing was the arrangement to

Stirling, that he enthusiastically reported to his committee that Zietz

“on whom fell the chief labour of the removal and re-arrangement of the

STIRLING AS DIRECTOR 73

collections has dealt with this tedious and arduous undertaking with an

intelligent energy that deserves commendation.”

Although most of the exhibition material had been removed to the

new halls, it was impossible to evacuate the whole of the west wing,

now relegated to the Public Library. One of the large north rooms,

some smaller rooms and part of the basement, continued to be used

by the Museum staff for many years as store and work rooms. In

fact, the residue of the collections in the west wing was not removed until

almost a quarter of a century later, after the east wing was erected.

A series of misfortunes beset the Museum for the next three or

four years. The first reverse concerned the specimens of gold ores,

which had been shuffled from Exhibition to Exhibition during the

seventies and eighties. On November 1, 1895, a thief forced open one

of the ground floor windows and stole the exhibited ores. He escaped

to Melbourne, where he was arrested on another charge of burglary,

and some beaten up gold was found in his possession. This he ad-

mitted to be the gold contained previously in the specimens stolen from

the Adelaide Museum. It was returned by the Victorian department of

police and, disturbed by the pillage, Stirling instructed that all other

material likely to attract theft be removed from exhibition.

Then the dampness. The lower gallery of the north wing is very

literally a ground floor. On the upper terrace of the River Torrens,

it is situated on, and at right angles to, a slight slope from North Terrace.

The floor, at ground level, was simply asphalted and was continually

damp during winter months; years later the sinking of a deep drainage

well during construction of the east wing, and other measures, did away

with this trouble.

These damp conditions had far-reaching effects. In the winter, parts

of the exhibition cases swelled, so that the doors jammed and could

not be opened in order to deal with mounted specimens becoming

relaxed with moisture. During the summer the wooden backs of the

cases shrunk, cracks opened, and the ever-lurking enemy of museum

material, the beetle Anthrenus, made its way in, so that the staff were

kept busy checking its depredations. Following this, termites (white

ants) invaded the cases from the damp undersoil. A year afterwards

they attacked the staircase and finally, adding insult to injury, the

offices of the Director and Assistant Director. In 1898 a wooden floor,

later. covered with linoleum, was laid down. The Museum was closed

for five months while this operation was carried on, the staff being

driven almost frantic by the task of moving to and fro the cases and in

finding temporary storage for some of the specimens.

When in 1897 the Board had asked the Minister of Education to

authorize the installation of the wooden floor, raised on jarrah joists,

74 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

“apparatus for warming the Museum by means of hot water’ was re-

quested also. A coil heating system had been in operation in the west

wing for 16 years past and had proved satisfactory. An apparatus

intended to heat the Museum and dry out the damp was imported by the

then Superintendant of Public Buildings, but it never functioned satis-

factorily. After a trial during the winter it was found that there was

generation in the pipes of an inflammable gas, the water did not cir-

culate, and the temperature inside the building was raised scarcely more

than two degrees above that of the air outside. In midwinter, 1899,

Stirling reported that the furnaces of this contraption had been re-lit

on July 3rd, and were working but “on two days since that day the

highest temperature in the Museum has been lower than the marimum

shade temperature outside’. On July 23 of the following year the appar-

atus blew up; J. Rau, acting as fireman, had just left the site and so

narrowly escaped injury. A vast amount of correspondence took place

and engineers’ reports were called for. Extensive alterations were

suggested but the general consensus of opinion was that the apparatus

was unsafe and apparently the whole matter was abandoned by 1903.

In 1901 Stirling went to Europe and America in order to visit

museums, study their methods, and arrange exchanges. On his return

he furnished a long account which is available in the published annual

reports of the Board.

Some of his correspondence with the General Director and Secretary,

the diminutive Robert Kay, is of interest. Very conscious of the lack

of funds at home, he penned a letter from London, in which he related

some of his impressions of museums in the United States. “Everywhere

I was struck by the immense public and private liberality shown in

regard to Museums and especially in regard to the equipment of Expe-

ditions for the collection of fossils, living fauna and Indian remains,

which I could not but contrast with the miserable means thought suffi-

cient for these purposes in Australia and particularly in our own country”.

He wrote concerning possible exchanges with American museums “Could

we only get together a decent collection of our native aboriginal things we

could get almost anything we wanted of the American Indian articles...

for there is literally scarcely a thing from our country in any of the

American Museums.” It would seem, however, that Stirling overlooked

quite a good collection in the Field Museum at Chicago and the material

in the Smithsonian Institution, sent from Adelaide to the Philadelphia

Centennial Exhibition in the seventies. Stirling left a slice of the Yardea

meteorite (see p. 21) with Ward’s “Natural History Establishment” in

Rochester, New York, and received in exchange slices of another siderite,

a siderolite and an aerolite.

THE MORGAN THOMAS BEQUEST 75

Year after year Stirling continued to stress the absolute necessity

for increased space if the Museum were to maintain its position as a

progressive institution. In 1905 he reported “The Museum is popular

is shown by the fact that the number of visitors annually is equal to

a quarter of the whole population of the State”. This year, however,

the attendance figures were much in excess of those for the preceding

year, and apparently one had not to seek far for the reason of the sudden

increase. Miss Siam, a well known and well-loved elephant at the Zoo

had died and now was mounted and displayed in the Museum. Crowds

flocked in to see this favourite giant, sadly missed by the thousands

of children—and others—it had borne on its back at the Zoo. Next

year, however, there were further increases in attendance and, with

fluctuations, of course, the average annual figures continued to rise steadily

until the present, the figure now standing at approximately a quarter of

a million.

The Morgan Thomas Bequest

Dr. Morgan Thomas, one of the oldest medical practitioners in

Adelaide, died in 1903, then having long been retired from practice. In his

will, after payment of some legacies, he left the residue of his estate

“to the Board of Governors of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gal-

lery of South Australia, for the purposes of these institutions’. The

bequest, amounting to £65,679, came at a most opportune time and

served as a stimulus to all concerned in the activities of the insti-

tutions.

There followed, naturally, long draw-out conferences as to policy

respecting the windfall. In order to clarify the position in regard to

the associated bodies the Board requested its solicitors to apply to the

Full Court for judicial advice and direction as to the position of the

urban, suburban and country institutes, as well as the affiliated societies.

The Board was informed that it had no power to allot any portion of

the bequest to the institutes or the societies but that the capital sum

could be divided between the three departments (Library, Museum and

Art Gallery) in such proportions as the Board might consider fitting.

Finally it was decided that one-half of the bequest should go to the

Library, then much lacking in sections of its books, one-fourth to the

Museum and one-fourth to the Art-Gallery. It was further agreed that

the capital sums remain invested in safe securities, a wise decision as

the annual sum derived from this source, although not large, assisted

to buffer the effects of lean periods and in the case of the Museum

made possible the inauguration of a scientific periodical at a later date.

The Board erected a fitting monument to the memory and benificence

of Morgan Thomas over his grave in the North Road Cemetery, while

76 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

appropriate bronze memorial plaques also are located in the Public

Library, the Museum and the National Gallery.

Diptrotodon Again, and Other Fossils

The Diprotodon and other bones from Lake Callabonna, being

heavily impregnated with mineral salts, were markedly hygroscopic.

They were therefore moved to a northern room of the drier and warmer

west wing in order to escape the damp conditions in the new wing. A.

Zietz continued his tedious task of repairing and preserving the material;

this entailed removing it from the encrusting and solidified mud in some

cases. The work, he reports, was greatly prolonged because of the

re-absorption of moisture by the bones during the winter. In this work

of restoration he was now assisted by his son Frederick Robert Zietz,

then student apprentice at the Museum.

In 1896 Stirling and A. Zietz were busy drawing up descriptions of

the Callabonna bird fossils. There had been great stringency of late

years in Museum funds and the Royal Society of South Australia granted

a sum of money for preparation of the necessary illustrations. Regarding

the fossil bird, Stirling reported to his Board “This we propose to name

Genyornis newtoni. It may be provisionally regarded as an ancestral

form of the emu.” Zietz had preserved successfully as type material:

“One much damaged skull; one sternum slightly imperfect; four com-

plete legs and feet; one nearly complete tail; one nearly complete wing

and other odd wing bones; two pelves and a number of vertebrae and

ribs.” Duplicate legbones and some casts were now sent to other

museums.

Stirling and Zietz soon prepared two papers on this large Ratite

bird; these appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South

Australia, 1896.

Stirling visited England between December 1896 and April 1897 and

while he was away Zietz and his son restored the feet of the skeleton

of Diprotodon; these had not been described adequately previously and

Stirling and Zietz the following year completed a description of the

manus and pes. This was submitted to the Royal Society of South

Australia, the Council of which for a while was unable to find the funds

for publication. Eventually, in 1899, the paper appeared in print,

forming part 1 of volume 1 of the large Memoirs of the Society; part 2

comprised a reissue and amplification of the description of Genyornis

together with the physical features of Lake Callabonna, in order that all

accounts might be brought together in an imposing form.

Before leaving Adelaide for his trip to Europe and America in 1901,

Stirling had made arrangements with Professor Ray Lankester and Dr.

Arthur Smith Woodward for the sending of bones of Diprotodon to the

DIPROTODON AGAIN, AND OTHER FOSSILS G7

British Museum of Natural History. He had selected for Londun the

long bones of all four legs, the bones of one fore and one hind foot, a

set of the vertebrae of the tail, the sternum, clavicle and marsupial

bones, together with plaster casts of all the individual bones of the

restored fore and hind feet. All these were packed and forwarded by

A. Zietz; they were delivered at the British Museum while Stirling was

there and he notes in a report to the Museum Committee that they

suffered very little damage during transport. The arrangement was

then that the British Museum should be put in such a position in respect

to Diprotodon bones that it could make a cast of the entire skeleton,

two replicas of which were to be supplied to South Australia. The London

Museum already had in its possession a skull which it was considered

could be improved by some remodelling; Stirling offered to assist this

proposal by sending photographs and drawings of parts of the Callabonna

and other skulls in more perfect condition than corresponding parts

in the British Museum specimen. The remittance abovementioned was

to constitute a first and principal instalment of the material necessary

for the project and the only portions of the skeleton now required by

the British Museum to complete a cast were most of the vertebrae and

the ribs.

On returning to Adelaide Stirling had reason to regret having made

this arrangement, for he found that during his absence Zietz had met

with far greater success than was anticipated with restoration of the

vertebrae and ribs of one particular animal, of which most of the other

skeletal parts were available. Stirling immediately placed before his

Committee the proposition that under the altered circumstances this

material should not be sent away but that in order to keep faith with

the British Museum casts be made of the vertebrae and ribs, and that

replicas of these, together with a certain number of other original ribs

and vertebrae, should be sent away. Stirling wrote: “Of course the neces-

sary modelling and casting would be an expensive job but under all the

circumstances it seems to be the most satisfactory arrangement we could

make if only we can find the man to do the work.” Not long afterwards

the man was found in the person of Robert Limb, who for 18 years was

responsible for many of the casts now on exhibition in the Museum.

Limb had received his training in plaster moulding and casting with the

once well-known firm of Barnes and Neate, in Adelaide; Gustave Adrian

Barnes, son of one of the partners of this firm, later followed Harry P.

Gill as curator of the Art Gallery.

So began the preparation in the South Australian Museum of a

replica in plaster of the whole skeleton of Diprotodon. By 1906 the

individual bones, moulded and cast by Limb, were assembled and placed

on view. A. Zietz and his son, and the Rau brothers, as well as Limb,

78 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

assisted in the final mounting. The reconstructed skeleton is a composite.

Stirling writes concerning the original bones: “These were too brittle

and, in many cases, too fragmentary to admit of their being themselves

mounted as a skeleton; moreover no individual skeleton was complete in

itself.” As a matter of fact a really perfect and undistorted skull is yet

to be discovered.

A photograph of the skeleton, as mounted under Stirling’s super-

vision, is here reproduced, together with a contemporary sketch of the

animal as it was thought to have appeared in life. This drawing, based

on the outline of the mounted skeleton, was made in 1907 by Charles

Howard Angas of Angaston, son of John Howard Angas, nephew of

George French Angas (who it will be recalled was Secretary of the

Australian Museum in Sydney) and grandson of George Fife Angas, one

of the founders of South Australia.

On July 12, 1912, Lord Denman (the then Governor General), Lady

Denman, the State Governor (Sir Day Hort Bosanquet) and Lady

Bosanquet, visited the Museum; Stirling showed the party the Diprotodon

material, in which it is recorded “the visitors were particularly interested”.

This plaster skeleton and selected original skulls and other bones

were exhibited in the north wing until erection of the east wing of the

block was completed, when they were removed to the Australian Court.

During the first 12 years of occupation of the north wing there was

a good deal of activity in the palaeontological section, apart from the long-

continued efforts in reconstructing the Lake Callabonna fossils. A year

or so after the opening of this building a plaster cast was received of

the skeleton of the Great South American Ground Sloth (Megatherium

americanum), an extinct giant once abundant; this was articulated and

placed on the ground floor, where it still stands.

Towards the close of the century Stirling, H. Y. L. Brown and others

collected a varied assortment of fossils in the Lake Eyre Basin, working

on the Warburton River.

R. T. Maurice, already noted as a generous donor of ethnological

material, in 1906 presented two mounted skeletons of New Zealand

Moas, a large form (Dinornis robustus) and a _ smaller species

(Anamalopteryx casuarina); these were purchased by Maurice, in

Japan, of all places.

A fossil tree “believed to be a unique specimen of its kind in

Australasian collections” was erected on the lawn in front of the north

wing in 1909. The fossil was originally discovered, in several pieces,

by J. G. Reuther, about 40 miles north-west of the Kilalpaninna Mission

Station, and was purchased from him out of funds provided by income

from the Morgan Thomas Bequest. This siliceous petrification of a

Pee

Skeleton of Diprofodon and atiempt by Charles Howard Angas to

represent the marsupial as a living antinal; 1907

DIPROTODON AGAIN, AND OTHER FOSSILS 79

tree trunk, considered to be that of a species of Eucalyptus, has now

been standing on the site selected by Stirling for nearly half of the period

of existence of the South Australian Museum.

A. Zietz, no longer young, was still carrying out a certain amount

of field work. In 1906, only three years or so before his official

connection with the Museum ended, he visited with Robert Zietz the

fossil swamp at Salt Creek, near Cape Jervis, and originally discovered

by R. M. Robertson many years before. The swamp had given up such

significant material that Zietz’s report on this occasion is worth quoting:

During the last thirty years considerable quantities of bones have

been removed from this swamp, and presented to the Museum. We were

particularly anxious to obtain bones of the so-called pouched lion

(Thylacoleo carnifex), of which the skeleton, excepting the skull, is

almost unknown. In this place four right halves of the lower jaw were

found, and presented by Mrs. Robertson some years ago. This established

the fact of the former existence of this extinct marsupial in the locality,

but our most careful search added only a few fragments of a skull

to the remains already obtained. The best specimen secured is a lower

jaw of the giant wombat (Phascolonus gigas). Other bones found

were those of several species of kangaroos, including a lower jaw of a

very small species of Macropus. Besides these we found a number of

bird, reptilian, and fish bones. Numerous fragments of large kangaroo

bones, which apparently had been crushed by some carnivorous animal,

showed distinct toothmarks upon them. We also made a collection

of native stone implements from the various old camping grounds in

the neighbourhood of Normanville.

The following year Stirling made a further note of interest concern-

ing Pleistocene fossils in South Australia:

From Kangaroo Island we have lately received a small collection of

fossil bones of Diprotodon, Nototherium, and of some extinct species of

kangaroo. The bones were much broken and worn, but the collection is

interesting from the fact that this is the first occasion on which remains

of these large marsupials have been found on the island and the first

time that Nototherium fossils have been recorded from South Australia.

A further collection of fossil bones has, by the courtesy of the Woods

and Forests Department, been received from the “Specimen” Cave, Nara-

coorte. This contains some undoubted remains of the so-called marsupial

lion (Thylacoleo), and may perhaps on further study be found to contain

also bones of this little known animal that have not yet been discovered.

Both these deposits are well worthy of further investigation on the spot,

and it is intended that this shall be done.

An interesting acquisition in 1910 was portion of a jaw of the

“Tasmanian” Devil (Sarcophilius ursinus) from Yorke Peninsula;

previously there had been little evidence of the existence of this species

in South Australia. During this year a cast of the Diprotodon skeleton

was sold to the Australian Museum, the seventh which had gone to other

institutions.

80 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

Collections and Collectors

The Rev. Thomas Blackburn, later Canon Blackburn, had been offered

and accepted the position of Honorary Curator of Entomology in 1891

“In recognition of his valuable services rendered . . . . in identifying

coleoptera, in which he is a specialist.” He and Tepper were associated

for the greater part of two decades, an association doubly severed by the

retirement of Tepper and the death of Blackburn. Some extensive

entomological collections covering a wide variety were acquired during

this period. Tepper was an excellent field worker and by his personal

efforts greatly enriched the entomological and other material in the

Museum.

From 1897 until the time of his retirement Tepper wrote a long

report each quarter-year on entomological donations made to the

Museum “with notes on beneficial or injurious habits of insects,

remedies, etc., respecting the more important species.” These were

published in the South Australian Register, The Advertiser or The

Adelaide Observer. Reprints of the articles were purchased by the

Board and distributed by Tepper to each donor and to departmental

entomologists of other Australian States. This practice alone led to

considerable additions, the sum total of small consignments, and no

doubt did extend appreciation of the usefulness of the Museum. Pre-

paration of these lengthy efforts must have occupied a great deal of

Tepper’s time; today they supply useful records of the local insect fauna

at this period.

It had been noticed that donations of native fauna were falling off

and Stirling remarked with regret, after his return from England in

1897, that South Australian mammals and birds were becoming more

difficult to obtain and reiterated his opinion that the Museum representa-

tion in these groups was not all that could be desired. Further, he notes

that a few old aboriginal implements, a shield, wooden vessel, spear-

thrower and spears from the River Murray had been purchased in

London! In half a century it had become almost impossible to secure

“old style” implements of one of the largest aggregations of ‘aboriginals

in South Australia.

It was in 1896 that the Calvert Exploring Expedition had set out to

investigate the deserts between the upper Murchison and the Fitzroy in

north-western Australia; in 1897 the anthropological and zoological

collections taken by this expedition were handed over to the South

Australian Museum by Calvert’s representative, A. T. Magarey. Though

not extensive, the material was of interest in that it came from a

practically unknown part of Australia. The largest part consisted of

birds which were sent by Stirling to Alfred J. North, then Ornithologist

at the Australian Museum in Sydney, who prepared a List of Birds

COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS 81

collected by the Calvert Exploring Expedition in Western Australia,

This was published by the Royal Society of South Australia and included

useful field notes made by George Arthur Keartland, naturalist to the

Expedition.

Professor Krause of the Berlin University was in Australia in 1897

and the 82 aboriginal skulls in the Adelaide Museum were submitted to

him for examination and measurement. With the collections in New

South Wales and Victoria, Krause was able to muster a total of only 200

skulls of Australian aboriginals. The South Australian Museum series,

however, rapidly increased after this period. In 1911 a burial ground was

discovered at Swanport on the River Murray during reclamation work.

About 100 skulls were then secured and, in all, remains of double that

number of individuals recovered. The Commissioner of Crown Lands

(then the Hon. Crawford Vaughan) at once issued orders that all dis-

coveries of native remains on Crown lands in future must be sent to the

South Australian Museum. Ever since this the Police Department has

rendered invaluable assistance and today the collection of skulls numbers

over one thousand.

The Pacific Island ethnological material had so increased by 1898

that it occupied the whole of the wall-cases on the southern side of the

Museum. This was soon augmented by Fijian weapons and tools, 133 in

all, presented by James Angas Johnson. Ethnologia from some parts of

Australia were still not very well represented, this applying particularly

to Queensland. The beginning of a good representation from this State

was made by purchase of a large collection from Clement Wragge of

Brisbane. There being no room to exhibit this it was stored temporarily

in the west wing.

A valuable gift of bronzes from Benin in West Africa was made by

David Murray in 1899. These included a staff of office, a battle axe,

and a mask representing a human head, surmounted by a carved elephant

tusk. It was in front of objects such as this last, which probably once

stood on the altars of Benin City, on the Guinea coast and near the

mouth of the Niger River, that human sacrifices took place, which earned

for the place the terrible name “City of Blood.” How this particular

example came to Adelaide is not known, but probably it was brought

back by a soldier in the Boer War.

Stirling now noticed for the first time aboriginal cylindro-conical

stones, the purpose of which is unknown. These were sent in by Thomas

O'Neil of Albermarle Station on the River Darling in New South Wales.

As a matter of fact, one of these stones had come in from Encounter Bay

in South Australia many years previously, but had been classed as a

hammer stone or pestle and its presence was realised only two years ago.

During the present century many hundreds of examples have been dis-

82 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

covered in the north and east of the State, and to the north coast of

Australia in association with old camp sites, but their purpose is still

a mystery.

Four Tasmanian Tigers were received in 1899 from the Adelaide

Zoological Gardens, this constituting a welcome addition to the material

of the species then in hand. This carnivorous marsupial (Thylacinus

cynocephalus) is known also as the Marsupial Wolf or Hyaena, and

today it is thought by some to be extinct. The records of the Zoological

Society of South Australia show that the animal was on exhibition at the

Adelaide zoo during the last decade of the nineteenth century and

probably before. Three adult and two young examples of the Tasmanian

Tiger were mounted and placed on exhibition in the Museum.

Fossil remains show that the “Tiger” was once an inhabitant of the

mainland and that it must have been plentiful in South Australia. When

the white man came to Australia he found it confined to Tasmania,

where it may linger still in some remote and inaccessible areas.

Stirling was anxious to grasp every opportunity of acquiring

collections gathered by private enthusiasts, being quite aware of the

likelihood that they would be desired in other quarters. The Museum

was still very short of funds, although Stirling himself was drawing a

salary considerably less than that of the Assistant Director. In

November, 1899, he felt compelled to report to his Board that allowing

for salaries, and commitments totalling £20/10/0 “This leaves a balance

of say £20 for all contingencies for the remainder of the year (7 months).”

In the same memorandum he drew attention to various matters which he

considered essential, pointing out that the previous year the Museum

allocation had suffered a material reduction to meet the requirements of

the Public Library. He wrote further: “The Entomologist urgently calls

for additional insect cases and it appears to me that if we are to keep

up this department we must provide what is wanted for the keeping of

his specimens.” Applications by the Museum officers for increases in

salary were in hand and no provision had been made “for the purchase of

any specimen, however important, or for the printing of labels . . . Such

a position as we are in if unrelieved, seems to indicate, for the rest of

the year, a period of absolute stagnation for what should be a progressive

institution.” Finally he emphasized “the desirability of purchasing the

late Mr. Guest’s cabinet of Microlepidoptera which being a South

Australian and—what is still more important—a named collection of a

little-known group should never be allowed to leave the colony.”

E. Guest had resided at Balhannah, in the Mount Lofty Ranges. His

collection was the result of 20 years’ labour and contained numerous

type specimens; the small moths had been named mainly by Edward

Meyrick, the eminent English specialist on the group. The collection

COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS 83

included more than 2,500 specimens comprising about 738 species, and

was housed in an English cabinet. Associated with it were three volumes

of Meyrick’s papers, as well as various manuscript diaries and notes

covering the period of Guest’s activities as an entomologist. The whole

was purchased during the following year and entomologists of the

future were to bless Stirling for his persistence. The Guest material is

specially mentioned because today it stands as the backbone of the

Museum collection of Microlepidoptera for the South-East of the State

and parts of the Mount Lofty Ranges, which are now occupied by

Mediterranean flora; consequently, with their food plants gone, many of

the moths in question have disappeared for ever in the field, and are to

be seen only in the Museum cabinets.

Stirling’s correspondence with Robert Kay in 1901 is particularly

pertinent as indicating the trend of his main interests at this period.

The Lake Callabonna discovery and the acclamation which he was

receiving already for the work thereon by himself and Zietz gave a

decided fillip to his support of palaeontological research. The acquisition

of fairly good representative Australian ethnological material was turning

his thoughts more and more in the direction of anthropology. Already

he had reported at length on the Swanport graveyard, detailing the

methods of burial and so on,

At a meeting of the Royal Society of South Australia in 1898 he

had proposed a resolution which was carried unanimously:

That whereas the aborigines of South Australia are rapidly dis-

appearing, it is desirable in the interests of science and of our successors

that a comprehensive and enduring record of the Australian race in

fullest anthropological and ethnological :sense should be undertaken

before it is too late.

Additional exidence is found in Stirling’s “Report on his visits to

Museums in America and Europe in 1901.” He says “it is possible,

and in my opinion it is highly desirable, that in these two departments

of Ethnology and Palaeontology the South Australian Museum might be

made to acquire, in reference to Australia, a reputation such as the

Christchurch Museum has acquired in relation to New Zealand.”

Since the retirement of Haacke, however, something much more

than a good start had been made. The Museum collections really were

growing, and growing rapidly. Within a quarter of a century, more

than three-fourths of all the birds known to occur in Australia were

represented by skins in the collections. But in 1902 pressure on the

public finances led the Government to reduce the grant to the whole

institution; only £90 or so was left in the Museum cash-box for the

year, after salaries were provided for. Stirling was gloomy—he could

not continue to print labels for exhibits—he had pocket money sufficient

84 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

only to buy materials to keep the preparators and professional staff

busy. A bad beginning for this year, finances at low ebb and seemingly

no chance of obtaining the natural-history and ethnological material

which Stirling coveted for the filling of gaps in the collections.

Suddenly, however, the fortunes of the Museum improved—the year

1902-3 was remarkable in that donations were not only more numerous

but were of unusual scope and value. The most notable were as

follows. R. T. Maurice (explorer, of independent means, and third son

of Price Maurice, the pastoralist) in the past had provided relatively

small collections, ethnographical and zoological, made during trips

inland from Fowlers Bay. Now he presented an extensive collection,

mostly gathered by himself from the arid districts bordering the Great

Australian Bight or from the then almost unknown areas traversed by

him during his numerous expeditions. Stirling was particularly gratified

to find that the collection consisted for the greater part of aboriginal

material with full data—spears and other articles made by the natives,

as well as their foods. It comprised specimens gathered from Central

Australia, from the Alligator River in the Northern Territory, the

Kimberleys in Western Australia, and from the vicinity of Fowlers Bay

in South Australia. It had been the joint property of Maurice and

Charles Winnecke, then recently deceased, and included the valuable

Winnecke collection of land shells, as well as a great number of zoological

specimens, birds, mammals, reptiles and insects.

Then by bequest Dr. James Phillips left the Museum one of the

largest collections of Mollusca it had yet received.

For years Richard M. Hawker of Bungaree Station had heen

presenting skins prepared for mounting of large mammals shot by himself

in various parts of Africa. Now he donated a Wapiti and the skin of an

unusually excellent Rocky Mountain Goat, which he had shot in Montana,

U.S.A. These generous gifts led Stirling to inform his Committee that

perhaps they did not fully realise their value, saying that Hawker’s

African Buffalo, which the taxidermists had recently mounted, would

cost about £75 if purchased from a dealer, while other of his large

mammals would sell at from £20 to £50 each. The good display of large

African and other extra-Australian mammals in the Museum is due

to a great extent to the practical interest of R. M. Hawker, who also

enriched the ornithological cabinets with his gifts of foreign birds.

A few years later Major Victor M. Newland contributed further

mammals from British East Africa. V. M. Newland was a well-known

figure in the Zoological Society of South Australia and the Museum until

his death in 1953.

In 1902 Stirling accompanied Dr. Joseph C. Verco on dredging trips

in order to secure marine creatures and in doing so fostered Verco’s

COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS 85

long-continued association with the Museum, an association which in a

few years was to vitally affect the development of the conchological

section of the institution. Verco’s exploits at this time undoubtedly

stimulated activity in marine collecting. As soon as the ill-fated Federal

Trawler Endeavour was ready for use a letter was sent to the Federal

Minister of Fisheries asking that the South Australian Museum might

share in the results of the trawling ventures, and this request was

courteously acceded to.

The Museum had now _ outgrown almost hopelessly its

accommodation, and Stirling drew attention to this in a lengthy and

detailed statement to the Board. One of his paragraphs is interesting

as it reflects again his increasing absorption in Australian ethnography,

as well as his respect for activities of museums in the United States:

It is also, perhaps, not inappropriate that I should in this place

offer the additional pleading on behalf of the Museum that lies in the

contemplation of the rapid decline of the native race, and, in spite of

the partial success of efforts for their preservation, of that of the

indigenous fauna of Australia. It is, for Natural History, unhappily

inevitable that in a comparatively short time Museums will be the

only places where relics of the aborigines and examples of the many

singularly interesting forms of animal life can be seen. Compatibly with

our exiguous means we have made all possible efforts to secure the

preservation for all time of such objects, but much still remains to be

done in this direction, and it can readily be understood that unless this

be done soon it can never be done at all. Even with such conspicuous

groups as the mammals and birds, our collection does not contain more

than about two-thirds of the existing species. Meanwhile, many forms

are vanishing or, at least, rapidly declining in numbers, and are more

difficult to procure. We have already allowed whole tribes of natives

to disappear without our having become possessed of a single authentic

relic, Posterity may well blame us for this general Australian neglect,

which stands in such unfavourable contrast to what has been done for the

indigenous races of America.

In 1904 the attention of the Board was drawn to an advertisement

inserted in the London Mail by the Beni Hasan Excavations Committee,

offering to certain museums specimens of Egyptian pottery. Mr. John

Gordon, then in London, applied through the Agent General for South

Australia for a donation to the South Australian Museum, generously

guaranteeing the cost of transport. As a result, 39 examples were

presented, all about 4,000 years old.

Considering the relative rarity of the Platypus (Ornithorhynchus

anatinus) in South Australia, it is worthy of note that in 1905 the

Adelaide Zoo possessed a specimen from the Lower River Murray; this

died and was sent to the Museum, one of several local examples in the

collection.

86 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

Records of the occurrence of the Platypus in South Australia are

not abundant, although the species still occurs here; its actual haunts

fortunately are known to few. The first specimen to be noted was sent

by Captain George Grey to the British Museum while in December, 1867,

a specimen was found on Robert Davenport’s property at Macclesfield

and was sent to the Museum. It was said at the time that this last

was “the first that has been found in these parts, or so near to Adelaide.”

On the authority of A. Zeitz, however, the duck-billed platypus was

“numerous” in the River Torrens near Adelaide in the early days. To-

wards the turn of the century a skin of one from near Strathalbyn was

sold at auction, and the creature has been reported also from near

Myponga, Mount Compass, Nairne, the Back Valley Branch of the

Inman Valley, the Lower Murray, and the Glenelg River in the south-

east of the State. It is known still to occur in the Lower Murray and

may even linger in some remote parts of the interior; N. B. Tindale

(now Anthropologist at the Museum) and the writer were informed that

a specimen had been seen in a northern area in the twenties of the

present century, while Dr. Herbert Basedow considered that certain of

the aboriginal rock-carvings at Deception Creek, near Copley, are strongly

suggestive of the platypus.

A. Zietz and his son late in 1906 collected in the large scrub areas of

the Clarence and Richmond Rivers in New South Wales, obtaining

excellent representative series of birds, reptiles, Mollusca and insects as

well as a wallaby new to the Museum collections.

Two notable additions were made in 1907. The first was a single

specimen, a male rhinoceros which since 1885 had been an inmate of

the Zoological Gardens at Adelaide. The skin was mounted and displayed

in the Museum, while the skull and other parts of the skeleton were

preserved for future reference. The mount, labelled as “Rhinoceros

indicus” was on exhibition for 40 years before its significance was

discovered. Dr. Harold C. Coolidge, visiting Australia on UNESCO

business in 1948, pointed out that in reality it was an example of the rare

Lesser One-horned Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) probably from

one of the Sunda Islands. This is the rarest of the living species of

Rhinoceros. Because the horns were sought after for use in China as

medicine, few male specimens have come into Museum collections.

Apparently only a score of mounted skins have been preserved, six of

these being males. The species is on the verge of extinction, although

one small breeding herd survives in Java.

Even more important was the acquisition by purchase of Reuther’s

ethnological collection, comprising many hundreds of aboriginal speci-

mens, mostly from the district east of Lake Eyre, but some from Central

Australia. Included was a unique series of 385 aboriginal objects known

COLLECTIONS AND COLLECTORS 87

as “Toas.” The Rev. J. G. Reuther, for many years superintendent of

the Kilalpaninna Lutheran Mission Station, had gathered extensive data

and material relating particularly to the now extinct Dieri Tribe at Cooper

Creek, 50 miles east of Lake Eyre. He was by this time living in retirement

at Gum Vale, near Eudunda in South Australia. A. Zietz and his son

Robert were sent there to inspect and report upon the collection, which

was then purchased by the Board.

Stirling immediately made known this noteworthy addition in his

annual report of 1907-8, illustrating his remarks with a coloured plate.

The toas are described by him as follows:

The significance of the toas may be described as topographical in

the sense that each one represents and, as will be presently described,

serves, under certain circumstances, as an indicator or signpost to a

particular locality. The shape and colours of the toa, as also its patterns,

markings and appendages, depict ideographically, and sometimes realisti-

cally, either certain physical or other natural features, actual or legendary,

of the locality; or, in a similar manner, these details may have reference

to some episode which is believed to have occurred in association with the

place during the numerous legendary wanderings of a group of super-

natural beings, known as “Mura-mura,” whom Mr. Reuther designates

Demigods. In fact, it may be added that it is from the presence of such

natural features or from these legendary episodic happenings to the

Mura-mura that the native place-names in most part derive their origin,

and the account of the latter events form the basis of most of the

numerous native legends of this district. The toa also bears the name

of the place it represents, with the addition of the suffix “ni” or “ri”,

which indicates ‘direction towards”.

These objects are used in the following way:—When a native is

about to break camp and move to some other locality, the appropriate

toa, representing the place to which he is bound, is placed in one of the

shelters about to be deserted, the pointed end being stuck into the earth

and signs being made on the ground in front of the shelter to draw

attention to its presence within. By this means the natives inform their

friends, who can recognise the significance of the toa, of the place to

which they have gone.

Seven years later, following Reuther’s death, the Board purchased a

set of 12 large manuscript ledgers and three maps made by him. The

books include a dictionary and grammar of the Dieri and a great deal

of descriptive matter concerning this and adjacent tribes in the region

of Lake Eyre. The volumes contain also a detailed description of the

Toas and in all comprise a useful contribution, as study material, to

Australian anthropology.

Further large accessions of anthropological material were acquired

between 1911 and 1914. Hitherto the collections, by this time unusually

rich in Australian crania, included no Tasmanian skulls; in fact only

about 123 are known with certainty to exist. Two were now secured by

88 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

purchase. Ethnological material from Melville and Bathurst Islands was

expanded into representative collections, mainly by purchase. Stirling

noted in 1914 that the workmanship of these natives, comparatively

little known in 1895, “has already begun to show deterioration in

quality as compared with that of earlier consignments.” Auction marts,

mission stations and private collectors—all were drawn upon to supple-

ment the constantly increasing ethnographical collections. From the

Rev. Carl Strehlow was purchased a large series of aboriginal articles

from the MacDonnell Ranges, including very many decorated objects

(anatantji and waninga) used in totemic ceremonies. Strehlow was

missioner at Hermannsburg for years and his Mythen, Sagen und

Marchen des Aranda-Stammes in Zentral-Australien, Frankfurt am

Main (1907) is well known. A similar collection was procured from the

Rev. O. Liebler but in addition were numerous fjurunga, weapons,

utensils and other articles of general use in the MacDonnell Ranges.

After examination of these acquisitions, Stirling expressed regret that

in past years so much Australian ethnological material had found its

‘way to foreign countries but signified his pleasure that these two parti-

cularly good collections were to be retained in the country of their

origin.

At about the turn of the century the ornithological collections were

large enough to attract the attention of researchers elsewhere. Alfred

North, of the Australian Museum, had in preparation his four-volume

work Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds (1901-1914) ; the title does not

describe explicitly the contents, which include extensive field notes and

descriptions of birds. At his request skins were sent to Sydney for his

examination, while a similar loan was made to the Western Australian

Museum.

In 1911 Robert H. Pulleine brought in skins of birds from

Queensland and from the north of the last-named State was acquired the

bower of Newton’s Bower-bird (Prionodura newtoniana) the largest of

the bowers constructed by members of this family.

Beginning a New Regime

A. H. G. Zietz retired in December 1909, as the Board put it “under

the septuagenarian regulations.” He was complimented on his devotion

to the affairs of the Museum covering the previous quarter of a century,

his success was applauded, and he was granted eight months long service

leave on salary; he died in Adelaide at the age of 82.

Tepper attained the age limit soon after A. Zietz, having occupied

his position for 28 years; he retired in June, 1911, and died in Adelaide

in 1923, aged 82.

BEGINNING A NEW REGIME 89

The writer knew A. Zietz and Tepper in their latter years. Both were

lightly built, bearded figures, still vigorous and with a keen interest in

their chosen fields. Zietz, learning of a mutual interest in fishes at our

first contact referred to the disappearance, or decimation, of some of

the smaller species formerly abundant in the River Torrens at Adelaide

due to the introduction of exotic fishes. He referred particularly to the

Chequered Gudgeon (Mogurnda mogurnda adspersus) a beautiful species

in which the male cares for the eggs, which are attached to stones or

maybe, in an aquarium, to the glass sides. This fish was at one time

much sought after by aquarists overseas because of its interesting habits.

Tepper was a heavy pipe smoker and his room was redolent of a

not unpleasant mixture of napthalene and tobacco. A. Zietz, like Stirling,

smoked cigars, but consumption in the case of the first-named, with

Germanic economy, was limited to one per diem. In the morning about

one-third of this was smoked, at lunch time another third and at the

end of the afternoon the remainder formed a filling for his pipe. The

writer still has his famous case, capable of holding one cigar only.

Soon after his father’s retirement Robert Zietz was placed in charge

of the ornithological collections, which had been supplemented by a

moderate series of egg-clutches of 250 Australian species. The exotic

collection was augmented by a fine series of Birds of Paradise, Humming-

birds, Pheasants, New Zealand birds, and a collection of bright-plumaged

African birds presented by R. M. Hawker. R. Zietz himself secured birds

in the field. He became a foundation member of the South Australian

Ornithological Association in 1899 and a member of the Royal Australian

Ornithologists’ Union in 1900. Thirteen years later, on behalf of the

Museum, he accompanied an expedition of the last-named body to

the River Murray, collecting ornithological and other natural history

specimens.

R. Zietz at this time made an interesting observation relating to the

measure adopted for protection of our birds. ‘The marked decrease in

the donations of native birds and eggs during recent years may probably

be attributed to the enforcement of the Birds’ Protection Act, for most

of those received are birds of prey, which are unprotected.”

The Birds’ Protection Act of 1900, with its Amendment Act of 1903,

as well as the Animals Protection Act, were in operation at this time.

Dr. Douglas Mawson, then lecturer at the University of Adelaide,

commenced his long years of association with the South Australian

Museum in 1906, when he went to Wallaroo to catalogue and pack a large

mineral collection which he had recommended for purchase. This collec-

tion represented the labour over a period of 20 years of J. H. Dunstan

of Wallaroo Mines. The selection made by Mawson comprised over

1,500 specimens, many new to the Museum, and including an unusually

90 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

large proportion of rare or not easily obtainable minerals; a further

series from the Dunstan collection, and again chosen by Mawson, was

purchased from his estate 48 years later.

Mawson, tall and athletic, delighting in physical effort and fearless

of personal danger, was eminently fitted to lead later the explorations

of Antarctica which made him famous the world over. These expeditions,

epic and at times heroic, have been narrated in detail elsewhere. Worthy

‘of record, however, is a comment by one of his colleagues, giving his

opinion that the results of Mawson’s undertakings were due in no small

measure to the meticulous care with which he attended personaily to the

smallest detail of organization.

Mawson was born at Bradford in Yorkshire, and when very young

was brought to Sydney by his family. He was educated at the University

of Sydney. In 1902 he was demonstrating in chemistry at Sydney

University, in 1903 was conducting geological investigations in the New

Hebrides and in 1905 became lecturer in mineralogy and petrology at

Adelaide.

Mawson was appointed Honorary Curator of Mineralogy at the

Museum in 1908, and his work in this capacity was interrupted only

by his expeditions and visits abroad. At the time of writing his active

interest in the Museum extends for longer than that of any other single

individual—the whole of the last half century. In 1934, then Professor

Sir Douglas Mawson, Kt., Bach (1914), O.B.E. (1920), B.E., DSc.,

F.R.S., he was appointed by the Royal Society of South Australia as the

representative of that body on the Board of Governors of the Public

Library, Museum and Art Gallery of South Australia. He held that

position until 1940, when the Museum became a Government department,

separated from the other two institutions. He was then appointed by

Cabinet as a member of the Museum Board and later become Chairman,

a position he retains at the present time.

Apart from the Dunstan collection, other valuable accessions were

received during the first decade of the twentieth century. Dr. J. Angas

Johnson purchased for £150 and presented a large series of minerals,

chiefly Australian. An outstanding purchase was that of the T. Hall

comprehensive collection of Broken Hill minerals, there being about

1,000 large specimens and many smaller ones. Mawson reported that

this ‘is the best collection of Broken Hill minerals that is ever likely

to be available for purchase now that the Aldridge collection has been

transferred to the Sydney University. Magnificent exhibits .... are

represented. As mining operations have passed out of the oxidised zone,

such can never again be obtained.”

Four original Australian meteorites were also acquired during this

period. The first, weighing about 40 pounds and composed of nearly

DOUGLAS MAWSON

Curator of Minerals, 1908-1956

Honorary

BEGINNING A NEW REGIME 91

pure nickeliferous iron, was discovered near Arltunga in Central Australia;

this was purchased and named the “Arltunga meteorite.” The “Cadell,”

a 74 pound aerolite, was found about three miles from Morgan on the

eastern side of the River Murray and was presented by Charles H.

Bannear of Morgan. A fine aerolite weighing 122 pounds fell on Kulnine

Station, near Wentworth, New South Wales, and is known as the

“Kulnine meteorite.” G. Arnesbury supplied the “Carraweena,” a

stone of 6314 pounds found in Central Australia in 1914.

The School of Mines at this time secured a large iron meteorite,

then considered to be the finest yet obtained in South Ausralia. This

was the “Murnpeowie meteorite,” found in Central Australia about 16

miles north-east by east of Mount Hopeless and weighing 2,520 pounds.

Members of the Board were disturbed that this specimen had not been

added to the collection in the Museum and recorded their feelings.

“It is a matter for regret that two separate institutions, almost next door

to each other, should be in competition in this matter. A conference

has taken place between representatives of the governing bodies of the

two institutions with the hope of overcoming this defect, but no practical

solution has yet been devised.” Eventually a compromise was reached

when Museum preparator Robert Limb prepared from the original a

plaster cast which was exhibited with other meteoritic material; in 1955

the original meteorite was lent to the Museum for temporary exhibition.

Because of Mawson’s participation in the British Antarctic

Expedition of 1907-9, the leader, Lieutenant (later Sir Ernest) Shackleton,

presented to the Museum skins of the Crab-eating Seal, Emperor and

Adelie Penguins, the Skua Gull and a named collection of rock specimens,

all from the Antarctic.

Mawson prepared a long paper, published in the Memoirs of the

Royal Society of South Australia in 1911, dealing with a collection of

chiastolites; polished sections of these minerals at this time were then

sold by jewellers as Australian “lucky stones.” Some years previously

a select collection had been purchased by Stirling from G. R. Howden, who

discovered the crystals, which are developed to a remarkable degree in

the Bimbowrie district of South Australia. Through the enterprise of

Howden most museums possess chiastolites, but little concerning them

had been published until Mawson described over 1,000 specimens.

In October, 1911, Mawson left as leader of the Australasian Antarctic

Expedition, 1911-1914, the Museum having contributed towards his

zoological collecting gear; during the previous year he had been in

England to make arrangements for the voyage. The Aurora was fitted

out and a number of Greenland sledge-dogs were purchased.

Arthur Mills Lea, Government Entomologist at Hobart, Tasmania,

was chosen as successor to Tepper. Lea, a busy, bustling and vital

92 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

personality, took office as the South Australian Museum Entomologist in

1911, just a month after the retirement of Tepper.

Lea was born near Sydney in 1868. He commenced his entomological

career in 1891, when he joined the Department of Agriculture in New

South Wales. As Assistant Entomologist he travelled over many parts

of that State, studying especially the insects affecting adversely

potatoes, tobacco and citrus fruit. In 1895 he was appointed Government

Entomologist of Western Australia, and for four years his work was

concerned chiefly with insects destructive to plants.

Lea later related a quaint little story concerning his first meeting

with Tepper, which took place on the Adelaide Railway Station when

Lea was en route to Perth to take up the office just mentioned. As the

two entomologists shook hands Tepper said, “I am so glad to meet you.

You know, we are like kings, we seldom meet our equals.” A fitting

comment on the rarity of official entomologists in Australia towards the

close of the last century.

In 1899 Lea accepted a similar position in Tasmania, and in that

State carried out research on the insect pests of fruit. He was instru-

mental in stamping out two outbreaks of the Mediterranean fruit fiy

which occurred in Tasmania during his 12 years in that State. Also

during this period he sent several consignments of useful living insects

to England, South Africa and the United States, and several times

travelled over parts of Victoria and New South Wales, collecting and

studying at first hand insect pests.

With this extensive experience in the field, and his knowledge of

beetles in particular, Lea served the South Australian Museum for 20

years, the collections today bearing silent witness to his two decades

of untiring effort.

In South Australia Lea’s knowledge of economic entomology

continued to be of the greatest service to farmers, orchardists and hosts

of others. Soon after coming to Adelaide, in addition to his duties at

the Museum, he was appointed Acting Entomologist to the Department

of Agriculture, and became lecturer on forest entomology at the Uni-

versity and a member of the Entomological Research Committee; for

years he lectured to all graduating school teachers. He was never idle

and so regulated his labours that daylight hours as far as practicable were

used for close examination of his beloved insects, particularly beetles,

while his evenings were occupied in writing manuscripts for publication

and other tasks.

During his first year at the South Australian Museum, Lea reported

that in his opinion there was not sufficient duplicate insect material in the

collections to make possible a large and colourful gallery display. He was

ARTHUR MILLS LEA

Entomologist, 1911-1932

BEGINNING A NEW REGIME 93

sent therefore on a collecting trip and his report of activities during four

months spent in the eastern states is typical of him. ‘In New South

Wales I collected about Sydney, Galston, Mittagong, Lawson, Katoomba

and in the National Park; in Queensland about Brisbane, Mount Tam-

bourine, Mungar Junction, Gayndah, Rockhampton, Bluff, Emerald,

Barcaldine, Longreach, Winton, Hughenden, Townsville, Magnetic

Island, Cairns, Kuranda, Tolga, Atherton, Yungaburra, Malanda, Nelson

and Harvey Creek. Many thousands of specimens of insects (also other

specimens of natural history such as shells, spiders, crustacea, frogs,

fishes and reptiles, birds, etc.) were obtained ...... ” The same year

he collected at places near Adelaide and about Port Lincoln, Murray

Bridge, Gawler, and Angaston, paying particular attention to insects that

occur as commensals in nests of ants, obtaining species new to the

collections and to science.

This year also, by the death of the Rev. Canon Blackburn the

Museum lost the services of an honorary entomologist who had worked

for 21 years in the interests of the Museum. Fortunately it was possible

to secure his extensive collection of insects, comprising about 45,000

specimens, principally Australian, as well as part of his. specialised

library. Blackburn’s collection is a general one but is particularly rich

in beetles. It is still the only good collection from the West Coast

of South Australia. His Hawaiian material is also very good and when

received included many types, some of which were sent to the Museum

at Honolulu years later.

Next year Lea published a paper “The late Rev. Canon Thomas

Blackburn B.A. and his Entomological Work.” In preparing this Lea

compiled a list of the new species of beetles described by Blackburn—

over 3,000 of them—and spent a considerable time locating and examining

the types, which were sent to the British Museum of Natural History,

co-types being retained in Adelaide. Lea had pinned the insects collected

by himself in New South Wales and Queensland; these occupied 45 large

cabinet drawers. Further he had commenced a revision of an economi-

cally important group of beetles, preparing many drawings of details of

the insects. Lea reported that: ‘During the year, 8,727 entomological

specimens were sent or brought in for identification. The naming of so

many specimens takes up much time, both in the identification and in

correspondence, and at first appears to be of little benefit to the Museum,

but it undoubtedly leads to the addition of many specimens that would

not otherwise have been obtained. Interviews also consume much time

for which there is often no immediate show, but they also often result

in subsequent donations.” In all, Lea reports, 13,086 insects were

presented to the Museum this year.

94 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

Risking wearisome detail, this record of work occupying exactly

two years is given as an example of the continued drive and fervour of

Lea. Already he had fanned the enthusiasm of amateur collectors and

an almost unbelievable amount of insect material flowed into the Museum.

His instructions regarding the collecting and preservation of insects were

always minute; one may mention, for instance, that for the guidance

of persons securing and preserving material in New Guinea he prepared

12 pages of typescript.

One of the best ideas ever brought forward for the housing of

entomological collections in the South Australian Museum was proposed

and implemented by Lea. This was the provision of wooden cabinets

of a standard size, with glass-topped drawers of absolutely uniform overall

dimensions, 1914 inches by 1914 inches and 214 inches in depth. The

all important detail is that all drawers are interchangeable, irrespective

of how many scores of cabinets are eventually occupied. This system

is particularly advantageous when dealing with a very large collection

such as that in the South Australian Museum, and one which moreover is

constantly added to. Unlike collections of larger zoological material,

such as mammals and birds, represented by fewer specimens, sheer

weight of numbers render detailed card-indexing a herculean task and

an impossibly expensive one. With Lea’s arrangement, however, the

insect drawers themselves are shuffled into an order based upon a definite

classificatory system; thus, providing additional cabinets are constantly

supplied to accommodate accessions, the scheme is elastic and utilitarian,

and it is a simple matter for an entomologist to locate the group which

he desires to examine, assembled in one place in the series.

Other advantages resulting from standardization soon became

apparent and thereafter the general principle has been applied through-

out the study collections.

_ Late in 1912 Tepper returned to the Museum for a short time in

order to mark more clearly some 164 types of species which he had

described as new, thus putting these beyond dispute. This year marked

the engagement as collector of Walter P. Dodd, son of the once well

known entomologist Frederick Parkhurst Dodd, of Kuranda, Queensland.

With W. P. Dodd in the field it was hoped that existing gaps in the

collections of mammals, reptiles and insects would be filled. Dodd was

commissioned first to go to Western Australian and if possible to work his

way north to Port Darwin. He left Adelaide in September and before

the end of the year Lea was so satisfied with the results of his efforts

that he emphasized the desirability of having a collector permanently in

the field. Dodd, commencing his work in south-western Australia, slowly

made his way to the north-west, thence to the Northern Territory,

including Melville and Bathurst Islands, and finally to north Queensland;

EDGAR RAVENSWOOD WAITE

Director, 1914-1928

BEGINNING A NEW REGIME 95

just as he had commenced to secure specimens in this, his home State,

his engagement was terminated, apparently because the cost of his

expedition of 18 months or so was considerably larger than was originally

expected.

If Dodd had any fault as a collector it was that on occasion he

crammed more specimens into his containers than was _ reasonable.

Reptiles and mammals were so overcrowded in metal drums that the

alcohol in which they were placed for preservation became diluted by

their body fluids, and the animals in consequence suffered some de-

composition. On the whole, however, Dodd made a large and very signifi-

cant contribution to the collections, particularly in the birds (432 skins

from Western Australia and 479 from the Northern Territory) and

outstanding in the insects—the last named a traditional interest in the

Dodd family.

Dr. E. C. Stirling resigned as from December 31, 1912 his position

as Director of the Museum, after 31 years of service. The Board

presented to him a “handsome illuminated address” and appointed him

once more Honorary Director, a position which he occupied for a brief

period, presenting in fact only one annual report in that capacity.

During his Directorship Stirling occasionally invited the staff of the

Museum to his garden at Stirling in the Adelaide Hills and then one of the

show places of the State. His property St. Vigeans was named after the

village in Scotland from which the Stirling family originally came. The

garden was particularly noted for the Rhododendrons and rare plants

introduced by him. Stirling’s love for his garden was often evident.

During his visit to Europe and the United States in 1901, he noted some

of his impressions in letters to Robert Kay. In one of these he writes:

“This is the first Spring I have seen in England for 20 years and I find the

country just lovely. I was in good time to see the Rhododendrons in their

prime .... I am pleased to find that, except for the size of the bushes

mine compare well with these here.” Again from Monterey, California, he

comments on the El Monte Hotel “standing in a most beautiful garden of

126 acres in which I counted about a hundred trees and shrubs common

in Australia.”

In 1914 Stirling was appointed Honorary Curator for Ethnology, a

position he retained until his death five years later. During the same

year Edgar Ravenswood Waite became Director.

Waite, like Mawson, was of Yorkshire parentage; he was born in

Leeds in May, 1866. Early in life he evinced a keen interest in the

natural sciences and received a grounding in biology by taking a course

at the Victoria University, now the University of Manchester. At the

age of 22 he was appointed sub-curator of the Leeds Museum and three

years later became curator. He was interested then mostly in ornithology,

96 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

but familiarized himself with the organization of museums in Britain

and also Continental ones, including those at Berlin, Dresden, Prague,

Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Leyden and Amsterdam. He became

Assistant in Zoology at the Australian Museum in Sydney and there

studied and reported on mammals and reptiles, but paying particular

attention to fishes. In 1906 he succeeded Captain Hutton as curator of

the Canterbury Museum in Christchurch, New Zealand, leaving that

institution to take up the Directorship of the South Australian Museum,

where he commenced duty during April, 1914.

At this time the writer had gathered a small private marine zoological

collection and had hoped to find a place on the staff of the Museum, in

which much of his spare time was spent; there had seemed little chance of

this and he was being trained in accountancy. One Sunday in March

he saw Waite (not yet in office) speaking with Noake, then Senior

Attendant. Little did the writer dream that within a few weeks he

would begin with Waite a daily contact for more than 13 years,

interrupted only by absences from Adelaide of one or the other. Im-

mediately after his appointment Waite asked for a cadet to function as

his ‘personal assistant,” to use his own words. Application was made by

the writer but Waite was hesitant, having visualised a younger lad for

the position and one moreover who was not on the threshold of a career

completely dissociated, apparently, from museum activities. The writer

while still at college had previously attended the university “extension

lectures” of Professor Walter Howchin, who now expressed the opinion

that if the applicant were willing to take the position at a cadet’s salary

he should be given a chance. It is to Howchin and Waite that he is

grateful for the opportunity of a lifetime full of interest and association

with kindred spirits both within the institution and in the field.

Waite realized immediately the significance of the work of the

honorary curators then in office. In his first report to the Board he

wrote “When the area of the Museum and the extent of the collections

are taken into account, one cannot but be impressed with the smallness

of the permanent, scientific staff, comprising, as it does, only two

members, an ornithologist and an entomologist, in addition to the

Director. It becomes, therefore, apparent how much the Board owes to

the Hon. Curators, who represent respectively the subjects of Ethnology,

Mollusca, Crustacea and Mineralogy. It cannot, however, be expected

that the Hon. Curators can do much more than direct the department

under their charge, and the permanent staff is at present too small to

afford much help in this direction. Dr. Verco has, however, engaged

assistance at his own expense; and Dr. Stirling is devoting almost every

afternoon to his department, services which cannot be too highly appre-

ciated.”

ADMINISTRATION AND ACCOMMODATION 97

The Board, Lands and Buildings

Robert Kay died in 1904 after 45 years service, first as Secretary,

and later as General Director, Secretary and Treasurer. For a time the

Public Librarian, Joseph Robert George Adams, occupied the dual posi-

tion of Librarian and Secretary but later became ‘General Secretary.”

An Act cited as The Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery, and

Institutes Act, 1909, was passed in December of that year, “to consolidate

and amend the Laws as to Public Library, Museum, and Art Gallery, the

Adelaide Circulating Library and Institutes; to incorporate and regulate

the Institutes Association of South Australia” etc. The Board of

Governors constituted by the 1883-4 Act continued as the Board under

the new Act.

It quickly became obvious that the rapidly growing collections would

overflow the additional space made available by the north wing. Within

eighteen months of the opening of this wing, Stirling reported; “the plain

fact is that in spite of the greatly increased accommodation afforded by

the new building we are still cramped for space.” As noted earlier,

almost annually he stressed the difficulties in finding exhibition and

storage space, submitting a particularly long report on the matter in

1904.

The Government, under Premier the Hon. Thomas Price, agreed

eventually to erect the eastern wing of the original plan, but with

considerable modifications.

Price died not long after this decision was made; as Minister of

Education he had displayed a keen interest in the institution and parti-

cularly in the provision of the further wing.

It was decided that the proposed new building must be of stone to

match the west wing but that it be wider than the last-named and

consist of four floors, including a basement. A tender of £36,000 for its

erection was accepted during the financial year 1907-8, and operations

were commenced on May 4, 1908, under the supervision of the Super-

intendent of Public Buildings; the ultimate cost of the building was

£48,200. The foundation stone was laid by his Excellency the Governor,

Sir George Le Hunte, on October 30 of the same year, in the presence

of a large gathering of Adelaide citizens. In contemporary photographs

Stirling is naturally a prominent figure in the proceedings.

When a couple of years later the framework of the structure was

nearing completion, the Board decided to set aside about two-thirds of

the additional space to form an Australian section of the Museum. It

soon became possible to commence removal to the new building of cases,

specimens and a mass of material for years stored in the crypt and other

portions of the west wing, which with the exception of two rooms utilized

98 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

for conchology and palaeontology now housed only the Public Library.

This proceeding, together with the mounting and installation of new

material was being carried on when the eastern wing was opened to the

public in 1915.

An adjunct very necessary in our climate was erected at this time

—a gas-tight shed (or large disinfecting chamber) in which ig fumigated

all material suspected of infestation with the insect larvae which can ruin

furred and feathered specimens. So dangerous to the welfare of skins

are larvae of the beetles Dermestes and Anthrenus, the clothes moth and

silverfish, that neglect of constant inspection and regular fumigation

within the exhibition cases may lead to rapid destruction of mounted

animals worth thousands of pounds; supervision is necessarily even more

rigid in the case of cabinet and stored material, owing to the fact. that

it may be out of sight for long periods. During the transfer to the new

wing some specimens were unavoidably unprotected by cases for a time;

therefore they were fumigated as a precautionary measure.

While the east wing was being built, a commodious shed, with a large

loft, was added to the small macerating house, the old retort house built

in 1861. The floors of the whole assembly were waterproofed and

drained so that thenceforth the taxidermists had much more sanitary

conditions under which to work.

In 1902 the land placed by proclamation under the care and control of

the Board extended from Kintore Avenue to the western boundary of the

University, and from North Terrace to a private road immediately at the

rear of the buildings. Towards the close of this phase of its activities

the Board, stimulated by the importunities of the heads of the respective

departments under their care, and in view of past experience, were seized

with the importance of having further grounds reserved for expansion.

Members waited upon the then Minister of Education, urging the need for

extensions and suggesting that some of the land to the north of the

Library, Museum and Art Gallery and occupied by the Destitute Asylum,

as well as the Military and Police Departments, be set aside for this pur-

pose—this in view of the fact that accommodation elsewhere for the afore-

mentioned institutions was being considered.

The East Wing

When Waite arrived in Adelaide on March 1, 1914, he found the new

wing fully provided with exhibition cases and so had “no option but to

adopt the general policy already laid down”. He was disappointed with

the general unsuitability of the building for museum purposes and in his

first annual report said so: “I regret to find that, to a considerable extent

the requirements of the Museum have been made subservient to the archi-

THE EAST WING 99

tectural features, the new building having to conform in general design

to that of the Public Library”. One may refer back to Professor Ralph

iy ;

Entrance to eastern wing of Museum, 1915

Tate’s remarks in 1878 (see page 36 herein). Waite further expressed

an adverse opinion regarding the exhibition galleries:

As built, the space for the Australian section is none too large to

accommodate the demands which will be made upon it; but nearly half

the space of the two lower galleries has been allotted for art purposes.

The space available for certain Museum groups is quite inadequate. For

100 THE NORTH AND EAST WINGS, 1895-1915

example, respecting the snakes, which are of great interest, and a know-

ledge of them of considerable importance, one cannot do more than

simply exhibit about half of the Australian species, to say nothing of the

need for descriptive labels, maps illustrating local distribution, diagrams,

models of anatomical features, instructions for treatment of snake-bite,

etc. The space for the exhibition of fishes and other important and

economic groups is similarly inadequate.

When the question of policy concerning the Morgan Thomas Bequest

was being discussed in 1903 Stirling proposed that part of the capital be

devoted to building a new Museum, but this did not appeal to his Board.

In a report to the latter is a comment of interest, indicating that Stirling

(who, it will be recalled, had visited overseas museums two years before)

then considered the north wing imperfectly designed for Museum pur-

poses:

Undoubtedly from the point of view of the Museum, the most desir-

able and satisfactory arrangement would be that there should be an ab-

solutely new and self-contained-establishment, comprising, at least, twice

the floor-space of the present building, and including all the necessary

appurtances, such as work and store rooms, offices etc.

This proposal is suggested because it is possible that the present Mu-

seum building, which is, moreover, not wholly suitable for its purposes,

may be required for the future expansion of the Library or Art Depart-

ment.

The Board of Governors was proud of this new east wing, which

architecturally was a decided contribution to the city of Adelaide. The

administrative group of offices at the southern, and entrance, end of the

first floor included a large Board Room which with due formality was

opened by the then British Ambassador in Washington, the Rt. Honourabie

J. Brice, P.C., D.C.L., LL.D., in 1912.

In 1914 the east wing was occupied only in part, although the greater

part, by the Museum. Most of the basement and the various rooms at

the northern ends of all floors were handed over for Museum storage and

work rooms. The northern two-thirds of the top floor was reserved for

display of Australian ethnology, but the front portions of the exhibition

galleries on the first and second floors had been appropriated for use by

the Art Gallery, while an historical section and the coin collection, which

had come under control of the Art Gallery, were to occupy the front

halls of the second and third floors.

The installation of natural history material proceeded so rapidly, how-

ever, that before the building was opened to the public the Board was

forced to face the fact that the space allotted was far from sufficient.

Accordingly, the southern half of the ground floor, which formerly was

intended for display of ceramic ware, was used for zoological exhibits.

THE EAST WING 101

The pressure of those interested in the Museum at that time must have

been considerable, for the Board was reluctant to reverse its decision and

expressed regret that it necessitated indefinite suspension of an Arts and

Crafts department which had been projected. It also curtailed the space

available for exhibition of prints, engravings and black and whites, but

for 21 years these last were displayed in the southern half of the second

exhibition floor, the remainder being devoted to bird groups and reptiles.

A special effort had been made to complete as many as possible of

the group cases of Australian birds and mammals before the British Asso-

ciation for the Advancement of Science visited Australia, for the first

time in the history of that influential body, in 1914. Adelaide was the first

Australian city many of the delegates had seen and “considerable surprise

was manifested that a comparatively new country should possess such an

up-to-date Museum”’.

In one important respect the east wing was “up-to-date” in that it now

possessed a goods lift to serve the four floors. A well was left for a passen-

ger elevator but this remains empty; it has been utilised on the ground

floor as an enquiry office and now is closed in with plate glass to form

an exhibition case. The goods lift when first installed had no control

other than that inside the cabin, so that if it happened to be at the top

floor an officer with a load in the basement had to make his way up four

flights of stairs in order to bring the lift down; a few years later this

defect was remedied.

Following the outbreak of the First World War the Board became

impressed with the necessity for husbanding its funds and instructions

were given to cancel all outstanding large commitments, while heads of

departments were asked to avoid any expenditure not urgent in character.

A special grant of the modest sum of £515 had been applied for to cover

expenses connected with the preparations for opening the new wing but

this, understandably in the circumstances, had been refused.

The Museum, like other public institutions in Australia, suffered

during the course of the European War. All purchases of working materials

excepting where essential for continuance of exhibits in the new wing

were discontinued, and rigid economy was enforced in every possible

direction. Although progress on the exhibition galleries was impeded, the

necessity for attention to the large collections which had now accumulated

kept the small staff fully occupied.

EXPANSION 1915-1928

Mainly Exhibition

The eastern wing, now known as the “Australian Court”, was formally opened on December 8,

1915, by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Henry Galway, who during his whole term of office

displayed a keen interest in the institution. Waite later named a fish — Mugilogobius galwayi — after

him, but unfortunately the name afterwards suffered the ignominy of becoming a synonym.

Expansion

1915 - 1928

Mainly Exhibition

The eastern wing, now known as the “Australian Court”, was formally

opened on December 8, 1915, by His Excellency the Governor, Sir Henry

Galway, who during his whole term of office displayed a keen interest in

the institution. Waite later named a fish—Mugilogobius galwayi—

after him, but unfortunately the name afterwards suffered the ignominy

of becoming a synonym.

Exhibition space on the galleries was now almost trebled and for the

first time in the history of the Museum it was possible, for a while, to

segregate the Australian material from the extra-Australian or so-called

“general collections”.

It is not surprising that Waite’s interest in fishes was soon reflected

in the galleries. With the co-operation of many donors, notably A. E.

Waterman of Daw’s Fish Market, freshly caught South Australian fishes

made their way to the Museum and were there moulded and cast in

plaster by Robert Limb, an outstanding expert with this medium; the

casts were coloured from sketches made immediately on receipt of the

specimens, the painting being carried out in part by Waite himself but

mainly by Gustave A. Barnes. One of Waite’s biggest thrills was the

acquisition of a Basking Shark, 25 feet in length, which was killed at

Fowlers Bay by L. Laurenti and others. Directly Waite was notified of

the capture of this huge fish, he arranged for it to be placed on the deck

of a vessel bound for Port Adelaide, whence it came to the Museum on a

lorry. All hands were requisitioned and under the guidance of Limb it

was moulded and cast. When coloured it was displayed on the wall near

the main entrance of the new wing and was one of the most conspicuous

exhibits when this was opened.

103

104 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

The accompanying photograph shows the cast, one of the largest

ever made of fishes, on its way to the place where it has hung for more

than 40 years. Before the moulding was completed and the carcass

removed effluvia from the shark became a most objectionable constituent

of the Adelaide atmosphere and numerous complaints were received. The

operation was carried out in the macerating house, which as afore-

mentioned is situated behind the old Institute Building, is quite close

to the Public Library, and adjacent to North Terrace, not far from the

heart of the city.

The name of this widely distributed marine giant is said to have orig-

inated because of its habit of resting at the surface of the sea. It grows to

a length of about 40 feet and is rivalled in size only by its cousin the

Whale Shark (not found in Australian waters) and the dangerous White

Pointer. Unlike the last-named, the Basking Shark feeds only upon the

small floating life occurring at or near the surface, obtaining its food by

a method similar to that of the Whalebone Whales. The gill-slits, as will

be noticed in the illustration, are much longer than in all sharks except-

ing the aforementioned Whale Shark. As a substitute for the baleen

of the Whalebone Whales, its gill-rakers (which in most fishes consist of

relatively small projections on the back of the arches which support the

gills), are greatly elongated and collectively function as a sieve for strain-

ing out the small creatures from water entering the mouth and flowing

out of the gill-openings. The two and a half thousand teeth of the Bask-

ing Shark are small and the fish is inoffensive insofar as man and other

large creatures are concerned. As Waite has remarked, “it is too big to

have many enemies, and feeding upon small pelagic organisms instead

of swiftly swimming fishes, it requires neither speed, nor teeth adapted

for seizure”. In the northern hemisphere the Basking Shark formerly

was hunted for the oil contained in the large liver. Its capture presented

difficulties, for sometimes when harpooned it dived to the bottom, from

whence, unlike the air-breathing whales, it was not compelled to come

soon to the surface.

An innovation in 1915 was the installation of small aquaria in the win-

dows. These were maintained for about 15 years but proved a constant

expense and trouble because of the too bright lighting, resulting in “green

water” and the deaths of the small fishes in summer owing to excessive

heating of the aquaria. Waite, an enthusiastic aquarist, endeavoured to

induce the Zoological Society’s Council, of which he was soon a member

to establish an Aquarium at the Adelaide Zoological Gardens but for var-

ious reasons, mainly financial, the project was not adopted. Waite and

the writer, respectively President and Secretary of the South Australian

Aquarium Society, were instrumental in installing an exhibit at the

All-Australian Peace Exhibition, held in Adelaide in 1920, following the

MAINLY EXHIBITION 105

First World War; apparatus and aquaria were lent by the Museum, Though

lighted solely by electricity the fishes, over a period of two months, throve

much better than in the Museum, no confervae grew on the glass and the

water remained crystal clear.

As Honorary Curator for Ethnology, Stirling’s spare time had been

occupied entirely in the arrangement of the Australian aboriginal collec-

tions on the top floor of the new Court and at the opening of the wing

about half of the task was completed. In this work he was assisted by

John Conroy, (formerly attendant only but now “Ethnologist’s Assistant”

as well) who showed considerable aptitude in handling and repairing when

necessary the multitudinous objects.

As collections long in storage once more saw the light of day Stirling

himself was impressed with their magnitude. He was happy because

for the first time in his long connection with the Museum there was an

opportunity for arranging a satisfactory display; in 1915 he reported to

the Board:

This work has involved the unpacking of many boxes of specimens

that have been sealed up for, in some cases, as long as 10 years. I can

say very confidently that when all the material in the Museum is set out

—or rather I should say, when as much of it as possible is set out, for

there will be no room for display of all of it—it will form a collection that,

within its limits, will be unsurpassed. It can now be seen how advan-

tageous have been the various purchases of large collections that have

been made from time to time during the past 20 years, for these comprise

articles which will, as regards certain districts at least, never be collected

again.

Within a year of this report the exhibition cases on the ethnological

gallery were filled. in fact they were so crammed that really effective

display had been impossible. Moreover almost all of the specimens ac-

quired by the Museum during the preceding ten to fifteen years had to be

packed away in boxes, leaving unrepresented several important sections.

In 1917 the honour of Knight Bachelor was bestowed upon Stirling

in recognition of his long continued services to science.

A large number of the original George French Angas water colours

were now transferred from the National Art Gallery in South Australia

to the Museum; the pictures depict the way of life and physical appear-

ance of natives of New Zealand, South Australia and South Africa in the

first half of the 19th century. Almost one-half of the sketches are

still unpublished and because of their early date represent a rich store-

house of knowledge of the culture of the three areas. Some represent the

originals of many of the pictures reproduced in South Australia Illus-

trated, 1847.

*(douopary)

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FIGL ((smuuiepur snuTysojaj) YAPYS Ssurysrg jo yseo

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106 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

G. French Angas carefully preserved the originals of his water

colours and many of them were distributed by him amongst his relatives

and friends. In 1902, fifteen years before the sketches mentioned above

were handed over to the Museum, they and others were bequeathed to

the Board of Governors of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery

of South Australia by James Angas Johnson. At that time at least four

representative collections of the Angas water colours were known to exist

One was owned by Mrs. Evans of Evandale, another by Dr George Lindsay

Johnson of London, and a similar one by the proprietors of the York Gate

Library, also then in London but now in possession of the South Austra-

lian branch of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia; the fourth

and most valuable was that bequeathed by James A. Johnson.

Stirling exhibited a series of the original water colours, framed and

fastened to stands, but 20 years later they were found to be fading slightly

under the influence of the heat and strong light of the upper gallery; they

were removed therefore to safer storage in a darkened place.

Stirling had planned to display enlarged photographs illustrating

the physical appearance and customs of Papuans; many such pictures

were presented by Sir George Le Hunte when he was Governor of South

Australia. Further, the F. J. Gillen negatives had been purchased with

a view to preparing enlargements for illustrative purposes, but this idea

of necessity was abandoned also because of inadequate exhibition space.

The conditions laid down by Cabinet when the Gillen negatives and

lantern slides were purchased by the Government are of interest. They

were placed in the joint custody of the Minister of Education and the

President of the Board and no print or reproduction was to be allowed

without the consent of both custodians, each of whom was to be sup-

plied with an album containing one print of each negative. It was stated

that “As many of these negatives were used for the illustrations in the

works published by Mr. Gillen and Professor Spencer they have special

value apart from that which they possess as being representations of

ceremonies and natives which it is no longer possible to procure’.

As a matter of fact in the thirties of the present century further

photographs of the Aranda natives were secured during the course of

expeditions, but these aboriginals were by this time detribalised. Neigh-

bouring tribes of the Western MacDonnell Ranges, the Jumu, Ngalia and

Pintubi were then scarcely or not at all affected by European contacts

and a large number of photographs and many thousands of feet of 16 mm.

cinema film of these primitive people are now available.

On March 20, 1919, Sir Edward Stirling died, and thus the Museum

lost a firm supporter. His association had been continuous since the

year 1881; he was Chairman of the South Australian Institute Board

MAINLY EXHIBITION 107

in 1882. He remained a member of the larger Board of the Public

Library, Museum and Art Gallery until 1894. From 1889 onwards he

held the position of Honorary Director for five and a half years, and it

will be recalled he was Director for about 17 years. Since Waite’s ap-

pointment he had continued his work on Australian and Pacific ethno-

graphy. His beloved collections had by this time overflowed into the

north wing and on to the lower exhibition gallery of the Australian

Court, where amongst other material about 800 aboriginal skulls grinned

at the public from the wall cases near the front entrance. In all, Stir-

ling had placed on exhibition over 10,000 anthropological specimens.

It was decided that the top gallery of the Australian Court, where

Stirling had laboured so long, should be known permanently as The

Stirling Gallery. To the northern annexe of this (previously Stirling’s

large work room) the Australian ethnologia from the north wing was re-

moved in 1924. The Pacific Islands collections for which there was space

remained in the north wing and were added to until they occupied the

wall cases on all sides of the upper floor.

F. R. Zietz, in addition to his ornithological responsibilities, was now

assigned to the task of registration of ethnological material and in three

years he had completed the list of all exhibited specimens.

By 1919 all space on the three exhibition floors of the Australian Court

were more than comfortably filled. On the ground floor typical Aust-

ralian mammals were displayed in group cases, some with painted back-

ground, but not constituting “dioramas”. The original remains of

Diprotodon, and its replica of the whole skeleton, formed a prominent

feature. Waite had begun to install a considerable number of casts of

fishes.

On the northern half of the first floor (second exhibition gallery)

the birds were then all arranged in “group” cases like the mammals, that

is to say all South Australian sea-birds were assembled in one case, with

appropriate surroundings, water-birds in another and so on. An install-

ation which has attracted much attention always is the section of a Mallee

Hen’s Nest, showing the incubating eggs and a chick making its way to

the surface, where stand the parents.

The galleries of the top floor contained all of the Australian ethno-

logical material that it was capable of holding and also two large group

cases with painted backgrounds, one displaying the aboriginal life at

Emily Gap in Central Australia, the other a scene on the River Murray,

a modification of the diorama originally installed by Stirling in the west

wing; both cases exhibit the life-sized figures of natives previously

mentioned.

A local repercussion of the European War was an invasion of South

Australia by the Black Rat, a year or so after the beginning of hostili-

108 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

ties. It is understood that under the stress and turmoil of these times

the protective metal cones, to prevent migration ashore of rodents, were

not always placed on the hawsers between ship and wharf. Waite com-

mented:

The western areas of the metropolitan districts witnessed an influx

of these strangers hardly known here before the outbreak of war; the at-

tention drawn to them by an article in The Register was the means of dis-

covering that they were first observed in the neighbourhood of Port Adel-

aide, whence they rapidly spread eastward. Young ones bred in the city

were exhibited alive and attracted much attention. From enquiries made,

I have every reason to believe that the rats arrived, possibly from Egypt,

in the troop transport vessels.

These young rats, with their prominent glossy black eyes, and long

tails and ears, were handsome little creatures and were much admired

in the Museum. In fact some visitors asked where they might obtain

specimens to keep as pets.

The Black Rat or Old English Black Rat (Rattus rattus:) is still with

us, but its subspecies, the Ship Rat or Tree Rat (Rattus rattus alexan-

drinus), nowadays usually referred to in South Australia as the Fruit

Rat, apparently came to Australia very much earlier and is responsible

for a great deal of destruction. Professor J. Burton Cleland, an old and

valued friend and associate of the South Australian Museum, has collec-

ted details of the hordes which appear at times and sweep in plague pro-

portions across parts of the country. It appears that the first record of

such plagues occurred in the River Darling areas in 1864, and since then

incredible hordes have caused havoc at various periods in different parts

of Australia. On such occasions the rats devour everything edible they

come across. D.N. George, once a pastoralist at Goyder’s Lagoon Station,

informed the writer that during one such plague a claypan full of water

on his station contained thousands of Shield Shrimps (Triops australien-

sis) a transient crustacean whose eggs are viable after long desiccation.

As the rats swept over his property he observed them dragging the

shrimps, which are an inch or two in length, from the edge of the water

and greedily devouring them.

Some activities associated with the war effort were carried out by

the Museum staff, although they were by no means as specialised as

those demanded by the Second World War of 1939-45. Skeletal material

was supplied for Red Cross training, while mounted animals, chiefly

kangaroos, were removed from their cases, and placed at the disposal of

patriotic committees, the All British League, Naval authorities and

others, for use in pageants and special exhibitions. The most ambitious

undertaking following the war was the making of a relief map, 20 feet

or so in length, of the tragic Gallipoli Peninsula. This was modelled in

MAINLY EXHIBITION 109

clay by Gustave Adrian Barnes and cast in plaster by Robert Limb. A

smaller Gallipoli relief map, prepared by the same officers, had been pre-

sented by the Board to the Minister of Defence some time before, and was

so admired that request was made for the larger model.

Barnes, a charming personality, played a part in the affairs of the

Museum for a while, painting backgrounds of the group cases and, as

already mentioned, colouring a great many casts. He was at this time

Artist and Art Supervisor in the Art Gallery but his work was divided

between duties connected with the last-named and the Museum. He became

Curator of the Art Gallery in 1918, when he visited Kangaroo

Island with Waite and the formator, Robert Limb. There he assisted

Limb with a mould taken from “The Frenchman’s Rock”; this was later

reproduced in cement and replaced the fretting original, which is now

housed in the National Gallery. On this occasion he made studies in

colour of living fishes which Limb then moulded, afterwards reproducing

them as plaster casts.

It was in 1916 that an arrangement was made with the South Aust-

ralian School of Arts and Crafts to conduct a class at the Museum once

weekly, and this practice has continued for 40 years.

Barnes designed a Roll of Honour to commemorate the war ser-

vices of those of the staff who had enlisted and, following the death of

Sir Edward Stirling, designed and modelled the “Stirling Memorial Tablet”

exhibited in the Museum. Barnes died at an early age on March 14, 1921.

Amongst the many famous people who have visited the South Aust-

ralian Museum is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle who inspected the exhibition

galleries in September, 1920. In the press he paid a tribute to Waite.

“No account of my day could be complete which did not acknowledge the

company and teaching of Mr. E. R. Waite . . . . who placed his stores

of knowledge at my disposal’.

Sir Arthur seemed particularly interested in some of the larger

Echinoderms, those popularly known as “Sea-eggs”, and asked a number

of questions regarding their structure. It was intriguing to read, nine

years later, his short fiction story When the World Screamed.

Because of his subantarctic cruises, Waite was greatly interested in

the fauna of the cold southern seas and in 1921 he arranged for the in-

stallation of an Antarctic case, which stands at the western end of the

north wing; it occupies in fact the site where the entomological collec-

tion stood between 1895 and 1918.

Waite designed and painted the greater part of this case; the scene

is set near Cape Royds and shows the famous Mount Erebus in eruption,

largely obscured by a snowstorm. Antarctic mammals and birds are dis-

110 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

played, including a Sea Leopard and a Weddell Seal which had come

ashore near Victor Harbour on the South Australian coast, far from their

natural haunts.

Mawson in 1914 had presented 49 skins of Antarctic birds secured

during his Australasian Antarctic Expedition and some of these were now

mounted for exhibition in the case. Originally two notable dogs were dis-

played here also; one, a Siberian animal named Serai had belonged to the

ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition of 1910 organized by Captain Robert

F. Scott. Serai was given to Waite after the expedition, remaining one of

his most treasured possessions until it died of old age. The second dog,

Ross, was one of the aforementioned Greenland sledging dogs secured by

Mawson for his Australasian Antarctic Expedition and the leader had re-

tained this particular animal for sentimental reasons.

These two dogs, like many of the other mounts in the Museum re-

flect the skill of the Rau brothers as Taxidermists; with a sledge used

by Mawson, they are now exhibited as a separate group in view of their

historic interest.

Apart from Serai Waite kept a number of pets in his garden, mostly

aquatic creatures and birds. Amongst the latter were some galahs

(Kakatoe roseicapilla) secured during an expedition to Strzelecki and

Cooper Creeks in 1916, in company with Captain S. A. White. When the

writer visited Waite’s house, which was often, one of the Galahs, a credu-

lous cockatoo, greeted him with a subdued shout—“Hallo Captain White’.

During the 1920’s the American Museum of Natural History was

seeking co-operation for the preparation of an Australian Court as part

of its public display, A cast of the Diprotodon skeleton was purchased

by this institution, and Waite sent also some of our fossils, a number of

reptiles and other zoological material, with a view to receiving exchanges.

The United States Museum sent in return some good exhibits, including

casts of parts of the great American Dinosaurs as well as life casts of a

North American Sioux Indian Chief and his squaw, accompanied by var-

ious other objects including a sling, a saddle, and a pipe. The figures are

furnished with natural hair and are clothed with garments of bison skin

made about 1875. The remarks of two small boys viewing these figures

soon after they were exhibited is a tribute to their excellence. With awe-

struck face one said to the other “They caught them and killed them

and stuffed them’’.

For many years the exhibition galleries had been closed to the public

for one day each week in order to facilitate cleaning. In 1927 it was

decided to close for two mornings and to admit the public on the after-

noons of the days concerned. This resulted in an immediate increase

in attendances of approximately 6,000 and in 1928 the total number of

unasnyy UPRTpRysny yyNOS

UL poyIqItyxXa puew poyUNOW FZITGI-TT6T ‘WOsSMrW pue “QTE. Woos Aq posn Ssoq

«SSOU, AUNV .IVAHS,

FIELD WORK 111

visitors was 100,840. With increased attendant staff the practice of

closing for cleaning was finally abandoned altogether.

Field Work

Very little organized collecting was possible during the war. In Sep-

tember 1915, however, the Minister of Agriculture invited Waite to ac-

company an experimental trawling cruise to the Great Australian Bight,

where Dannevig in the Federal Trawler Endeavour had mapped out prom-

ising trawling grounds a few years before. The trawler Simplon was

chartered for this venture, which occupied about two weeks. Although

the expedition could scarcely be regarded as a commercial success, a

good series of fishes was secured for the Museum, as well as other marine

specimens, some of which were previously unknown and others new to the

collection.

Waite was usually a good sailor, but not always. One remembers

a happening on another collecting trip. Rough weather and Waite—as well

as others—suffering as a consequence. Aboard was Archibald Watson,

Professor of Anatomy at the University of Adelaide and perhaps the

most extraordinary personage who has ever held a Chair at the Uni-

versity. At the height of our discomfort Watson appeared from below

with a large tin of sardines and a tumbler of whisky—neat. He ate the

fish, drank the olive oil in which they were preserved, followed it with

the spirits and remarked “If you had a meal like Christians you wouldn’t

feel ill”—and he wasn’t.

Probably because of his friendship with Waite, Watson continued an

interest in fishes long after his retirement from the University and in-

vented, or modified, fishing apparatus for the capture of members of the

large mackerel family from the various ships on which he travelled,

ostensibly as ship’s doctor.

Lea proceeded to give further eveidence of his amazing vitality. Pro-

fessor W. M. Wheeler, a specialist in the study of ants, agreed to report

upon the Australian species. In 1915 Lea undertook special trips within

20 miles of Adelaide and collected 20,000 specimens for Wheeler; not only

this, but he prepared a plate of drawings to illustrate some of the species

taken. During November of the same year he left on a visit of three

months duration to Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, collecting insects and

other invertebrates, securing 19,163 specimens! In addition numerous

vertebrates, mostly fishes, were taken by him there. Within four months

of his return to Adelaide some of his collections were displayed on the

galleries and Lea had a paper on others ready for publication and more

in course of preparation.

112 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

Brief mention has been made of the fact that, in company with

Captain White, the well-known ornithologist of “Reedbeds”, Waite led

an expedition to the north-eastern areas of South Australia. S.A. White

was the son of Samuel White, founder of the old home at Reedbeds and

already mentioned as a donor of birds. The party, which left Adelaide

in September, 1916, included O. Rau as taxidermist and collector, a cook,

an Afghan camel driver in charge of nine bull camels and an aboriginal

who knew the country.

The route of the expedition traversed a long loop commencing at

Farina, passing Mounts Lyndhurst and Hopeless, crossing between Lake

Callabonna and Lake Blanche, thence following the Strzelecki Creek to

Innamincka. From the last-named the party turned west, meandering

across the Cooper Creek country to Kanowana and Killadeina, then

turned south to Kopperamanna and finally joined the rail again at

Marree. Few aboriginals were met with and those contacted were so

well supplied with Government rations of food and tobacco from the sta-

tions that they were not inclined to assist in collecting natural history

material. Waite noted that the mortality amongst the station natives

seemed very high and that children were few.

The years 1913-15 had covered a drought period and it had been hoped

that, copious rains having fallen on this low rainfall country in 1916,

animal life in mid-summer would be abundant. Although results were

not quite up to expectations, good collections were taken, including pre-

viously undescribed insects and crustaceans; 106 species of birds were

secured and the nest and eggs of the Desert Chat (Ashbyia lovensis)

were seen for the first time. The reptiles are of exceptional interest in

that some of them, typically Queensland forms, have not been taken since

in South Australia.

Waite obtained a fresh-water perch, which he described as new, close

to the tree on the bank of the Cooper under which Burke (Burke and Wills

Expedition, 1860-1861) was buried. One of Waite’s old friends in Syd-

ney, Edwin Welch, was a member of Howitt’s search party. Because of

this association Waite named the fish Welch’s Perch (Therapon welchi).

The results of this Museum expedition occupies 255 pages, 23 plates and a

few text figures in the Transactions of the Royal Society of South Austra-

lia; nine papers dealing with the zoological material were included.

The stomachs of the birds taken by Waite and White were preserved

and handed to Lea for report on their contents. In company with Captain

White, Lea now made a trip to Ooldea on the east-west railway and more

insects and birds—with their stomachs—were collected. Before the

middle of 1917, Lea had completed examination of the contents of over

1,000 stomachs, sorted the various seeds, insects, etc., had sent to special-

FIELD WORK 113

ists species with which he was not familiar, and had a paper on the total

results almost ready for publication. This investigation of stomach

contents continued until Lea’s death; a notable contribution was the dem-

onstration of the usefulness of owls in assisting to control introduced

pests, mainly rodents and birds.

The Board continued to support its policy of encouraging expedi-

tions by members of the staff and thereby considerable and valuable addi-

tions were made to the collections. At this time money had a far greater

purchasing value than it has today and because of the Morgan Thomas

Bequest the Museum was in a better position than similar Australian in-

stitutions, despite cuts in the Government grants. Waite and Lea, both

active field workers, made profitable expeditions during the decade follow-

ing the cessation of the war, while N. B. Tindale and the writer carried

out several expeditions to distant parts of Australia which were produc-

tive of gratifying collections.

Lea was soon off again, this time to western Tasmania (January to

February 1918) and along the banks of the River Murray, where a record

flood had washed down and stranded along its edges hundreds of thous-

ands of insects, including beetles, a group in which he was a specialist of

international reputation.

In Tasmania Lea was met by Herbert James Carter of Sydney and

the two entomologists collected together at Cradle Mountain and along the

west coast, securing much rare or unknown material, particularly in the

smaller species. Lea examined in Tasmania the large beetle collection

of Augustus Simson. This, together with portion of his library and .

notebooks, was purchased. Many of the exotic species in the Simson col-

lection had been taken by Alfred Russell Wallace and by Henry W. Bates,

and are therefore of special interest.

When in the field Lea lost no single opportunity of collecting his

insects. During a train journey he jumped off whenever there was a

stop; rushing to the nearest trees or bushes he held under them an open

white umbrella, a famous appurtenance which he carried always when on

excursions, and then vigorously lashed the foliage with a stick, dislodging

insects large and small. Carrying the umbrella containing the resultant

debris he made his way back to his railway carriage, immediately sorted

his captures, put them in spirit bottles and labelled the contents. Unin-

telligent fellow travellers could not comprehend the reason for these

antics and on one particular occasion apprehensive passengers phoned

ahead, asking for an investigation, as they had grave doubts concerning

his sanity.

John Clark, Entomologist at the Western Australian Museum during

this period, collected and sent to the South Australian Museum numerous

114 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

insects and some crustaceans found living in the nests of ants and these

commensals Lea found of special interest, as already he was studying the

South Australian species.

It may be remarked that ants themselves are at times remarkably

good collectors. A rare Western Australian water-bug (Diaprepocoris

personata) described by the writer is known only from two examples;

the type specimen was found by Clark in an ants’ nest, having been drag-

ged there by the industrious insects. Further, on the grass plains

between Alice Springs and the Queensland border we have seen the abo-

riginal women gathering in bark dishes, for preparation of food cakes,

the accumulation of tiny seeds around the burrows made by Central Aust-

ralian ants.

The year 1918 was a momentous one. The all-important happening

of course, was the armistice towards its close. For the Museum it

marked a year of important activities and great acquisitions. The main

items were :—

1 Purchase already mentioned of the Augustus Simson collection of

Coleoptera in Tasmania.

2 Lea examined and recommended purchase of the Dr. Thomas P.

Lucas collection of Lepidoptera in Brisbane.

3 Lea’s researches on destruction of wheat.

4 Waite’s expedition to the South-western Pacific.

5 Establishment of the Records of the South Australian Museum,

referred to in detail later.

6 Purchase of the Keartland collection of birds’ eggs in Melbourne.

7 The vacated Destitute Asylum at the rear of the institution was

handed over for Museum use.

The third and fourth items were a direct result of the war, as also

was the sending to the Museum of magnificent collections of beetles and

butterflies from Aitape and Madang; these comprise about 5,000 selec-

ted and perfect specimens and form an important section of our Lepid-

optera from the Pacific Islands.

During the war vast quantities of wheat had accumulated in Aust-

ralia and by 1918 were being destroyed by weevils and other pests. Lea

became a member of the Wheat Weevil Committee and ultimately de-

vised three practical systems of treatment which resulted in the saving

of grain worth at least £1,500,000. The weevil was recognised as a pest

which dirty conditions encouraged. The chief problem of storage was

to prevent contamination from without, and to secure relatively “gas

tight” conditions to allow for efficient fumigation; this of-course was

before the days of silos. The most successful measure for both pur-

FIELD WORK 115

poses, a simple one, was proposed by Lea—the use of malthoid sheds. His

directions regarding means of preventing the spread of the trouble as

well as his methods of removing breeding grounds in the vicinity of and

under the stacks were also of value.

After returning from Tasmania in 1918 Lea visited many parts of

South Australia, primarily to examine wheat stacks, and also made an

extended tour of Victoria and New South Wales for the same purpose.

He went to Brisbane to initiate proceedings for the acquisition of the

Dr. Thomas P. Lucas collection of at least 80,000 butterflies and moths

housed in 11 large cabinets. Subsequently these were purchased and

came to the Museum in batches during the next four years. Lea con-

sidered that the Australian Lepidopteran collections thereby had been

brought from third-rate to the front rank.

While Lea was thus occupied, Waite had undertaken an expedition

which was to affect his health for the rest of his days.

After our occupation of German territory in the Pacific, small collec-

tions of ethnological objects were presented by returned soldiers and, as

some of the objects were not represented previously in the Museum, its

Committee more than once raised the question of sending someone poss-

essed of the necessary qualifications to collect in the Islands on behalf of

the Museum. In 1918 Waite was sent to New Guinea, New Ireland and

New Britain; by arrangement he was accompanied by A. C. Davis, then

lately Protector of Natives at New Ireland.

The little party left Sydney in May and spent nearly four months

in the South-west Pacific Islands. After visiting New Britain the greater

portion of this time was occupied in New Ireland, the Gardner and out-

lying islands. With the help of the Administrator, who arranged for

relays of natives as assistants, Waite was able to secure large quantities

of ethnological and zoological specimens, mostly new to the Museum. He

was assisted by traders and planters, and made contact with Father

Peekel, then engaged upon a study of the languages of the natives of New

Treland.

In addition to the specimens secured by Waite and Davis personally,

several small collections and a large one, the Whiteman collection, were

purchased. Others, as for instance ethnologia and bird skins gathered

by Captain A. J. Hunter, were donated; the ornithological material sup-

plied by Captain Hunter was specially welcome as it included Birds of

Paradise. Waite’s visit stimulated interest and after his return to Adel-

aide further Pacific Island material was presented.

Waite brought back with him collections which occupied six tons of

shipping space. He suffered twice from malaria while engaged on the

expedition, before which he turned the scale at 152 pounds but on return

116 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

barely 130. As previously noted his health was undermined and for the

rest of his life he suffered recurrent attacks of malaria.

During the course of this expedition Waite twice almost lost his life.

On one occasion when searching for bats in a cave two and a half miles

from Lakwiafanga, in New Ireland, his native attendant dropped the light.

Waite and the boy groped their way for the exit and had the greatest

difficulty in discovering the entrance. During the search Waite fell

into one of the many deep holes in the floor of the cave; he saved himself

by having the presence of mind to spread his arms so as to span the

opening. Simultaneously the native slid down another hole. After some

trouble they got out, and eventually the cave entrance was reached. Waite

and his companion arrived at the camp bedraggled and forlorn just as a

search party organized by Davis was about to go out to find them.

On the second occasion Waite, in search of a native “gallows” for

dressing human carcases, in possession of a known cannibal, went out

with a party of three natives and a Belgian planter, When Waite, who

was a long way ahead, approached the native village concerned, one of the

inhabitants raised a spear and was about to throw it. Fortunately a

police boy accompanying the party was soon close enough to shout a

threat of retaliation and the spear was not cast.

G. A. Keartland of Melbourne (collecting naturalist attached to the

Horn Expedition in 1894) was offering for sale in 1918 his collection

of birds’ eggs, together with a cabinet and a careful catalogue, all of

which were purchased. The collection had been made over a period of

about 25 years, many of the specimens having been taken in the earlier

days, when they were obtainable more easily. Besides single eggs there

were included 468 clutches; with this addition, eggs of more than two-

thirds of the birds of Australia were now represented.

A matter for regret is that the Board was not in a position to pur-

chase the magnificent bird collection of Gregory M. Mathews. In 1918

this was available for purchase in London and it was suggested that it

should be bought for the South Australian Museum; it consisted of 20,000

skins and was valued at £10,000, of which H. L. White, a wealthy grazier

of Scone, in New South Wales, offered to contribute £2,000. Abortive

attempts to raise the rest of the necessary sum were made and eventually

the Mathews collection was purchased by Lord Rothschild, who later

sold it to the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Amer-

ican interest in Australian ornithology was aroused by the acquisition

of this great collection, containing as it does so many type specimens.

Part of the then vacated Destitute Asylum at the rear of the Library

and Museum was handed over for use of the Museum in 1918, although

the land on which this and other old buildings stand was not then under

FIELD WORK 117

complete control of the Board. This was regarded as a veritable boon,

as the Museum now had difficulty in finding adequate space for anything.

Waite’s South-west Pacific collections were stored there temporarily; a

few months earlier the palaeontological material had been removed thence

from a large room on the third floor of the east wing.

When the writer first made his acquaintance with the Museum, Tep-

per with the entomological collections was accommodated in an area par-

titioned off at the western end of the north wing; prior to 1918 Lea

occupied these quarters. The insect cabinets and the Entomologist were

now moved to the room formerly occupied by large fossils, mainly

Diprotodon. Because of Lea’s energy in collecting personally, his en-

couragement of amateur collectors, and his pressure for purchase of large

insect collections, this room was jammed with cabinets at the time of his

death and remained so until some reallocation of space was made possible

in 1940, when the administrative offices at the front of the building be-

came available for Museum purposes.

In September of 1918 a female Blue Whale ( Balaenoptera musculus),

87 feet 4 inches in length, became stranded at Corvisart Bay, on the west

coast of our State; directly Waite heard of this he went to examine it, ac-

companied by his only son Claude. Waite, whose interest in the whales

went back some years, was anxious that the skeleton should be secured

but this venture, when accomplished, was not productive of very good

results. A Marine Board tug was hired to drag the whale to a sheltered

beach near Streaky Bay, 32 miles from the spot where it came ashore.

By this time the animal had been dead for at least three weeks and decom-

position was well advanced.

In the first place the carcass had been lying amongst fallen rocks

beneath steep cliffs and constant buffeting on this rough coast resulted

in much damage, disclosed when the bones were macerated. Then the

head, already with the rostrum broken off, was dropped from the gantry

when being lowered into its macerating tank, a cellar remaining where

a building adjacent to the Destitute Asylum had been removed. When

cleaned the skeleton lay for a time in the open and later was moved from

place to place as storage exigencies became more acute until eventually

its condition became such that mounting would be extremely difficult.

Waite had taken Robert Limb with him to supervise the work of

men engaged for the purpose of securing this skeleton and also the whale

oil, this last not being recommended by Waite. A horse was used to

drag off the flensed blubber, which was rendered on the spot. The oil,

however, naturally was very impure and stank to high heaven. It did not

command a ready market and was stored at Port Adelaide. On one

noteworthy occasion a long time afterwards, Limb was sent to obtain a

118 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

sample of the offensive oil for a prospective buyer. When he opened

the first drum a burst of oil erupted and Limb was drenched from head

Buildings on Destitute Asylum grounds, erected in 1854

and now demolished. The Corvisart Bay whale skeleton

was stored here temporarily while in the foreground

is the tank in which it was macerated

to foot. So malodorous was he that he was forced to ride to Adelaide

on the outside platform of one of the old railway carriages and then to

walk to his home four miles away. The oil was finally disposed of in

1928.

FIELD WORK 119

Shortly after this giant cetacean came ashore two smaller whale

skeletons were secured; one of these, Layard’s Beaked Whale (Mesoplo-

don layardii), was stranded at Kingston and the other, a very young

Blue Whale, was found on the shore at Port Wakefield.

In 1920, “Owing to financial conditions the desirable practice of send-

ing Museum officers on collecting expeditions had to be curtailed.” How-

ever, Norman Barnett Tindale, of the Museum staff, had now a propos-

ition to put before the Board.

In 1916 Tindale had applied for a position at the Museum but as

there was no vacancy he was engaged as a cadet in the Public Library. In

1918 Lea successfully applied for his transfer to the entomological section.

Tindale’s original love lay with the Lepidoptera and he has never lost in-

terest, although events steered him to a growing interest in anthropology.

Tindale had been in communication with a Missionary Society de-

sirous of establishing a station on Groote Eylandt, in the Gulf of Car-

pentaria, and had made tentative arrangements to accompany as naturalist

the party to whom the task was allotted.

The “Great Island”, the largest adjacent to the coast of Australia, had

never been collected upon by a zoologist nor, since the time of Flinders,

by any botanist. Tindale proposed to collect here and on adjacent

islands, and asked for leave of absence for a year.

Tindale spent 15 months of the years 1921-22 on and around Groote

Eylandt and in the Roper River district, paying particular attention to the

collection of insects. At this time several of the aboriginal tribes in the

areas were practically untouched by European influences. He discovered

the sailing canoes of Groote Eylandt and obtained a great deal of data,

later the subject of three long papers, concerning the natives of Groote

Eylandt and the west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Considerable

distances were covered in the auxiliary ketch Holly while the missioner,

the Rev. H. E. Warren, was searching for a suitable site for the station.

Tindale’s collections, which came to the Museum, comprised over

7,000 insects, 164 bird skins and many mammals from Grooyte Eylandt

as well as 487 ethnological objects. The mammals included several nov-

elties which were not studied owing to lack of a mammalogist on the

staff, and examples taken some years later by Captain (now Sir Hubert)

Wilkins on the same island were described at the British Museum.

On the return trip those in the Holly had some exciting experiences.

During a cyclonic storm in May, 1922, they took shelter under the lee

of an island, but were blown out. An anchor and 45 fathoms of chain

were lost and for a day the boat dragged another anchor which was put

down. The lugger was on the point of being stranded on the low coast

120 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

of the Ross River when the wind changed and blew it out to sea again.

The foremast was lost but after a trying time Roper River was reached.

F. R. Zietz made some short forays in the vicinity of Adelaide in

order to make field notes and to collect birds and reptiles. At the request

of Waite he prepared a catalogue of the lizards of South Australia and

this was published in 1920, during which year he sent field notes, photo-

graphs and other data to A. Le Soeuf and N. W. Cayley, to assist these

authors in the preparation of a proposed work The Birds of Australia and

Tasmania which was never published.

The Museum Committee in 1923 reaffirmed its decision that field

work should be carried on at every opportunity and considered also the

question of more systematic collecting than had hitherto obtained. Funds

did not permit of more than relatively short excursions during the next

three years or so, although Waite collected at Flinders Chase on Kangaroo

Island, the Nuyts Archipelago and other localities, with various parties.

During the twenties the writer made a number of excursions, accom-

panied by friends with similar interests, to various parts of the Flinders

Ranges, being granted some extension of annual leaves for this purpose.

Zoological material, including 20,000 insects, was secured at Wilpena

Pound, Owienagin Pound, Mount Padawurta, Moolooloo, Nuccaleena and

other localities: Lea mounted a large selection of these but many of the

insects came to be labelled by him as from Parachilna, one of the nearest

railway townships on the plain west of the Ranges. At this period an

old horse-drawn coach was still travelling between Parachilna and Blin-

man.

Lea was rather broad in his labelling, a fact which should be known

to later research workers. Thus, he once labelled as “Cairns district”

large collections which he made between Cairns at sea level and Ravens-

hoe on the plateau.

Lea was interested in the entomological material secured in the Flin-

ders Ranges and, in furtherance of the resolution of the Committee, sup-

ported a suggestion that Tindale and the writer, then Assistant Entomolo-

gist and Zoologist respectively, should spend a longer period in the north-

ern section of the Ranges.

This expedition, a project to occupy two months, was the forerunner

of many associations in the field. After leaving Adelaide early in No-

vember, 1924, some days were spent at Mount Serle, previously a Govern-

ment camel station, and one of the places where B. H. Babbage had

searched unsuccessfully for gold during his 1855 expedition to the north-

western areas of the State. From Mount Serle we made a trip to Mal-

kaia, on the North McKinley Creek, in order to examine and prepare a re-

port on a rock-shelter containing aboriginal paintings. The greater part

FIELD WORK 121

of the period was spent at Owieandana at the foot of the Gammon Range.

Contact was there made with the remnants of the Wailpi tribe of aborig-

inals and a previously unrecorded set of native rock-carvings was dis-

covered, of which the living brown men knew nothing at all. The skin-

ning of about 80 birds, collecting and pinning of insects, preserving rep-

tiles, as well as the gathering of ethnological specimens and data unex-

pectedly available, occupied so much time that no collecting was carried

out high on the difficult Gammon Range, an object we had hoped to

achieve. The results, however, were regarded as completely satisfactory.

After 1919 Lea made numerous brief collecting excursions but it was

five years before he commenced an extended trip, which although carried

out for another purpose was to prove of great benefit to the Museum. At

the request of the Fijian Government he was placed at the disposal of the

“Levuana Committee” for 12 months, March 1924 to March 1925. The

Coconut Moth, Levuana iridescens, was then threatening to destroy the

copra industry of Fiji and it was hoped that biological control of the

pest would solve the problem. Lea spent most of the year on a mission

to Queensland, Thursday Island, Java, Malaya and Borneo in quest of a

parasite which would check the destructive moth; the importance of his

work in this direction has been submerged in the reports of following

investigations.

Lea found that a Tachinid fly in Malaya and Java was parasitising

and restricting in numbers a moth (Artona catoxantha) related to

Levuana and similarly a pest. After consultation with J. A. Despeissis,

then Superintendent of Agriculture in Fiji, he attempted to introduce the

tiny fly as a possible control. Because of the brief life-span of the insect he

suggested that a consignment be sent by plane to meet his boat at Torres

Straits. The British Government, however, could not then make the neces-

sary arrangements so Lea brought some of the Tachinids as far as Sydney

in cold storage. Lea was never optimistic about this experiment in trans-

port; it proved unsuccessful and a few days later his engagement by the

Levuana Committee terminated.

Subsequently the fly was introduced by rapid transport to Fiji where

it quickly spread, controlling the Levuana moth as Lea had predicted

it would.

As might be expected, Lea collected an immense quantity of insect

material for the Museum during his 1924-25 journeys. Hitherto his activ-

ities had been limited practically to Australia and to his surprise he now

realised that the insect faunas he was familiar with were not limited

to Australia. On his return, and after examining his collections from

Indonesia and Australasia, he wrote ‘many of these specimens indicate

that groups hitherto supposed to be confined to Australia itself have a

considerably wider range’.

122 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

In company with John Sutton, then Honorary Assistant Curator of

Ornithology, Tindale and the writer in 1926 spent a few weeks on Kan-

garoo Island. Birds, fish, reptiles, insects, as well as Crustacea and other

marine invertebrates were secured from, and in the vicinity of, the Bay

of Shoals on the north coast, as well as at Vivonne Bay on the south

coast. The extensive limestone caves at Kelly Hill, not far from Vivonne

Bay and near the south coast of the island, had been discovered by E.

Burgess of Kangaroo Island a year before, and in them he had collected

a number of bones of the small Kangaroo Island Emu (Dromaius diem-

enianus), seen by Matthew Flinders in 1802 and becoming extinct within

the next 30 years or so. The first bones of this bird to be brought to

the South Australian Museum were picked up by Professor Walter

Howchin at The Brecknells in 1903; F. W. Giles sent others from Cape du

Couedic in 1907, but the most comprehensive skeleton material in the

Museum came from the Kelly Hill caves and was collected in the main

by E. Burgess.

The then Government Geologist, Dr. Keith Ward, was to inspect

these caves and we were invited to accompany his party. Like others

in various parts of southern Australia the Kelly Hill caverns are not very

far below the surface, connected by often narrow passages, and contain-

ing vast numbers of stalagmites and stalactites. In some the “roof”

had fallen in so that there resulted a pit or deep depression. These pits

must have formed veritable traps for larger animals during bush fires.

We found a few emu bones and bones of kangaroos in a sloping passage

leading from the bottom of one of the depressions into further caves.

They had washed, with soft silt, into the steep entrance and so to some

extent were protected within one of the caves. Previous to our visit

to Kelly Hill, Tindale had found a number of bones of the legs near the

Eleanor River, not far from our camp at Vivonne Bay, a new locality for

the emu. Beside one bone was the remains of an old clasp knife.

At about this time Waite, with the Government Geologist, explored

caves at Mount Taylor on Kangaroo Island and obtained bones of

kangaroos.

Towards the end of the year 1926, Tindale and the writer were sent

by the Board to Cape York Peninsula, North Queensland, with the ob-

ject of supplementing the hitherto relatively meagre collections from

this part of Australia. January and February of 1927 were spent at Flin-

ders and Stanley Islands, Bathurst Head, the Stewart River, Silver Plains,

and on the shores of Princess Charlotte Bay. A good collection of zoo-

logical material in all groups was made. Natives of six tribes were met

with and 610 selected aboriginal articles, including a single out-rigger

canoe, were secured and brought back to Adelaide.

FIELD WORK i 123

This was in the days before the natives of northern Queensland had

become detribalised and more sophisticated. Our main media of barter

were tobacco, tea, sugar, flour and a roll of stout galvanised fencing wire,

cut into lengths of a foot or so and prized for the making of fishing-

spears. It must not be imagined that the natives were exploited when

supplied with lengths of wire in exchange for spears with prongs of wood

or sting-ray barbs, and other implements. Rather, the natives regarded

us as being rather simple to proffer such efficient material in exchange.

We have reason to suspect, however, that at least one future ethnologist

was not well pleased with this introduction of the iron age into the cul-

ture of these peoples.

A trepang cutter had been made available for transport in and around

Princess Charlotte Bay and when this was absent a small whaleboat with

sail, as well as native canoes, were utilised. This trip was not devoid

of excitement as well as somewhat uncomfortable experiences. On

Flinders Island, the main island of the group in the large Bay, we were

camped for a time in a shack, formerly used by a half-caste overseer

employed by the trepang company, which was heavily stocked with bed-

bugs, hungry because of the non-occupation of the hut for some time.

Even after we left for other fields we spent many an odd hour locating

the wretched insects in the seams of our sleeping bags and mosquito

nets. Then the small tent with which we were equipped was not proof

against the heavy tropical rainstorms of the wet season. Eventually

a fairly satisfactory arrangement was made by erecting our rectangular

mosquito nets inside the tent so that their canvas tops sloped inwards;

a trench was dug between the two of us to carry off the water which

came through the tent and then ran off the canvas tops, so that at least

we slept in a moderately dry condition. Mosquitoes were superabundant

in the rain forests and at times, when shooting birds, it was almost im-

possible to see the sights of a gun. In aboriginal rock-shelters, or any

other situation sheltered from the wind, work was impracticable unless a

smoky fire was kept going. At night small anophelines found their way

into the mosquito nets although they should have been proof against this

invasion, having canvas bottoms, with a small flap through which one

crawled inside, as well as the canvas tops. Tindale suggested that

probably they pushed each other through the fine netting.

Swamps were traversed in the vicinity of Bathurst Head, opposite

the Flinders Island group. This locality was visited by means of the

aforementioned whaleboat, the cutter having been blown south by a

hurricane. Finally on the way back to Cairns on the little cargo steamer

Canonbar we came in on the tail end of: the “Willis” cyclone of 1926.

Some of the wooden houses in Cairns were wrecked by this storm and

124 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

roofs were lifted from more solid structures; trees to the south were

stripped of leaves—bare skeletons on the hillsides. Unusually heavy rains

followed and the country was flooded; 65 feet of water came down the

Burdekin and several people were drowned. We attempted without

success to reach Tully, where we desired to collect, but found this

impracticable, as within a mile or two of the flooded area one was likely

to be caught in a fresh outflow of water from the hills.

After reaching Sydney, we spent some time securing birds and

insects in New South Wales, mostly along the Nepean River, and marine

life in Sydney Harbour.

We had made a cinema film illustrating phases of the life of

aboriginals in Princess Charlotte Bay. This was screened on several

occasions in Adelaide and a copy of it was purchased by Middlebury

College, Vermont, U.S.A.

Towards the end of 1926 Lea made a trip to Barrington Tops in

New South Wales; this and the northern Queensland expedition resulted

in the addition of 10,000 insects to the collections.

An increasing number of people in South Australia had become in-

terested in the Australian aboriginal and as a consequence were exploring

abandoned camp sites in South Australia, as well as rock shelters on

the lower River Murray cliffs and elsewhere. As a result of this

enthusiasm, the Anthropological Society of South Australia was

established in 1926. At this time two interesting aboriginal child burials

were discovered in clefts in the lower River Murray cliffs, one

between Swan Reach and Mannum and the other at Wongulla. In both

cases the body had been placed in a net bag of vegetable fibre and rested

on grass placed therein. In one instance the body had been preserved in

a “mummified” state by the excreta of opossums (Trichosurus vulpe-

culus) which, mixed with sandy debris from the rocks, had formed a

covering two to three inches in thickness on the corpse. At Wongulla

the bones of the child had been partly burnt but bat dung, dropping from

a ledge above the remains, had preserved in part the soft grass and open

meshed fibre bag.

An unexpected link with the past was made when the writer, visiting

abandoned native camp sites on Yorke Peninsula in 1928, found and

interviewed at Moonta an old aboriginal woman who proved to be the

last of the Adelaide or Kaurna tribe. This woman, Ivaritji by name,

was later brought to Adelaide by A. Ferguson of Moonta, and photographs

and other details were obtained by us at the Museum.

Lea had reported to the Museum Committee on several occasions that

“our collection of Australian insects is the largest and best extant and

that it is growing at a very satisfactory rate.’ Towards the close of

FIELD WORK 125

this period he was still busily conducting field as well as laboratory

research, was still examining bird-stomachs, and had persuaded a great

many private collectors to bring him material. Still he was constantly

recommending small purchases and he records the fact that during the

last 12 months he had placed in the cabinets a total of 21,253 specimens.

These “smaller” activities went on during the whole of his loyal service

to the Museum. He spent October and November of 1928 in the eastern

States, where we visited all the Museums and Departments of Agriculture

in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, the Sydney University ento-

mological collection, and that of the Council of Science and Industry (then

in Melbourne) in order to examine certain groups of beetles of economic

importance. Besides visiting private collectors for the same purpose, once

more he collected personally in all these States.

To illustrate the value of the collection of these insects from a

practical point of view, the case of forests of Eucalyptus in South Africa

may be cited; the trees were being destroyed by beetles which were

thought to have come from Australia. A scientist from South Africa

(F. G. C. Tooke), came to Adelaide in 1928 and with Lea’s co-operation

identified the range of the beetle in the Museum collection. It proved to

be Gonipterus scutellatus and the locality labels showed that this weevil

was to be found in the south-eastern portions of South Australia. A

study of beetles in the Mount Gambier area, and the shipment of

batches of eggs to Adelaide, soon disclosed the fact, made known in the

Museum laboratories, that they were kept in check by minute Mymarid

wasps parasitic on the eggs. Supplies of the wasps subsequently were

introduced into South Africa, and within 12 months the beetles there were

under control. The same wasp was shipped to Brazil and North Africa

where outbreaks of Gonipterus also had occurred.

A small anthropological research party visited Wilgena in November,

1925, under the leadership of Professor J. B. Cleland. Shortly after, in

1926, the Board for Anthropological Research was established at the

University of Adelaide. The next year a party led by T. D. Campbell

(who was to become Professor of Dental Science at the University of

Adelaide in 1954) revisited Wilgena, travelling to Macumba. These

excursions inaugurated expeditions which continue to the present. The

object of the ventures was to secure all possible data concerning social

organization, physical features and ceremonies of aboriginals in

the field. A further University expedition was made in August, 1928 to

Koonibba on the west coast of South Australia and on this occasion Tin-

dale took part. The physical anthropological data for each trip is

indicated by a letter, Expedition A, being that made to Wilgena in 1925.

126 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

Important Acquisitions

Apart from collections obtained by expeditions, a great number were

acquired by purchase and donation during the first 12 years of occupation

of the east wing. The Simson Coleoptera, the huge T.P. Lucas collection

of Lepidoptera and the Keartland birds’ eggs have been referred to.

Despite crowding of exhibition and storage space, the Museum Committee

rightly considered that no important material should be passed by without

the utmost effort being made to secure it.

The coming of two major ethnological collections to the Museum was

a contributing factor to the decision to send Waite to the South-western

Pacific Islands. The first of these consisted of a large series of Papuan

stone implements assembled over a period of 30 years by A. C. English,

who was in a specially favourable position to secure them, having been

in the Papuan Government Service under various Administrators, parti-

cularly Sir William MacGregor, who himself made an extensive ethno-

logical collection for the British Museum. Purchased in 1916, the A. C.

English collection consisted of numerous stone clubs, axes, and other

implements from British New Guinea, of remarkably fine workmanship

and for the greater part obsolete. The second was donated by Major

Balfour Ogilvy and included spears, shields, masks and decorated articles

from North-eastern New Guinea.

A collection of 3,500 selected mineral specimens was purchased in

1920 from W. T. Watkin-Brown, of Sydney. The series covers a wide

range and represents especially well the minerals of eastern Australia.

At this time also, the results of the lifetime effort in natural history

of William White, of Fulham, South Australia, were presented. The

donation comprised a splendid collection of butterflies and moths

gathered from all parts of the world, 233 bird skins and 654 birds’ eggs

and clutches, many taken in the early days of the settlement of the

metropolitan area; a few mammals were included, together with the six

cabinets in which the collections were contained.

In 1922 a series of 112 skins of Australian birds was presented by

Frank E. Parsons, an Adelaide ornithologist with a private collection.

This was particularly welcomed as it constituted a selection specially

made to fill gaps in the Museum collection. Eighteen years later the

whole of the Parsons collection, comprising an additional 1,066 bird skins,

was purchased,

From J. F. W. Schulz, 36 birds and 4,000 butterflies from New Guinea

were purchased in 1923; also the collection of 379 birds made by Frank

M. Littler and used in the preparation of his book The Birds of Tasmania.

During the year 1927 more than 70,000 insects were added to the

entomological section. It was towards the end of this year that the whole

IMPORTANT ACQUISITIONS 127

of the magnificent collection of butterflies and moths formed by Oswald

B. Lower was purchased; a selection from this had been acquired by the

Museum at about the turn of the century. Lower, late of Broken Hill

and Adelaide, working in association with the noted entomologist Edward

Meyrick of Sydney, gathered a large and comprehensive collection of

Australian Lepidoptera, particularly rich in species found in South Aus-

tralia and the Broken Hill area; it includes a great number of type speci-

mens. Conspicuous amongst the moths are large timber-boring species,

including the giant Leto staceyi, with a wing span of more than 9 inches.

Although the greater part of the collection consists of Australian butter-

flies and moths, good series from India, Malaya, Africa and South America

are included.

When Lea and Tindale were deputed to examine this collection prior

to purchase they were horrified to find Mrs. Lower, dear lady, beginning

an attempt at making the collection appear tidier. She had picked out

those specimens with conspicuous labels, and those which had wings of

one side mounted on cards, and had piled them in a little heap. Here

were priceless type-specimens on their way to destruction. Careful

handling soon put things to rights and Tindale was able to conclude that

little of significance was lost. It was nevertheless a near tragedy and

served to illustrate the desirability of leaving undisturbed any collections

made by a departed expert if scientific data is to be preserved, and

especially if they are to be offered to a Museum.

R. M. Hawker contributed a further 300 bird skins, mostly foreign,

and towards the close of this period Waite presented 108 clutches of birds’

eggs; soon after he came to South Australia the Museum had purchased

his collection of 316 skins of European birds.

A large fossil cephalopod was secured for the Museum by Mounted

Constable T. Jury in 1923; this was discovered 48 miles south-west of

Oodnadatta, on the north-eastern flanks of Stuart Range in Central

Australia, and on the outskirts of the well-known opal field. It proved

to be a new Crioceratid and was remarkable in that it was the largest

species to have been discovered, measuring nearly 32 inches in greatest

diameter; Howchin and Dr. F. G. Whitehouse later described this new

form, naming it Tropaeum imperator; plaster casts of this unique

specimen were made and proved a useful medium for exchange with

other institutions.

Apart from slices and casts of meteorites, four original Australian

specimens came to the Museum between 1917 and 1924, three from New

South Wales and one from South Australia; the latter, the “Accalana”

aerolite, weighing 614 pounds, was found in 1917 and purchased from

C. Schunke. Two of the New South Wales examples were acquired

128 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

through the kind offices of Thomas Flinders Gill. One, the “Yandama,”

an aerolite 12 pounds 9 ounces in weight, had fallen in the locality from

which it received its name; another aerolite came from Cartoonkana,

Yandama, and weighed only 10 ounces. The third New South Wales

speciment, the “Morden” siderite, was found at Morden Station, 150 miles

from Broken Hill, in the Koonenbury Range, and turned the scale at 5

pounds 12 ounces.

The objects of natural history and ethnology, which with a numis-

matical collection formed the Institute Museum at Gawler, was added

to the South Australian Museum collections in 1928. Gawler, situated in

an agricultural district 25 miles north of Adelaide, had maintained this

large collection for nearly 70 years, but for various reasons the local

authorities now considered it to be too great a responsibility. It was in

excellent order and as much of the material had been collected fairly early

in the history of the State it was a decidedly good acquisition, particularly

as regards the aboriginal implements.

It was in 1928 that a restoration of the skull of the extinct Marsupial

Lion (Thylacoleo carnifex) was received from the Australian Museum,

in consideration of remains of this species lent by the South

Australian Museum to assist the reconstruction.

Another example of strange chance bringing specimens to the

Museum occurred in December 1928, when interest was aroused by

accounts of the adventurous voyage of an auxiliary schooner, the

Fides from Gothenburg to Adelaide. The vessel had encountered bad

weather, was dismasted in a typhoon, and underwent other misfortunes,

so that 16 months elapsed before she reached Port Adelaide. When

250 miles or so off the coast of Central America, between the Panama

and the Galapagos Islands, the crew of the Fides sighted a drifting canoe

and took it on board. The skipper in charge of the vessel, Captain Olsen,

presented this craft to the Museum. Prior to the advent of the European

to the western world, 500 years before, canoes of this type were the chief

means of water locomotion for the whole of the people south of the

great plains of the United States. The canoe, 20 feet in length and

hollowed from a single log, is typically Central American, and had been

adapted for rowing and sailing, perhaps by other than its original owners.

Honorary Curators

The war and its aftermath affected seriously the finances of the

Institution as a whole. In 1919 the Superintendent of Public Buildings

had no funds to supply much needed cabinets for the Museum; from

1920 onwards the printed annual reports of the departments under the

Board of Governors were abbreviated, and the permanent heads were

HONORARY CURATORS 129

urged “to curtail expenditure to the utmost possible extent.” From

1924 to 1928 the Board was finding the Government grant insufficient to

carry out the normal functions of the departments.

The extent to which the Museum is indebted to honorary curators

during these difficult periods cannot be over-estimated and it is improbable

that such long-continued voluntary assistance will be offered ever again.

It is referred to in some detail because it prevented partial stagnation in

some sections and some neglect, the permanent staff being too small to

deal adequately with the large collections in hand by this time.

In South Australia, as in other parts of the world, the natural

sciences have been advanced by the interest of ministers of religion and

medical practitioners, who have taken up some study or another as a

“side-line,” and in some instances have devoted the greater part of a

lifetime to such pursuits. Unhappily, in the present and perhaps more

strenuous times, such enthusiasts are less frequently met with.

In 1918 Alan Rowe, then a young man, and later to become a well-

known Egyptologist, compiled a catalogue of the archaeological collections

and pointed out errors in the translation on the label describing the

Ahnas Egyptian Column. Rowe had just been appointed Honorary

Custodian of Archaeology in the Art Museum, the Honorary Curator in

this section then being Francis Lady Brown. The Egyptian collections

remained as part of the “Art Museum” for some years but later this

title disappears from the records and the collections reverted to the South

Australian Museum.

William T. Bednall, who had served for 30 years as Honorary Curator

of Mollusca, resigned, because of failing health, just at the time Waite

became Director. Bednall had worked effectively, though quietly and

unassumingly, in the interests of the Museum. The bearded and genial

Dr. J. C. (later Sir Joseph) Verco was at once appointed in his place.

Joseph Cooke Verco had studied medicine in London and returned to

South Australia in 1878, practising in Adelaide. Explaining his

enthusiasm for shell-collecting he once wrote: “My interest in shells

began when I was quite a lad and made a museum in the back yard of

our home in Morphett Street, Adelaide. Shells, I thought, were more

desirable to collect than insects, less liable to explode than birds’ eggs

and not quite so easily broken.” Verco had made his first gift of shells

to the Museum in 1898, the forerunner of many further and generous

donations of specimens and apparatus. He conceived the ideal of dredging

for Mollusca, rather than relying on littoral material, and financed many

marine trips, on several of which, at his invitation, he was accompanied

by members of the Museum staff. Verco was instrumental in stimulating

many people to collect and donate shells, while his work in classifying

130 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

the molluscan collections, and his numerous careful lists and descriptions,

are still bearing fruit today. He continued for many years to make

numerous contributions in knowledge and material. One collection,

brought to the Museum in 1921, included all of the Ralph Tate land

shells, with 25 of his type specimens.

Verco personally financed assistance for cataloguing and other work

in connection with the molluscan collection. Early in 1922 he purchased

on behalf of the Museum one of the largest conchological collections to

come to the institution. This, the A. F. Kenyon collection, is of importance

in that it comprises world-wide series of Cowries and Cones, including some

of the types of the well-known English conchologist John Brazier, later

of the Australian Museum in Sydney. He also bought and presented

the Matthews collection of shells from South Australia and Torres Strait

in north Australia. In 1926 Verco not only added his private collections,

gathered at considerable expense, to the Museum material, but provided

some of the steel and other cabinets for housing them. The metal cabinets

contains a large number of them.

The Verco material is regarded as one of the outstanding collections

of the world. It is recorded as “Verco, Sir Jos. Shells, Adelaide Museum’”’

on p. 137 of Where is the ... . Collection? by Charles Davies Sherborn,

D.Sc. Oxon., Cambridge University Press, 1940.

Walter Henry Baker, a pharmacist, for many years had been

identifying crustaceans for the Museum and had become Honorary

Curator of Crustacea in 1910. In his first annual report he remarked on

the fact that “the Museum is indebted to Dr. J. C. Verco for a large

proportion of the Crustacea which reaches it. With Dr. Torr and others

he has done much dredging off our coast and latterly operations have

been extended to Western Australia.”

The writer later commenced his research on Crustacea and accom-

panied Baker, then retired from his profession, on a number of short

collecting expeditions. Like Bednall, Baker possessed a quiet, unassuming

and thoroughly likeable personality; he published a number of papers

dealing with this branch of zoology and described many species in the

groups of smaller forms of Crustacea. In 1938 he resigned, but continued

his valued friendship with the writer until his death, when almost 92

years of age, on May 6, 1949.

Following his explorations, described in the ‘“Home of the Blizzard,”

Mawson returned to Adelaide after visiting Europe and America. He had

received the Antarctic Medal of the Royal Geographical Society of London

after his services as a member of the scientific staff of the Shackleton

HONORARY CURATORS 131

Antarctic Expedition, and now was awarded numerous honours, including

the King’s Polar Medal (2 bars).

During the years of the First World War Mawson was abroad again,

Captain HE. S. O., 1916-17 and temporary Major in Munitions in 1918 and

1919. The war delayed the provision of cases which he had designed in

1910, these being similar in most respects to those adopted at the famous

Vienna Museum; the first of them was not delivered until after the war

and all gallery work concerning minerals was perforce suspended until

then.

The remainder of the mineral cases were supplied in 1922 and

Mawson, helped by Museum Assistant J. Conroy, began in earnest the

long task of arranging and classifying the thousands of specimens now

available. For scientific assistance the Board engaged R. Grenfell Thomas

from time to time, and a little later Paul Hossfeld, also then of the

University, was employed in the mineralogical section for a while, his

services terminating when he left in April 1928 in order to accompany

a Commonwealth Expedition to new Guinea; he was then supplied with an

outfit for insect collecting with which to obtain material for the Museum.

Hossfield had prepared a series a series of minerals for exhibition and had

written about 3,500 labels, most of which had been printed. The mineral

gallery was well under way.

Professor Frederic Wood Jones, then filling the Chair of Anatomy

at the University of Adelaide, was appointed Curator of Anthropology in

1919, and at once commenced a study if the Australian aboriginal skulls

and other human bones in the Museum collection. Associated with him

were T. D. Campbell and Dr. Raphael West Cilento, then again at the

University of Adelaide following his service in the First World War;

Cilento subsequently had a distinguished career, and was knighted in

1935.

In August, 1920, Wood Jones attended the Pan-Pacific Scientific

Congress at Honolulu, and functioned as delegate to represent the South

Australian Museum. On return he began to catalogue and index the

Museum skulls in accordance with a system inaugurated at the Congress.

This work was never completed, but Campbell, whom he introduced to the

collection, paid particular attention to the dentition and prepared a

paper thereon for the Dental Congress held in Adelaide during August,

1921, going on to produce his great work on the Dentition of the Aus-

tralian Aboriginal. In 1923 a new honorary position, that of Assistant

Curator of Anthropology, was filled by Campbell, by this time D.D. Sc.

Campbell had developed early an interest in the microliths, or smaller

stone implements of the aboriginals, a great number of which he had

collected from the deserted camp sites in South Australia, and he trans-

132 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

ferred a large and representative series from his private collection to

augment the small collections previously available in the Museum.

In 1925 Dr. Ales Hrdlicka, a well-known anthropologist of the

United States National Museum, spent some time in the Museum, to which

he was attracted by the collection of human skulls, then about 600 in

number.

Wood Jones secured fishes and other zoological material for the

Museum. He became Chairman of the Fauna and Flora Board, which

had been constituted to control the sanctuary at the western end of

Kangaroo Island and known as “Flinders Chase.” Waite also was

appointed to this Board and the two colleagues made several collecting

trips to Kangaroo Island. Wood Jones arranged expeditions to the

Nuyts Archipelago on two occasions; the parties were accompanied by

Waite and all zoological material taken on Pearson and Flinders Islands

was handed over to the Museum.

In October, 1922, Wood Jones was elected by the Royal Society

of South Australia as its representative on the Board of Governors of the

Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery, in place of Professor Walter

Howchin. He at once became a member of the Museum Committee and,

throughout the whole of his sojourn in Adelaide, Wood Jones was a

stimulating influence in the Museum, as well as in the University. He

was particularly interested in Australian marsupials, publishing some

original contributions. In 1925 he supplied for exhibition in the Museum

a dozen specimens illustrative of the birth of the kangaroo. This series,

still exhibited and still attracting interest, show the female generative

organs and the young in various stages, some taken from the womb,

others subsequent to birth but before becoming attached to the teat.

Other specimens show the young taken from the pouch and attached to

the teat. Diagrams and descriptive labels were supplied by James C.

Marshall.

This exhibit aroused a further heated controversy in South Australia

regarding the method of birth of marsupials, about which Wood Jones

produced a small illustrated booklet for private circulation. One of his

final gifts consisted of mammal skins, including co-type specimens.

Between 1922 and 1924 the honorary staff was considerably aug-

mented by the creation and filling of four new positions. It has been

mentioned that T. D. Campbell came forward at this period to become

Assistant Anthropologist. In addition there were now appointed a

curator and assistant curator of birds, and curators of fossils and worms.

Following the death in 1922 of the salaried ornithologist, F. R.

Zietz, no serious attempt was made at the time to maintain this position

HONORARY CURATORS 133

as a permanent office. Because of the smallness of the scientific staff,

little or no progress could have been made in this section for the next

decade. However, soon after Zietz died, Dr. Alexander Matheson Morgan

became Honorary Ornithologist. Morgan, like Verco, was a medical man

and South Australian born. In the late nineties, then at Laura in South

Australia, he was presenting bird skins to the Museum; collections from

the Gawler Ranges and elsewhere followed.

John Sutton, one-time lecturer at the University and retired from his

position as a bank inspector, worked with Morgan as Assistant Ornitholo-

gist; in 1934, after the death of Morgan, he took over the senior position.

These two bird lovers, having no staff to supervise, settled down

to work. F. R. Zietz in 1907 had commenced a card-catalogue of the

collection but this had never been completed. Morgan, with Sutton

acting as amanuensis and diligent searcher of old records, brought

this catalogue up to date and maintained it. Sutton’s meticulous pen-

manship is a distinctive feature of the registers during his long period of

voluntary service.

Our osteological material in the bird section was meagre before these

appointments but the representations were now augmented. Morgan

presented his private collection of 686 sterna, crania and other bones in

1927. Later, and not long before his death, he followed this gift by

another, the donation of a cabinet containing 600 sets of eggs, all with

accurate data, to which he soon added a further 193 clutches; previously

he had given upwards of 500 bird skins. In June, 1929, in company

with E. Burgess and a Museum officer, he explored the Kelly Hill caves

at Kangaroo Island and secured skeletal material of several wombats and

emus, both animals extinct on the island. A few years later he presented

his private collection of aboriginal weapons and stone implements to the

Museum.

Morgan took an active part in all movements fostering the study

of birds. He was one of the five foundation members of the South

Australian Ornithological Association, its first President, and President

during five subsequent sessions. He became a member of the Royal

Australian Ornithologists’ Union in 1901, and in 1922, in company with

Waite, he represented the Museum at a Congress of the Union in

Adelaide. In 1929 he was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the American

Ornithologists’ Union. He became an honorary curator with a view to

carrying out research on the Museum material but seeing the need for

improvement he decided, with Sutton’s invaluable assistance, to put all in

order first; as it happened he had little time left for the studies to which

he had looked forward.

134 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

Walter Howchin, of the University of Adelaide, was elected by the

Royal Society of South Australia as representative of the Society on

the Board of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery in 1910, hold-

ing his position as a valued member for 22 years. He was accorded the

title of Honorary Professor of Geology (Stratigraphy and Palaeontology)

at the University in 1918 and retired two years later. When he was

replaced by F. Wood Jones on the Board in 1922, he was at once

appointed Honorary Curator of Palaeontology, an office he retained until

his death in 1937, at the age of 92.

Howchin naturally had been a member of the Museum Committee; also

he had been working on the fossil invertebrates in the Museum long

before he came on the Board. There is little doubt that a discovery

made just before his retirement from the University assisted his decision

to offer his honorary services in the palaeontological section of the

Museum. A bore was being sunk at the Abattoirs near Adelaide and at a

depth of 400 feet a considerable deposit of Pliocene shells and other marine

detritus was encountered. Howchin and Sir Joseph Verco were intrigued

with this opportunity of gathering a rich collection, and Howchin was

instrumental in arranging that many of the specimens, including co-types

of new species, came to the Museum.

In February, 1927, Wood Jones resigned his seat on the Board, and

the Royal Society sent in his place Dr. Thomas Harvey Johnston, then

Professor of Zoology at the Adelaide University. He at once became

a member of the Museum Committee and at the same time a position

on the honorary staff was created for him—Curator of Helminthology.

He continued his life-time of interest in certain parasitic worms, and his

association with the Board, until his death.

Harvey Johnston was born in Sydney in 1881 and came of northern

Irish ancestry. He obtained a thorough grounding in zoology under the

tutorship of well-known Professor W. A. Haswell at the University of

Sydney. After occupying a number of professional positions he became

the first Professor of Biology at the Queensland University in 1919; in

1921 he was appointed to the newly created Chair of Zoology at the

University of Adelaide, but was released from his duties for a while

to enable him to continue his search for a biological control of the

prickly-pear pest in the eastern States.

Almost immediately, Harvey Johnston augmented the Museum

collection and eventually his type material of species described after he

came to South Australia was deposited there. He also donated 182

microscope preparations of molluscan radulae.

H. H. Finlayson had been stimulated by Wood Jones in his study of

our marsupials, and had presented a number of mammal skins to the

RESEARCH PUBLICATIONS 135

Museum. In 1927 he was appointed Honorary Associate in Mammalia,

a new position.

Waite became impressed with the extent of the work undertaken in

person by the honorary helpers. While at first he had considered their

main duty to be that of supervision, ten years later he felt compelled to

write: “Our honorary curators are most exceptional, inasmuch as they are

active workers and not mere figureheads, as so often happens in similar

circumstances.” The Board was also cognisant of the fact that the

voluntary workers had relieved what well may have been a distressing

situation, and at the close of the period under review, expressed their

gratitude to those “who devote such a great portion of their leisure time

to the scientific—and even the routine—work of the sections in which

their interests lie ...”, acknowledging also their services to the public.

Research Publications fy

Waite had been on board the Aurora, in charge of zoological matters,

during the first sub-antarctic cruise of the Australasian Antarctic

Expedition and also was on the Tutanekai a year later when she proceeded

from New Zealand to Macquarie Island for the purpose of reprovisioning

the scientific party stationed there by the expedition. It is not surprising

therefore that Mawson sent the sub-antarctic and antarctic fishes to Waite

for description. One of the writer’s first tasks at the Museum in 1914

was to assist Waite in the preparation of drawings of these fishes, and

also to remove and preserve their stomach contents and parasites. About

12 years later, following the death of the New Zealand carcinologist Dr.

Charles Chilton, certain of the smaller groups of Crustacea taken on

Mawson’s Expedition were sent to the writer for description, and these

included some of the specimens from the fish stomachs. Professor Harvey

Johnston completed the editing of the volumes of the Australasian

Antarctic Expedition biological reports, a task begun by Professor W. A.

Haswell.

Ever since the eighties of the previous century, research has been

considered one of the important activities of the South Australian

Museum. Now, members of the staff became increasingly productive of

papers for publication in various scientific journals, particularly that of

the Royal Society of South Australia, of which they had become Fellows.

Early in 1917 Waite proposed to the Museum Committee:

.... that the S.A. Museum issue a scientific publication to be devoted

to the research work of the staff, including records of expeditions, descrip-

tion and illustration of objects in the Museum, occasional notes and the

work of outside investigators dealing with Museum material. The publica-

tion to be edited by the Museum Director, to be issued at no stated

intervals, but when material to form a part is available, a suitable number

of such parts to form a volume.

136 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

At this juncture the Board, recognizing the importance of the

facilities for publication made available by the Royal Society, wrote to its

Council expressing appreciation. A year later it was decided that:

. the sum of one hundred pounds (£100) from Morgan Thomas

Bequest Account be appropriated for 1917-18 for printing ‘Records of the

South Australian Museum,’ and that any unexpended balance thereof on

June 30th, 1918, be carried forward to the credit of the Museum Records

Account for 1918-19.

This satisfactory beginning is worth noting. The cost involved about

one-tenth of the annual income derived from the Museum share of the

Morgan Thomas Bequest; present day printing costs of a similar issue

would absorb the greater part of the reduced interest from Bequest Funds.

The first part of the Records appeared on May 24, 1918, and ever since

at least one number has been published annually, the issues now covering

a period of 38 years.

By the end of 1928 three volumes had been published. Included are

67 individual papers, 41 of which were prepared by members of the

Museum staff, both honorary and permanent; the authors included Sir

Edward Stirling, Sir Joseph Verco, F. Wood Jones, Walter Howchin, T. D.

Campbell, W. H. Baker, E. R. Waite, A. M. Lea, F. R. Zietz, N. B. Tindale

and H. M. Hale. The remaining contributions, by researchers elsewhere,

dealt with material in the Museum collections. With its own publication

available for exchange purposes, the number of scientific periodicals

coming to the Museum increased rapidly and today the institution poss-

esses one of the largest, if not the largest, departmental library in the

State—exclusive of course of the Public Library.

By the early twenties it had become apparent that there was lack of

inexpensive but accurate books dealing with the animals and plants of

South Australia and it was felt that this had been a handicap to the

progress of science in our State. A group of people representing the then

practically inactive South Australian Branch of the British Science Guild

(which was later absorbed by the British Association for the Advance-

ment of Science) met and elected a small ‘Handbooks Committee’ to

implement the proposal if it were practicable. Specialists in the study of

zoology, botany and geology were approached, and willingly agreed to

prepare the desired books. Thanks to the support to the then Premier of

South Australia, Sir Henry Barwell, K.C.M.G., it was agreed that these

books should be published by the State, and printed at the Government

Printing Office. The first issue, “The Fishes of South Australia,” by

Waite, and Part 1 of “The Mammals of South Australia,’ by Wood

Jones, appeared in 1923, with Waite as editor. Waite continued his

editorial duties until his death, since which the writer has taken over the

task. Almost one-half of the handbooks published to date have been

written by members of the Museum staff. A provision of the original

A CHANGING STAFF 137

agreement was that the works must be published by the Government

Printer; unfortunately for some years past the last-named has been

greatly handicapped by lack of space and equipment to cope with his

growing commitments, and publication of the handbooks today is limited.

A Changing Staff

A number of changes in staffing took place during the period reviewed

in this chapter. Reference has been made already to the honorary curators

and to the appointment of N. B. Tindale; also to the death of Frederick

Robert Zietz.

Robert Zietz, born in 1874, had been appointed student apprentice

in 1891, became Museum Assistant six years later, Ornithologist ana

Assistant in 1910, and Ornithologist in 1919, holding this last position

until his death on April 10, 1922. His paramount value to the Museum

lay in the fact that he was so well acquainted with the history and con-

tents of the collection. He knew the whereabouts of everything, rendered

invaluable assistance to the authorities, and has left his mark on the

records of the institution.

Several members of the institution enlisted for active service in the

First World War; amongst those most closely associated with the Museum

were Hately W. Marshall and Malcolm McRae, then respectively Chief and

Junior Clerks in the administrative section.

The death of the General Secretary, J. R. G. Adams, occurred in 1919,

he having served as Assistant Librarian in the Public Library (1879),

Librarian (1896) and in the principal executive position of the institution

since 1904.

Miss Lucy M. Harwood, of the administrative staff, was for a short

time and during the illness of Adams, Acting General Secretary but next

year Marshall was appointed General Secretary, a position he held until

the three departments came under separate control in 1940.

Taxidermist and Articulator C. G. A. (Otto) Rau died in 1927, after

45 years’ service. Waite penned a testimony to the excellence of his work,

carried on with his brother J. Rau for such a long period.

Otto Rau was a meticulous and skilled worker. As an example of his

patience one remembers that he was asked to remove a skull from one of

the small worm-like Blind Snakes (Typhlops), to be drawn by the writer

as an illustration for one of Waite’s papers. Meagre microscope equip-

ment was then available at the Museum and Rau sat for hours, reading

spectacles over his ordinary glasses in order to obtain a slight magnifica-

tion, picking at the tiny skull with forceps and needle.

Wood Jones was Acting Director during the latter half of 1926, which

Waite spent in Europe and America, where he hoped to renew old acquain-

tances and to familarize himself with modern developments in museums.

138 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

In the famous American Museum of Natural History in New York, Waite

spent three weeks planning the arrangement of group cases illustrating

phases of Australian zoology. He was ill on the voyage to England and

returned to South Australia tired and dispirited after seven months of

strenuous travelling, during which he found that, after 30 years’ absence,

much of his earlier associations were gone. Also he considered that his

surveys in the United States of necessity had been far too brief.

After having spent 40 years in his chosen field Waite died in January

1928 en route to Hobart, whence, despite a serious illness, he was jour-

neying to attend a Science Congress.

In South Australia, Waite had taken an active part in activities out-

side the Museum but in some way or another connected with it. Like

Stirling, he became a member of the Zoological Society of South Australia

and served on the Council of that body. He was a member of an Advisory

Committee for protection of native fauna and flora, of the Fauna and Flora

Board (Flinders Chase), of the “Handbooks Committee,” of the Anthro-

pological Society of South Australia, and of the Royal Society of South

Australia, serving on the council for five years and being senior Vice-

President during the year of his death. He was patron of the Anglers’

Association of South Australia and founder of the South Australian

Aquarium Society. He had become a Corresponding Member of the

Zoological Society of London.

Following Waite’s death, Dr. R. Sanders Rogers, Vice-President of

the Board, was appointed Acting Director and applications to fill the

vacant permanent position were called for. The writer was one of the

applicants and was favourably considered. The Board was a little appre-

hensive regarding his relative youth, however, so he was appointed

Museum Curator and Professor T. Harvey Johnston was offered “for the

time being” the position of Honorary Director—a watching brief as it

were. Both positions were filled on May 1, 1928, and three years later

the writer became Director.

The Senior Attendant, O. N. Noake, had attained the age of 70 in

1918, but because of his satisfactory service and continued vigour, his

services were retained in the same capacity until the end of this period.

The Board then considered that at the age of 80 he should be retired and

when informing him of their decision, included a special resolution of

appreciation of his long and faithful service for 48 years.

In 1923 Bernard Charles Cotton had been added to the staff as a cadet

to assist Sir Joseph Verco in his work on the now vast accumulation of

unidentified molluscan material and to help in the preparation of card cata-

logues in this section. He shortly became Museum Assistant and Photo-

grapher, and in 1928 Assistant Conchologist and Photographer. At the

same time N. B. Tindale was appointed Ethnologist and Assistant Entomo-

logist.

BUILDINGS AND LANDS 139

Buildings and Lands

Only three years after the opening of the east wing the Board was

urging completion of the original building plan (see drawing facing p.

35) by erection of the large central structure, which if provided would

now be surrounded on three sides by the existing wings; the Board

reported that “until this has been effected a considerable store of public

treasures must remain hidden... .”

NORTH TERRACE, ADELAIDE, 1915

South Australian Institute, left foreground; western wing (Public Library) and

eastern wing (Australian Court of Museum)

Apart from lack of exhibition space, however, the Museum now re~-

quired a much larger room for the growing spirit collections. Hundreds

of gallons of alcohol in the basement of the Australian Court provided

a dangerous factor in a building not provided with fire-proof doors at any

point and with a lift shaft at each end. Accommodation for the artisans

was becoming a problem as more and more of the basement rooms became

filled with collections purchased and donated. A larger photographic dark

room, a packing room, and storage for collecting gear were pressing needs.

During the years 1916 and 1917 a considerable area of buildings at

the rear of the institution was vacated by most of the former occupants,

140 EXPANSION, 1915-1928

the Police Department, the Armed Forces, and the Destitute Asylum

inmates. As already mentioned, the last-named building was in part occu-

pied by the Museum in 1918, making possible the transfer of the entomo-

logical collections to the Australian Court.

The Board made repeated efforts to acquire the vacated area and

hoped also that the ancient buildings would assist the storage problem

to some extent. Following investigations by the North Terrace Reserves

and Railway Centres Royal Commission, on January 6, 1921, this area to

the north of, and adjoining, the grounds previously allotted to the Board,

was dedicated by proclamation for Public Library, Museum and Art

Gallery purposes, the additional land amounting to over two acres; the

total area now available was approximately 614 acres, with a frontage

to North Terrace of about 680 feet.

The Department of Defence occupied part of the old Armoury until

May 1, 1923, and the Destitute Asylum Board and the University used

buildings on the lands of the Board for a while.

It was not long before the Museum overflowed into parts of these

old buildings but soon they proved not at all satisfactory as a solution of

the problems facing all concerned. By 1926 the Board was despondent

and reported:

The old buildings on the northern portion of the Board’s land,

although outwardly very picturesque with their old English architecture,

are really of little value from a utilitarian point of view, owing to the

ravages of white ants in the wooden floors, etc., and the constant fretting

away of the lower portions of the walls through the absence of damp-

proof courses. The Board will soon be faced with the necessity of

recommending the Government to spend a considerable sum in repairing

these buildings, or, as may be thought more economical in the long run,

to demolish some of them and erect suitable buildings in their stead.

In one building used for the storage of Museum material, the fall of part

of the ceiling disclosed the fact that portions of the large wooden joists

supporting the floor above had been eaten away by white ants, and that

there was a grave risk of the collapse of that floor. By removing the

Museum specimens and shoring up the ceiling the danger has been

obviated for the time being, but unless immediate steps are taken to

remove the affected timber the inroads of the insects will continue. In

another building, where portions of the floor were replaced a year or

two ago, further damage by the white ants has been discovered.

Next year the ravages of termites continued and it was pointed out

that “unless drastic preventive measures are taken without delay one at

least of the store-rooms will have to be vacated owing to the unsafe

condition of the floors.” At the same time a large nest of the insects was

discovered under the floor of the north wing—the “General Court” of the

Museum—and show cases were found to be damaged. The Architect-in-

Chief restored woodwork in floors and cases, but in 1928 a further out-

break occurred, and another during the following year, when all cases

BUILDINGS AND LANDS 141

were raised on metal blocks and the ground poisoned. Since then the

depredations of termites in this wing have ceased but in the outbuildings

they continue from time to time to give evidence of their presence.

Portion of the Armoury, erected 1855, and adjacent

cottage

The Barracks for the Mounted Police and the Military Armoury,

both two-storey buildings, were completed in 1855. Part of the first-

named now has been removed at the boundary line of the land under care

and control of the Museum Board; the upper floor accommodates stored

142 EXPANSION, 1915.1928

collections of African and Pacific ethnology for which no display space is

available, while two large rooms there have been converted into prepara-

torial work shops. The old Armoury is fitted up in part as a store for

collections preserved in alcohol and in part as work and store rooms.

Portion of western wing of Destitute Asylum, erected 1867

The eastern end of the Destitute Asylum was erected in 1858-59 as

a Government store, and was known as the “New Colonial Store’’ while

the central and western portion was added between 1860 and 1870. By

1874 the first portion was no longer used as a store but as the southern

destitute men’s quarters. Later it became an infirmary attached to the

Destitute Asylum for men. Only a very small part of these buildings is

now utilized by the Museum.

REORGANIZATION 1928-1940

In the Museum

The beginning of this period ushered in a long-term reorganization of the Museum, and ended with

the establishment of three new Government departments, the Public Library, the Museum, and the

Art Gallery.

Reorganization

1928 - 1940

In the Museum

The beginning of this period ushered in a long-term reorganization of

the Museum, and ended with the establishment of three new Government

departments, the Public Library, the Museum, and the Art Gallery.

As noted already, some readjustment of staff immediately followed

Waite’s death. During the next ten years other changes occurred and

some additions were made to the permanent staff. George J. Stansfield,

after the death of O. Rau, served as assistant to J. Rau, but in an accident

severed the tendons of a wrist and was placed on the attendant staff;

later he became Caretaker to the whole institution, a position which he

occupied with satisfaction to all until his retirement. Alan Rau replaced

Stansfield in 1929 and is still one of the preparators. During this year

Archibald Hay, who had been on the staff of the institution since 1922,

was transferred permanently to the Museum, his work being chiefly that

of artist and signwriter. Herbert T. Condon came on the staff as a cadet,

mainly to assist the Honorary Ornithologist; later he was to become the

official Ornithologist.

The formator, Robert Limb, retired after 18 years of service and

John Conroy, now Senior Museum Assistant, took over his work of

plaster moulding and casting. The senior taxidermist, J. Rau, retired in

1936 after 42 years of valuable and conscientious service, and his son, A.

Rau, was at once elevated to his position.

Because of insufficient staffing, by 1928 the basement had become

crowded with unclassified accumulations demanding urgent attention.

Within the first year, installation of large racks afforded double the

capacity for specimens preserved in fluid, extra cabinets were in course of

construction and cataloguing of all unregistered collections had been com-

menced. This programme has continued for 28 years, during which time

143

144 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

the Museum owes much to the successive Architects-in-Chief and their

Ministers for co-operation in provision of many cabinets, shelving, altera-

tions to rooms, construction of storage annexes and so on. The collections

would be in a parlous state today if such provision had not been made.

The ancient buildings at the rear of the Museum, however, continued for

years to be far from satisfactory, although pressure of space made neces-

sary their use for storage and working accommodation. Termites con-

tinued their invasions and demanded constant attention. A further trial

was experienced during the Christmas holidays of 1929 when remodelling

of North Terrace upset the drainage of the gardens fronting the institu-

tion; heavy rains occurred at this time and miniature lakes collected which

isolated the buildings, while water pouring across the lawns threatened to

find its way below the low-lying floor of the most economically built part

of the Museum—the north wing—which previously had experienced so

much trouble from dampness. Fortunately, in anticipation of such a con-

tingency, miniature parapets had been built around the ground-level

ventilators not long before. The drainage on the Terrace was adjusted,

but as a result of the flooding termites became active in the north wing

and it was at this stage that all ground-floor cases were raised per-

manently on iron blocks. At the same time the white-ants made their

way from underground through minute cracks in the concrete floor of

the basement of the Australian Court (east wing), partly destroyed

the photographic dark room therein and attacked wooden shelving and

other fixtures. It was then that the writer decided to use steel cabinets

and shelving in preference to wood, but this led to some mistakes. Experi-

ence taught that during the winter steel cabinets are unsatisfactory for

storage of insects and bird skins, tending to relax the specimens and to

encourage mould to some extent.

As Curator, and later as Director, the writer attended only meetings

of one of the four Standing Committees, that of the Museum. A most

helpful move was the appointment as Honorary Museum Consultant of

Professor Harvey Johnston, who thus became a “referee” on the Board

in matters relating to the demands of the Museum, to which he afforded

such firm support.

At this time the Museum possessed four microscopes, two of which

were then modern, having been purchased less than ten years before, when

the writer became interested in the smaller Crustacea. It was considered

that every encouragement should be given for research in the Museum

as well as in the field, and one of the earliest moves in the general re-

organisation was a request that the Board set aside a sum for purchase

of laboratory equipment. This was approved, and the policy of providing

adequate research apparatus has been continued ever since. In the case of

microscopes, for example, the Museum at present has 14 modern binocu-

IN THE MUSEUM 145

lars and monoculars, including a Holophot apparatus and three-phase

contrast outfit, as well as a few older instruments.

A practice which has been continued for years originated in 1932,

when each week or so a selected object, if possible of topical interest, is

displayed in an isolated well-lighted case at the front entrance. This

attracts regular lunch-hour visitors who come to see ‘“what’s new” at the

Museum.

Arthur M. Lea had been Entomologist at the South Australian

Museum for 15 years when he died with tragic suddenness on February

29, 1982. His grave, fittingly, is not far from that of Canon Blackburn,

who had established a record by describing about 3,000 new species of

Coleoptera. Lea had eclipsed this performance in 1918 and reached a

total of 5,432, probably an incomparable world’s record.

Lea’s successor, Herbert Womersley, took office on January 1, 1933.

Prior to his appointment at the Museum, Womersley was Entomologist

in Western Australia to the pasture and field pests section of the Council

for Scientific and Industrial Research (now the C.S.I.R.O.); Tindale now

relinquished his subsidiary title of Assistant Entomologist and became

full-time Ethnologist retaining, however, his research interest in the Lepi-

doptera. During the same year, on July 29, Sir Joseph Verco died, having

held the position of Honorary Curator of Mollusca for 19 years; for part

of this time B. C. Cotton had been official Conchologist, but continued

to carry out photographic work for the Museum. Malcolm E. McAnna

now came on the staff as assistant in the preparatorial section, as also

did Paul Francis Lawson a couple of years later.

Classes of school children had been visiting the Museum for a long

time and the teachers often asked, as they do today, for a guide lecturer

to be supplied. Immediately after his appointment, the writer approached

the then Director of Education suggesting that our great storehouse

of material could be used more freely by or through his Department.

Further, he proposed that classes visit the Museum regularly in order to

participate in a series of illustrated talks delivered by members of the

scientific staff, and to see demonstrations arranged by the preparators. It

was hoped that, if the usefulness and popularity of such an arrangement

were demonstrated, the Education Department would supply one or more

teachers to carry on this work within the Museum. At the time no room

in the Museum was available for lecture purposes but thanks to the co-

operation and sympathy of my friend, the late H. Rutherford Purnell,

then Public Librarian, the Children’s Library was used for a while. This,

as now, was situated on portion of the ground floor of the vacated Police

Barracks. The first class was held during school hours, on June 2, 1933,

when the Director gave a talk on the geography and natives of north

Queensland. Subsequently, demands for classes and demonstrations be-

146 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

came so numerous that the staff could not cope with them and soon they

were limited to Adelaide High School students, for whom a planned series

of talks was prepared. The Director then stated, in the Board’s report to

the Government: “It is to be sincerely hoped that our effort towards the

cultivation of the interest of the younger generation is but preliminary to

further advances in this direction. In progressive overseas museums, a

building or a gallery is reserved for talks to children. I am strongly of

opinion that a room should be set aside as a Children’s Museum and

lecture room.”

Meanwhile, a great deal of material was removed from exhibition. So

crowded had been the exhibits in the Australian Court that on entering

any of the three galleries the visitor was confronted with closely grouped

cases, the opposite end of each hall being completely hidden; all cases were

then the old “museum colour’’—a funereal black. Removal of some cases

resulted in an impression of spaciousness, while certainly there was

greater freedom of movement. Also, specimens were so crowded in many

of the cases as to present a mass of material of limited educational value.

The hundreds of human skulls were removed from near the front entrance

to the reserve collections and also a large number of specimens duplicated

on the galleries or suffering from exposure to light. In place of exhibited

collections of Australian birds’ eggs, an extensive teaching series was

installed, showing nesting places, and types of nests and eggs; apart from

actual specimens, including birds, many colour sketches are shown, the

work of Condon, who arranged the whole series.

This work was in progress when the Carnegie Corporation of New

York became an important influence on the museums of Australia.

The Carnegie Corporation

Dr. Frederick Paul Keppel had been elected President of the Carnegie

Corporation of New York in 1922, a position he held for 19 years. He was

keenly interested in all cultural and educational institutions and at his

suggestion two competent investigators were invited to survey the

museums and art galleries in Australia and New Zealand, all expenses to

be met by the Corporation. The selected commission consisted of Sydney

F. Markham, an Englishman with considerable experience of museums

and art galleries, and Professor H. C. Richards of the University of

Queensland. These experts confirmed the opinion of three successive

Directors of the South Australian Museum regarding the unsuitability of

its buildings. In their report, published in 1933, they stated: ‘With the

exception of Canberra there is scarcely a museum in the Dominion that

can be regarded as up-to-date from the point of view of lighting, fire

prevention or staff accommodation. In many the lighting is unsatisfactory,

and reflection is at its maximum.”

wer AS

“REFLECTIONS IN ADELAIDE”

Cases in north wing, 1932

THE CARNEGIE CORPORATION 147

It is worth recalling that in 1882-3, the Board of Governors of the

South Australian Institute recorded its opinion that “electric light is

especially well suited for the lighting of larger public buildings.” After a

lapse of half a century, the Museum was the only one of three institutions

under control of the Board which had been neglected in this respect.

No attempt had then been made to reorganize the older part of the

Museum, the north wing, and the investigators were intrigued to find the

reversed skeleton of the Indian elephant “Miss Siam” superimposed on her

mounted skin by reflection in the glass of the exhibition case; the accom-

panying photograph was used in their report and is there entitled ‘Reflec-

tions at Adelaide.”

Dr. Keppel himself visited Australia in 1935 and when in Adelaide

commented on the fact that we are fortunate in having our cultural

centres grouped together on North Terrace. This is indeed a most for-

tunate circumstance, demonstrating the foresight of the responsible

authorities who pressed for the present site of the Public Library, Museum

and Art Gallery. The juxtaposition of the Museum to the University, with

its science libraries and laboratories, has proved a tremendous advantage

to the staff. Any situation far removed from the University would present

decided drawbacks and could affect adversely the useful liaison, of 80

years duration, between the two bodies.

In their 1933 report, Markham and Richards commented on the rela-

tive isolation of Australian museums, and suggested that curators should

be given an opportunity of visiting the best museums abroad as part of

their training. Further, they proposed that a conference of the Directors

of the museums and art galleries of Australia and New Zealand should be

held. This, thanks to the generosity of the Carnegie Corporation, was

arranged, the meeting being held in Melbourne during May, 1936. As a

result of the conference the Art Galleries and Museums Association of

Australia and New Zealand was formed, with H. C. Richards as the first

President. One of the first actions of the Association was to request Dr.

Keppel to arrange for the sending of an American taxidermist to Aus-

tralia and New Zealand, to demonstrate modern methods of taxidermy and

display, in general not well developed in these countries. The Corporation

sent Frank Tose, Chief of Exhibits at the Californian Academy of Sciences,

in August, 1937. He spent ten days in Adelaide, instructing the prepara-

tors at the South Australian Museum. During the following October and

November he conducted a class at the Australian Museum, which was

attended by A. Rau and workers from other museums.

This year the “Melrose Wing,” a splendid addition to the National Art

Gallery of South Australia, was almost completed. The prints, ceramics,

historical items and the coin collection were removed therefore from the

southern portions of the second and third exhibition galleries and halls of

148 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

the Australian Court. This made possible two important additions, a

“Children’s Museum” and a number of diorama cases on the bird gallery.

Dr. Keppel had written to the Director offering a Carnegie grant to

the Museum if a satisfying proposal were put forward for its expenditure.

The suggestion was made at once that this welcome offer be utilized for

establishment of a museum for juniors. Fortunately, a hall opening from

the bird gallery was now available and in this were installed cases. with

specimens, labels, diagrams, models and photographs illustrating and

describing in sequence:

(1) The earth and its life.

(2) Man and his activities.

(3) Friends and foes of man.

(4) Animals in relation to other animals,

(5) Animals in relation to environment.

This section of the Museum still attracts as many adults as it does juniors

and adolescents, and points the fact that exhibition at high school stan-

dard satisfies also the majority of the public.

The Children’s Hall is completely lighted; it was opened in May, 1938,

and one evening of that month the Minister of Education, the Hon. Shirley

Jeffries (now Sir Shirley), together with his chief executive officers, visited

the Museum and expressed satisfaction with, and appreciation of, the

innovation.

Shortly afterwards, an adjoining room was fitted up as a class room,

equipped with an Aldis epidiascope and a 16 mm. sound projector.

Portion of the grant was used for employment of specially qualified

teachers, notably a musician with a knowledge of primitive instruments.

He conducted weekly classes and at one period formed an orchestra of

school children playing native drums, flutes and drone pipes of the Aus-

tralian aboriginal.

In 1938 the ‘‘coves’’ and fronts of a series of diorama cases had been

completed by the Architect-in-Chief, and installation of bird-groups in

natural surroundings had been commenced.

The backgrounds of these cases were in the main painted by two well-

known Adelaide artists, George Whinnen and Robert Waden, both now

deceased. Six large dioramas illustrate respectively a rookery of the

Pied Cormorant (Phalacrocorax varius); a scene at Mount Connor in

Central Australia with Galahs, or Rose-breasted Cockatoos (Kakatoe

roseicapilla) ; a peak in the northern Flinders Ranges as a setting for the

Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax); the Australian Pelican (Pelacanus

conspicillatus) on an island in the Coorong; the Mount Lofty foothills

with the White-backed Magpie (Gymnorhina hypoleuca) and a River

Murray setting with Brolgas, or Native Companions (Grus rubicundus).

GEET ‘Ginbosnyy uel Vy yjnoe

pps) PUOOUTA TTS

THUIPMG DAOUSULWY UL (SMLIDA LDLOIOLIDIVY YP) JURAOULIOT) Pal AY] JO Naoyooy

UL RIURAOTET

OP6T “Wnosnyy uelpersny YyNoS ur eure.ord

oFury

Apu UL (xppny ppinby) o[seq palrey-oF poy

RESEARCH IN THE FIELD 149

Six smaller dioramas display, in more restricted surroundings, other South

Australian birds. All of these cases are lighted with concealed fluorescent

tubes.

Installation of some of the dioramas entailed preparation of a great

number of artificial leaves. Implementing a method advocated by Frank

Tose, hinged moulds were made of the two sides of various leaves of

plants and from them replicas were reproduced; this occupied a great deal

of time. Eventually there resulted an interesting link between the chil-

dren’s museum and the dioramas; we called for volunteers to press out

leaves and the response was more than gratifying, teams of girls working

on the project each afternoon after school hours.

Visitors grants were made available by the Carnegie Corporation to

the Ethnologist, N. B. Tindale, and the Director. Tindale travelled to

America and Europe from June 1936 to March 1937; he studied Australian

ethnological material in overseas collections and made notes on all those

types not known, or rare, in Australian institutions. The Director in 1939

spent several months in the United States and Canada, paying particular

attention to research centres at universities and museums, the efforts of

the last-named in child education, and aspects of administration. He was

visiting the British museums at the outbreak of the Second World War.

It is scarcely necessary to add that both officers paid particular attention

to methods of display in museums and recorded useful data in long reports

to the Board.

On December 29, 1938, the famous H. G. Wells was in Adelaide en route

to a Science Congress; having a day to spare he spent this in the Museum

and at the Zoological Gardens, between which there has been a close liaison

since the establishment of the last-named in 1878.

On this occasion, H. G. Wells was attracted by the innovations result-

ing from Carnegie Corporation assistance. He also displayed interest in

the larger carnivorous marsupials; we could show him only ‘dead’

material of the Tasmanian Tiger and the Native Cats, but at the Zoo

he saw living examples of the Tasmanian Devil.

Research in the Field

Between 1928 and 1934 there was very considerable acceleration in

field research from the Museum. We were fortunate in that the Morgan

Thomas Bequest lessened the impact of the depression beginning in 1929.

The purchasing value of the income available from this source was abnor-

mally high but nevertheless it was necessary to reduce expenses to a

minimum.

The major project in 1929 concerned two adjacent sites in the lower

Murray Valley, where human remains were associated with aboriginal

occupational debris; both are of exceptional interest in that they show

150 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

successive periods of occupation. This was particularly evident in a rock

shelter at Devon Downs, which contained 12 well defined stratified layers

extending to a depth of 6 metres, while at nearby Tartanga, an island

between the river and a lagoon, still older camp sites were examined,

stratified and consolidated and also with human remains. Four super-

imposed cultural phases were apparent in the cave excavation, where

a pit of 9 square metres was taken out layer by layer by members of the

staff. The succession established here has become the classic Australian

one; since the days when it was excavated the rock shelter has become

sealed by a flow of red sand-drift from the cliff top resulting from the

clearing of the Callitris scrub from an area adjacent to the limestone

cliffs, one of many examples of the futility of clearing some of the loose

Murray soils. The sand effectively seals the site until further study of

it becomes desirable.

The discoveries in the Devon Downs rock-shelter stimulated examina-

tion of other caves and shelters between Blanchetown and Murray Bridge,

with useful results.

Between 1930 and 1932 visits were made to Kangaroo Island, Tan-

tanoola, The Coorong, Point McLeay, the River Murray, Paratoo, Orroroo,

Mount Compass and Central Australia; expeditions carried out in

co-operation with the University are dealt with separately, as also are

those conducted by the honorary curators.

For a long time it had been thought that, before the advent of the

white man, Kangaroo Island had never been occupied by the Australian

aboriginal. Walter Howchin, a remarkably keen observer, discovered eight

aboriginal hammer stones on the island during his geological excursions,

and in 1922 William Ham, of the Education Department, found a couple

more. A further and more extensive find in 1930 served to stimulate the

activities of the Museum on Kangaroo Island. It was in November of

this year that Richard Grenfell Thomas, participating in an Agricultural

Bureau visit to Hawk’s Nest, 20 miles south of Kingscote, found evidence

of an ancient large aboriginal camp, littered with stone implements. This

important discovery was at once followed up and recorded by Tindale;

extensive investigation of other parts of the island were then carried out

and the fact of one-time habitation by the aboriginals firmly established.

In 1931 the limestone caves at Tantanoola in the south-east of the

State were being “opened up” as a tourist attraction. We spent some weeks

in this and other caves in the area, collecting a large series of bones of

Pleistocene mammals.

It was in 1934 that Tindale and other members of the staff

excavated the aboriginal occupational debris in Kongarati Cave, near

Second Valley. In this were discovered the dried body of a female

aborigine in its original kangaroo skin wrappings, fragments of fishing

RESEARCH IN THE FIELD 151

nets, fire-sticks and bone and wooden implements. This year H. T. Condon

visited north-western Victoria in search of birds and data, and also Port

Gawler, the River Murray and other places for the same purpose.

Lea’s last collecting trip during the year of his death was to the

River Murray, which had flooded. He sought insects along the flood

margins.

The South Australian Government, in 1934, appointed the Museum

Director as one of the members of a Royal Commission of three deputed

to report on the fishing industry and fish marketing in the State. Reginald

John Rudall, M.P., later to become Minister, was Chairman, and Ernest

Albert Sheridan, a professional fisherman of wide experience, became

the third member. The whole of the occupied coast-line of the State

and the River Murray from the Victorian border to the mouth was

traversed during this and the following year.

This was the second Commission appointed to investigate the impor-

tant matters involved, the previous enquiry having been instituted in 1907.

Some of the recommendations of the 1934-5 Commission have been

carried out, resulting in increased production. Notably, research is being

systematically conducted, while the South Australian Government has

invested in improved port facilities and in other matters relating to the

industry.

The Board for Anthropological Research at the University of Adelaide

had been established because of a growing concern that after another

generation had passed aboriginals not seriously affected by contacts with

Europeans would be difficult to find in Central and northern South

Australia, particularly after the extension in 1929 of the north-south rail

head to Alice Springs. Furthermore, with the northern extension of the

railway and the advent of motor trucks in the interior, travellers did not

meet the difficulties experienced by previous parties. The period covered

by expeditions organized under the aegis of this Board was in fact

almost the last during which ethnological collections, with authentic data

and uninfluenced by our cultures and materials, could be secured from

the tribes of these areas. Most of the members of the Anthropological

Board held office as honorary curators at the Museum; two members

of the permanent Museum staff—Tindale and the Director—are still

representatives on the Board. All ethnological material obtained during

the course of expeditions by this Board is incorporated with the Museum

collections, as well as thousands of still photographs and positive copies

of cinematograph film.

Gramophone records of song and dialect were made, and by the

close of 1939 approximately 15,000 feet of 16 mm. film had been secured,

illustrating intitjiuma and initiation ceremonies, social life, making of

implements and other activities. All these data are especially valuable,

152 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

as the ethnological specimens are fully documented in a manner not

usually possible in those obtained indirectly. Even amongst the almost

completely detribalised Aranda natives, were secured ceremonial and

totemic objects (waninga and tjurunga) and we were interested to find

that there were more than 50 designs in the “cat’s cradles” of the

children. The Museum collection of tjurunga alone now numbered about

1,000.

Dr, Ales Hrdlicka, of the Smithsonian Institution, when examining the

human skulls in the Museum in 1925, had suggested that we should

attempt face-casts (or “life-masks”) of Australian aborigines, in order

that permanent records of the features would be available for future

investigators. He advocated the making of such casts with the eyes

open, in order to ensure a life-like expression. This entailed careful

handling of liquid plaster, as a lachrymal outflow resulting from the

slightest irritation might cause it to run into the eyes, an extremely

uncomfortable situation for all concerned. Tindale and the writer experi-

mented on several trusting friends, including T. D. Campbell, who had

followed Wood Jones as Honorary Curator of Anthropology at the

Museum. Emboldened by some success, we then decided to extend opera-

tions to aboriginals in the field, and wonderful subjects these unsophisti-

cated people were.

Our interest was stimulated by the acquisition of a series of life-

masks of Eskimo and other races from Dr. V. Suk of Brno, Czechoslovakia.

Suk operated in much the same way, covering the face, but only one ear,

with plaster in order to avoid locking, which would present complications

when the hardened mould was ready for removal. We evolved the idea

of including both ears and, before the plaster was fully set, cutting the

mould partly through around one ear. This portion was then easily

broken off (see upper photograph of plate) as the first step in removal

of the mould and because of the jagged surface fitted perfectly back into

place; the casting was later extended to busts.

Our first essay in the field was made at Macdonald Downs. It was

a scene which intrigued the members of our party, as indeed it intrigued

all who took part in anthropological field work during the next decade,

for the taking of life masks was extended over a considerable period.

Picture a naked aboriginal immobile on an extemporised platform,

eyes fixed on a “sugar lolly” or stick of tobacco suspended by a string

from the roof of the tent in order to minimise movement of the eyelids.

Two plaster-smeared figures bending over the placid brown man—or

woman—only the dark eyes showing at last, glistening through the white

of the setting plaster. The latter as it warmed disturbed the head-lice

which, brindled, black and yellow, ran over the fabric on which the

head of the subject rested. One cannot speak too highly of the co-opera-

Hale and Tindale moulding face of aboriginal in Central Australia, 1931

Plaster face-cast as removed from mould and trimmed

Face-casts ready for exhibition

RESEARCH IN THE FIELD 153

tion of these people and their obvious desire to assist, although knowing

little or nothing of our language and learning our requests through the

lips of a native interpreter. The ordeal in the case of the older men

at least was probably not very dreadful when compared to the initiation

ceremonies experienced during their youth, although it entailed the

preliminary removal of all facial hair, including the luxuriant beards.

Skin colours and eyes (using glass replicas) were matched by

Campbell, a routine carried out with all natives dealt with on this and

other expeditions; these data ensured accurate colouring of the casts.

After experience with unspoilt and passive aborigines, face and bust casts

were made of more sophisticated individuals on mission stations and in

the field nearer Adelaide.

In 1932 some of our facial casts were exhibited at a “Man and his

Ancestors” Exhibition in Melbourne, the first time they were displayed in

Victoria. Others were sent abroad as exchanges, particularly to Dr. Suk,

in return for the casts previously supplied by him.

The base camps of the combined University and Museum expeditions

covered a wide field. Koonibba in 1928; Hermannsherg in 1929; Macdonald

Downs, 280 miles north-east of Alice Springs, in 1930; Cockatoo Creek,

about 200 miles north-west of Alice Springs, in 1931; and Mount Liebig,

280 miles west of Alice Springs, in 1932. The base for the 1933 expedition

was Ernabella, 300 miles west-north-west of Oodnadatta; prior to the

arrival there of the party, Tindale and Dr. Cecil Hackett of the University

had spent three months in the Mann and Musgrave Ranges, following the

nomadic aboriginals and carrying out anthropological work; they secured

much data, and 1,500 feet of cinematograph film illustrating ceremonies

and a day in the life of these people.

The main expedition in 1934 was to Pandi, on the River Diamentina,

the party travelling by motor across the Lake Eyre Basin and Goyder

Lagoon; this year also, Tindale and Hackett spent a few weeks at Ooldea

and witnessed several phases of initiation rituals. In 1935 six weeks were

spent in the Warburton Ranges by a further expedition led by Tindale,

with Dr. C. J. Hackett, Charles Pearcy Mountford, Honorary Assistant in

Ethnology at the Museum) and E. O. Stocker of Sydney, who had accom-

panied several previous expeditions in order to secure the cinematograph

records. The Granites in Central Australia was the base of a group of

investigators in 1936, and in 1937 a visit was made to Nepabunna in the

Northern Flinders Ranges, where we met again, now on a mission station,

the remnants of a tribe encountered by Tindale and the writer 13 years

before. Some of these expeditions were assisted by grants from the Rocke-

feller Foundation and the Australian National Research Council in

Australia.

Dr. Keppel was impressed with the results of the anthropological

field investigations when he visited South Australia in 1935. They served

154 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

also to focus the attenion of overseas anthropologists on Australia, and a

number of researchers have come to the Commonwealth since the estab-

lishment of the Board for Anthropological Research and have worked

under the aegis of that body.

A combined Adelaide and Harvard University anthropological expedi-

tion was carried out in 1938-9, when Dr. Joseph Birdsell, then of Harvard,

spent 14 months in the field with Tindale, travelling over the greater part

of Australia. As might be expected, Tindale made an extensive collection

of ethnologia for the Museum during the course of this long expedition.

Included is unique material of pygmoids of the Atherton Tableland and a

series of fossil bones of large extinct marsupials, in association with frag-

mentary human remains and artefacts, from a site at Lake Menindee on the

Darling River. Because of the intervention of World War II this last did

not receive further attention until 1953. Tindale brought back 3,000 feet

of 16 mm. cinefilm, for use with classes of school children and illustrating

natural-history and aboriginal life. Birdsell and Tindale measured 2,458

aborigines and part-aborigines and secured also 4,900 “still” photographs

of them.

It had been noticed that, after the South Australian Animals and

Birds Protection Act became effective, few protected animals found their

way to the Museum, excepting when special collecting permits were issued

by the Minister concerned. This was either an earnest of the effectiveness

of the measure or a fear of repercussions. However, in 1938 an important

amendment was made to the Act whereby an accredited Museum authority

may give written permission to those willing to obtain desired material

for the institution. Needless to say such permits are very much restricted,

and are confined to bona fide collectors and well-known friends of the

Museum; at first offers were made by various persons desiring to collect

birds for us during ‘‘close” seasons!

The Honorary Officers

Professor Wood Jones left South Australia towards the end of 1927.

Although his honorary position at the Museum was that of anthropologist,

one of his main interests lay with Australian mammals.

H. H. Finlayson, as assistant in Mammalia, devoted much time to the

collections and was appointed Curator to the section in 1930; he is an

enthusiastic mammalogist and maintains a large private collection. At

no time had there been a full-time salaried curator of mammals at the

Museum, it being the policy of the Board to appoint or, during the last

16 years, to recommend the appointment of, an honorary worker for this

position. Finlayson has carried out, and continues, many private field

expeditions, and the Museum collections have benefited thereby, species

previously unrepresented being added as the result of his efforts. During

THE HONORARY OFFICERS 155

the period under review, he made privately financed expeditions to Central

Australia, many parts of South Australia and its islands, Tasmania,

Victoria, New South Wales and southern Queensland.

Towards the end of 1931, L. Reese, af Appamunna, in the far north-

west of South Australia, sent to Finlayson a skull and a skin of the Plain

Rat-Kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris) an animal long thought to be

extinct and previously known only from the three examples sent to the

British Museum by Captain George Grey 90 years before. The following

year Finlayson made an expedition, of three months’ duration, and

secured specimens and data concerning the living animals.

Finlayson’s well-known book The Red Centre was published in 1935.

In expressing appreciation of this excellent portrayal of the interior, one

cannot do better than quote the final remarks of Wood Jones in his

Foreword. “When Finlayson writes of the Centre and its fauna the reader

may be well assured that he is reading reality—the reality of a man who

knows these things with an unassuming familiarity”.

Dr. T. D, Campbell, as Curator of Anthropology, catalogued the skulls

and skeletons of Australian aborigines, and in 1928 was instrumental in

establishing a case illustrating the genealogical “tree” of man, the various

modern and fossil types being represented by skulls or their casts.

Campbell is responsible for organization of the larger University-Museum

expeditions carried out under the aegis of the Board for Anthropological

Research.

After the founding of the Anthropological Society of South Australia

in 1926, a few members served as honorary assistants in the ethnological

section, some for brief periods, their help being in the main confined to

field work. C. P. Mountford, at the present time Associate in Ethnology,

began his long years of honorary service in 1935. Mountford has organised

and led expeditions to the northern parts of Australia and its islands and

has participated in many others. Because of his colour films and his

writings, notably Brown Men and Red Sand (published in Australia, the

U.S.A., England, Germany, France and Spain), as well as his contacts

in the United States, Mountford is the most widely known of the amateur

Australian anthropologists; during the Royal visit to Australia, Her

Majesty the Queen was presented at Whyalla, March 1954, with a copy

of the above-mentioned book. Mountford was appointed Acting Ethno-

logist at the Museum while Tindale was in the field during 1938 and 1939.

The Honorary Mineralogist, Sir Douglas Mawson, continued to super-

vise the mineral collections in the study cabinets and on exhibition, planning

the installation of a case for display of fluorescent minerals. He was busy

during this period organizing the British, Australian, and New Zealand

Antarctic Research Expedition, leading two cruises of the Discovery

during 1929-30 and 1930-31. Professor Harvey Johnston participated

156 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

as zoologist, supervising the collecting of natural history specimens and

publishing a “Biological Organization and Station List” as a preface to

the scientific zoological and botanical reports. Subsequently some of the

zoological material was described by four of the members of the permanent

Museum staff, Tindale, Womersley, Cotton and the writer.

Dr. A. M. Morgan made several short expeditions, at personal expense,

in search of birds and their eggs. The first discovery of authentic eggs

of the Banded Stilt (Cladorhynchus leucocephalus) was made at Lake

Grace in Western Australia in mid-winter 1930 and towards the end of

this same year a nesting colony was found on an island in Lake Calla-

bonna, then flooded for the first time since 1918. To gather first-hand

information concerning this most interesting occurrence, Morgan visited

the Lake during January 1931 in company with J. Neil McGilp, a generous

donor of birds’ eggs to the Museum, and there the two ornithologists

collected a large series of egg-clutches for the Museum and data for

the preparation of a paper—The Nesting of the Banded Stilt.

Morgan died in October, 1934, after having rendered invaluable

service to the ornithological section of the Museum for 12 years. John

Sutton continued the work, as Honorary Curator of Ornithology, until

his death in November, 1938.

Towards the end of his 14 years of service as Honorary Curator of

Palaeontology, Professor Walter Howchin had commenced the arrange-

ment of fossils in the north wing—contributing generously to the exhibited

material. Special table cases designed by him were supplied, these occupy-

ing 90 feet by 4 feet of gallery space. Howchin died in November, 1937,

having bequeathed to the Museum his large and important palaeonto-

logical collection, together with that of Foraminifera, as well as literature

dealing with them.

Frank K. Godfrey was appointed Honorary Assistant Conchologist

in 1938. His most important contribution was collaboration with the

permanent Conchologist, B. C. Cotton, in the preparation of two parts

of one of the British Science Guild Handbooks, that dealing with The

Molluscs of South Australia.

Accessions of Special Interest

It will have been noticed that the field work during this period was

predominately anthropological in concept, resulting in the addition of

many thousands of specimens to the collections; donations and purchases

continued, however, and some are worthy of special mention.

Firstly, much skeletal material was acquired as a result of the co-

operation of the South Australian Commissioner of Police, and to this

day the Museum is indebted to the ever ready assistance of his department.

The value of the collection was now known to overseas researchers and

in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection vol. 78, 1926, p. 74, appears

ACCESSIONS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 157

a comment regarding our Australian skull collections:—‘The greatest

collection of human skeletal material is that of the Museum of Adelaide’.

After having spent several years in the Santa Cruz group of islands

Dr. C. M. Deland, who remains a good friend of the Museum, presented

during the late ’twenties native articles of exceptional interest. One of his

most welcome gifts was a coil of the rare feather currency used by the

inhabitants of Santa Cruz. The tavau or feather money was at the time

one of only about four housed in museums; later a somewhat inferior coil

was acquired. The “money” is made from pigeons’ feathers and the red-

breast feathers of a honeyeater, bound to a broad base of vegetable fibre

in such a manner that on the outside only the red feathers show. The

honeyeaters which supply the precious feathers are caught alive, plucked

and liberated. The coil is rolled on two wooden frames and is decorated

with beads and pendants of shell.

The most important purchase during 1928 was that of five skulls

of Tasmanian aboriginals from Dr. Robert H. Pulleine. The Harold L.

Sheard Australian ethnologia were acquired about the same time, as well

as a number of smaller collections.

During this same year H. A. Heinrich, then a teacher at the Her-

mannsburg Mission Station, had been contacted by the combined Univer-

sity and Museum party then in Central Australia. Heinrich was interested

in collecting weapons, utensils and ceremonial objects of the tribes in the

MacDonnell Ranges, and readily agreed to obtain material if costs were

met by the Museum. Our contact and friendship with Heinrich resulted in

the acquisition of a large number of selected specimens, including

tjurunga, some of which on later expeditions were taken again to Central

Australia in order to more fully document their significance.

Paul S. Hossfeld was now collecting ethnological objects and natural

history specimens in the Mandated Territory of New Guinea. A note-

worthy contribution was his discovery in 1929 of fragments of a human

skull, probably of Pleistocene age, from Aitape in New Guinea. This later

formed the subject of a paper by Dr. Frank J. Fenner, then Assistant

Physical Anthropologist at the Museum.

Mrs. Daisy Bates, the “old grandfather” of the natives of Nullarbor

Plains, in 1932 presented various aboriginal ceremonial objects which

illustrate the rapid adaptations resulting from European contact. One

of them, standing about 12 feet high, was constructed of packing cases

and two discarded motor car tyres, but the whole waninga is decorated

with the eagle-down in the traditional manner, human blood being

employed as the adhesive. Mrs. Bates, a cultured Irish lady, devoted her

life, from 1899 onwards, to the study and well-being of the natives who

had gathered and stayed at the Ooldea siding on the rail from Adelaide

to Perth.

158 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

By this time a number of people in different parts of Australia and

New Guinea had offered to act, in an honorary capacity, as buyers of

ethnological collections for the Museum. Among the most productive

purchasers in the field were H. U. Shepherdson (who continued his efforts

in northern Australia for years), K. H. Thomas of Aitape, New Guinea,

and T. Vogelsang, of Cooper Creek, the last-named having a place in

the Museum as a member of the Attendant staff.

During the year 1933 some good Pacific Island collections came to

hand, notably those donated by H. K. Bartlett (Papua), J. Wilson (New

Ireland), H. A. Stevens (Bank Island) and Mrs. G. E. Peters (Papua,

Fiji and Samoa). The last was worthy of a special exhibition, as it

included beautifully carved ebony clubs from Kiriwina, in Southern Papua,

a carved drum with lizard-skin head, a hand-turned drinking pottery

vessel, rare in Australian museums, and quaint miniature carved figures,

including a pig and crocodile.

The African ethnological material was enriched in 1933 by purchase

of a further remarkable collection of iron weapons, implements, musical

instruments and personal effects of natives of Baringa on the Upper

Congo River. Massive brass anklets and necklets worn by women were

included, one such set comprising a necklet nearly 24 pounds in weight

and a pair of anklets, each of which weighed more than 12 pounds; these

had been worn by the wife of a chief. An elephant-tusk horn perhaps

may be regarded as somewhat the equivalent of the ftjurunga of the

Australian, as it is considered to be the abode of the ancestral spirit.

It was in 1933 also that 131 fine specimens were received from Elcho

Island off the north coast of Australia. For these the Museum was

indebted to H. U. Shepherdson. Included were grave posts, coffins, cere-

monial objects, and articles used for gathering of food. Of particular

interest is a cane fish trap, 6 feet in length, rare in museums and shaped

like an elongated cask; this furnishes a further indication that the

northern Australian aboriginals received cultural impulses from the East

Indies in past centuries. Some grotesquely decorated skulls were also

secured; after preparation these are suspended from the neck of the

parent or wife of the deceased person concerned, and may be so carried

about for years. The first record of such skulls in Arnhem Land probably

rests with Matthew Flinders, who reported them in 1803 on Woody Island,

in Blue Mud Bay.

Adelaide has been fortunate in that almost throughout the history

of its Museum some of its citizens have been active in gathering collections

of ethnological material and eventually depositing it for permanent preser-

vation in the Museum. For many years, because of the scattered and

relatively sparse population, this was an easier task than obtains today.

One of the foundation members of the Anthropological Society of South

ACCESSIONS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 159

Australia, Percy Stapleton, had collected in the field about 250 stone

artefacts, large and small, and more than 100 stone axes from various

parts of the State. These he handed to the Museum in 1933, the series

then being one of the largest that had come as a single donation of

similar material, The most striking specimen is a stone axe of Polynesian

type from Lake Bonney, similar to one which has been found at Green

Point in the same district. The particular interest of such axe-heads

lies in the fact that from time to time they have been discovered at

various places near the coasts of Australia, notably in the Port Adelaide

River and in New South Wales. The presence of this type of implement,

made from black basalt, suggests that some of the Polynesians, colonists

of most of the Pacific, may have extended their voyages to the Australian

coast.

Welcome accessions in 1934 and 1935 consisted of moulds of Tas-

manian rock carvings from Mt. Cameron West and other localities presen-

ted by our late friend Archibald L. Meston, When these carvings were

first discovered, Tindale examined and reported on them to the Tasmanian

Government.

In 1936 C. M. Deland was again to the fore, this time with a

comprehensive series of specimens he had secured in the Pacific, mainly

from Bougainville Island. Australian ethnologia were purchased from the

estate of Dr. Robert H. Pulleine, who had been a keen collector of abori-

ginal objects for years. Part of this collection was exhibited at the

Centennial Exhibition of the State towards the end of 1936, during which

year surviving members of tribes of southern South Australia were

asked to make “old style’ implements, basket ware and other objects;

so encouraging were the results that the project was pursued as long

as the aboriginals concerned were alive.

Most of the additions of recent marsupial material resulted from the

efforts of H. H. Finlayson, already referred to in the section dealing

with the activities of the Honorary Curators. The Museum is indebted

to him for specimens of the rarer mammals of the interior, notably the

Plain Rat-Kangaroo (Caloprymnus campestris).

Between November 1928 and February 1939, no fewer than 13

Beaked Whales (Ziphiidae) were cast ashore in the vicinity of South

Australian coastal townships and so were reported to the Museum. Skele-

tons of some, and the skulls of the rest, were collected by the Director and

his staff, excepting one from Streaky Bay on the west coast, of which

the skull was secured by R. L. Bebbington for the Museum. Ten of these

were Layard’s Beaked Whales (Mesoplodon layardii), a species first

recorded from South Australia by Waite in 1922. MHaast’s Beaked

Whale (Mesoplodon grayi) was found on the beach of the Coorong and

the skeleton was recovered; previously this species was known in South

160 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

Australia only from part of a lower jaw. A specimen stranded alive at

Port Victoria proved to be a fine adult male of the rare Southern Bottle-

nosed whale (Hyperoodon planifrons). This was the first time the

animal had been seen in the flesh and the skeleton (mounted in the

Museum) was the only complete one then known.

A Porpoise Whale (Berardius arnuxii) was seen alive at the

northern end of St. Vincent Gulf in 1936 and eventually became stranded

on the wide flats, from whence we secured the skeleton; this constitutes

the first record of the species from Australia.

A further rare species, the Pygmy Sperm Whale (Kogia breviceps),

came ashore in 1937 at Port Victoria, in Spencer Gulf. In this case a

female with a sucking calf and with a foetus in utero were recovered.

Casts were made of the larger specimens, their skeletons were secured

and the foetus was preserved.

In August 1931, a young sea leopard (Hydruga leptonyx) over 7

feet in length was shot on the rocks at Granite Island in Encounter Bay;

in South Australia most of these strays from the Antarctic have come

ashore in the vicinity of this locality. This beautifully mottled specimen

was sent to the Museum by the finder, F. J. Frinsdorf, who was impressed

with its ferocity.

The collection of egg-clutches of Australian birds was considerably

augmented during the decade prior to the Second World War. J. Neil

McGilp had spent many years in the far north of South Australia and

had gathered a collection which he generously donated to the Museum—

a series of more than 2,000 clutches. In addition he offered to continue

exchanges with other institutions and collectors. This arrangement, still

in operation, is an unusually fortunate one in view of the contacts he had

made. Other donors, notably the South Australian Ornithological Associa-

tion, contributed a total of 1,428 sets.

When the Canning Stock Route Expedition in north-western Australia

was being organized, we entered into an arrangement with the Western

Australian Museum whereby O. Lipfert, the taxidermist at that institution,

was enabled to accompany the party along the route. The South Austra-

lian proportion of vertebrate material secured by Lipfert came to hand in

1932 and included were 117 bird skins from a relatively little known area.

The most noteworthy purchases were the collection of the late Dr. W. D.

K. McGillivray of Broken Hill (1938), comprising 1,972 skins of Austra-

lian birds and, two years later, as already noted, 1,066 skins from F. E.

Parsons.

Fishes not previously noted from South Australia came to the

Museum at this time and were duly recorded in literature, while numerous

additions were made to the spirit collections and to the exhibited casts.

A young Basking Shark 1014 feet in length, in April, 1932, became

entangled in one of the nets of Walter Rumbelow, a well-known fisherman

ACCESSIONS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 161

at Encounter Bay, and was presented to the Museum, one of the very

many donations of fishes made by the Rumbelow family. As the specimen

exhibited the curious upturned snout apparent at one stage of develop-

ment of the fish, a cast was made and hung below the larger example

secured by Waite. Robert Limb was specially employed to supervise the

task of moulding and casting. The stomach of this specimen contained

several bushels of tiny red copepods; the shark obviously had encountered

a swarm of these minute crustaceans just before its capture.

Apart from a number of citizens with a liking for entomology, Lea

now had many schoolboys in and about Adelaide collecting insects, pro-

viding them with poison and spirit bottles and other gear. He continued

to press his claims for purchase of collections large and small; the years

1929 to 1931 were noteworthy in that great additions were made to the

insects from Papua and New Guinea, while the Coccidae, hitherto a

group poorly represented, were increased by purchase of a large named

collection.

During the first four years of this period, terminating in the death

of Lea early in 1932, over 33,000 insects were acquired by donation,

more than 36,000 by purchase and upwards of 15,000 during the course

of Museum expeditions. These figures are available because of Lea’s

unflagging industry in all matters concerning the collections under his

charge.

Prior to his appointment to the staff of the South Australian Museum,

Lea himself had amassed a collection of beetles, in all about 50,000

specimens and including such a great number of types that after his

death it was at once purchased for the Museum.

W. Mules of Adelaide, later to play a part in the initial experiments

for control of rabbits by myxamatosis, had many contacts with the

Museum, as his private interests lay with the insects; he contributed a

large number of species from South and Central Australia, including com-

mensalgs from ants’ nests. One day in March, 1932, he discovered in the

Mount Lofty Ranges a new race of rare butterfly (Ogyris genua)

the only other record of its occurrence in South Australia being that

of another race (O. splendida) by Tindale from the Flinders Ranges.

The Museum collection of Lepidoptera now contained approximately

175,000 specimens.

About the same time L. Wagner, who was collecting in New Guinea

for the Museum, found another extremely rare insect. This, a species of

Katydid (Siliquofera grandis) is one of the few in Australian Museums;

the body is as large as that of a small bird and the wing span is about

9 inches. The popular name of the Orthoptera of this group is onoma-

topoeic,

162 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

It was also during March of 1932 that larvae of the Oriental

Fruit Moth (Cydia molesta) were brought to the Museum and were

identified by Tindale; they were found in a shipment of peaches which

reached Adelaide from Victoria. This destructive moth has been known

in New South Wales since 1914 and is found in the Goulburn Valley in

Victoria. The species burrows into stems and twigs of fruit trees and is

therefore more or less immune from arsenical sprays. Mr. Strickland of

the Department of Agriculture in Adelaide, states today that the identifi-

cation made in 1932 helped materially in averting a major calamity in

the fruit industry of South Australia and led to the tightening up of the

regulations governing admission of fruit, with the result that there has

been no establishment of this pest in South Australia.

Most of the available important private collections of insects in South

Australia had now been acquired. With the advent of H. Womersley as

Entomologist, the large and valuable accumulation was not materially

increased for years, although sorting and proper storage continue to this

day as cabinets are supplied, while various groups are sent for identifica-

tion whenever specialists are available.

Womersley at once concentrated on his study of the primitive insects

and the Acaridae. He soon devoted himself entirely to the last-named

mites and commenced acquisition of a fantastic number of species of

this economically important group.

In the ’thirties the writer commenced to collect at every opportunity

the small burrowing aquatic Crustacea forming the order Cumacea. After

several methods of collecting had been tried, an idea was evolved which

proved eminently successful; this was based on the fact that the littoral

Cumacea are known to migrate vertically towards the surface at night.

With the assistance of Keith Sheard, a tow-net was fitted up with a lamp

of low candle-power fixed in the mouth; this apparatus was lowered to

the bottom and allowed to remain there for about 15 minutes. The hauls

resulting, particularly about midnight, were amazing, and soon, through

the co-operation of Gilbert Whitley of the Australian Museum, together

with Sheard and officers of the C.S.LR.O., a good representation of

species was obtained from the eastern, southern and western coasts of

Australia.

One of the finest donations to the conchological section had been

made by Sir Joseph Verco in 1926, when he presented the whole of his

own collection. A further noteworthy addition was made through the

interest and help of Sir Joseph in 1929. Lewis May of Tasmania during

his lifetime had gathered together a comprehensive series of the shells

of that State, and following his death it was offered for sale. The

collection included also other Australian and exotic shells and an impor-

tant section of the May library. Sir Joseph offered to pay the purchase

ACCESSIONS OF SPECIAL INTEREST 163

price of £500, the Museum to be responsible for transport and supervision

of packing; B. C. Cotton went to Tasmania and carried out this task.

Other collections, notably those cf Elizah Henry Matthews, and the

late Honorary Concholcegist, Walter Bednall, were purchased a year or

two later. Matthews had been postmaster in a South Australian coastal

town, a position which provided ample opportunity for the pursuit of his

hobby. Edwin Ashby of Blackwood, who specialized in the study of

Chitons, presented his collection of the group in 1932, this being probably

the best of its kind in the world. Dr. William G. Torr, who had long been

associated with Sir Joseph Verco, also presented his type molluscan

material; it was through Torr that Mathews first became interested in

conchology.

Amongst outstanding accessions of meteoritic material during this

period were portions of the Karoonda aerolite, iron from the Henbury

crater, iron balls and iron shale from Box Hole, the great Huckitta

pallasite and the Shaw collection of australites.

The story of the fall of the Karoonda meteorite is a fascinating one.

On the evening of November 25, 1930, many observers in South Australia

noticed an extremely brilliant fireball. A fortright later Professor Kerr

Grant (Kt., 1947) of the University of Adelaide, with G. F. Dodwell of the

Adelaide Observatory, visited the locality and made enquiries from local

eye-witnesses of the fall. As a result, the site was determined within a

radius of a couple of miles and on the third day of searching the meteorite

was found, lying in a shattered condition in a sandy wheatfield 2} miles

east of the township of Karoonda. This aerolite, or stony meteorite, is dark

grey in colour, with numerous spherical inclusions and specks of metallic

lustre; portion of it came to the Museum, for which Arthur Richard

Alderman of the University of Adelaide made a complete chemical analy-

sis. More than 20 years later Alderman succeeded Sir Douglas Mawson

as Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the University.

Public interest was stimulated by the fall of the Karoonda meteorite

and early next year it was reported that fragments of meteoritic iron were

to be found surrounding several crater-like depressions near Henbury

cattle station, situated on the dry water-course of the Finke River in

Central Australia. Mawson immediately suggested that the Museum

should investigate the reports and Alderman was commissioned by us

to make a preliminary survey of the area.

Within an area of half a mile square at least 12 probable craters

were located by Alderman, who collected material including hundreds

of fragments of meteoritic iron of various shapes and sizes, shale formed

by oxidization of the iron, and (resulting from heat of the meteoritic

impact) fused and fritted sandstone, and also silica glass formed by

fusion of the sandstone.

164 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

Acting on the advice of Sir Douglas, made through the Board, the

Federal Government at once marked the meteorite area as a public reserve

and posted notices warning visitors that no meteorite material was to

be removed. Subsequently, the area was declared a Federal Reserve and

a measure was passed preventing export of such material without

authority. Meanwhile, however, a large quantity of iron from the craters

was sent overseas by persons not connected with either Federal or State

museums.

An extensive shower of the small glassy meteorites known as tektites

fell on Australia at some indeterminate period, but evidently in fairly

recent times, as none has been located in deposits of any great age. The

type of tektites found over the greater part of Australia are known as

“australites”. Even as far back as 1855 and possibly earlier they were

well known to the gold diggers, who called them button stones. A

collection made by W. H. C. Shaw of Perth was acquired during this

period; it constitutes the first large acquisition of Australian tektites,

containing as it does 3,920 separate pieces, of which 1,993 are sufficiently

complete to be regarded as “whole” specimens. With previous and subse-

quent additions, the South Australian Museum collection now includes

about 18,000 examples.

Box Hole Station is situated in the Northern Territory; the iron balls

and shale referred to came to the Museum in 1937 and 12 years later

an iron, 258 pounds in weight, was acquired from this crater.

The Huckitta meteorite was found in 1938, about 150 miles north-

east of Alice Springs in Central Australia. It is unique in that it is

by far the largest as well as the coarsest grained pallasite (that is a

meteorite composed of both iron and stone) known to exist. The Huckitta

example weighed 3,112 pounds and was purchased and presented to the

Museum by William Burdett. Thanks to the interest of the Commissioner

of Railways in South Australia, a transverse slice was made of this

meteorite in the Islington workshops, special diamond studded saws being

prepared for the purpose. The polished face of this slice, the largest

attempted, shows the large olivine (magnesium-iron silicate) crystals

embedded in the nickel-iron.

Parts of other Australian meteorites were obtained by exchanges,

as well as tektites from Indo-China, Europe and the Philippine Isiands.

At about the time of the finding of the Huckitta meteorite, W.

Burdett discovered the humerus of a penguin in the Miocene cliffs above

Christie’s Beach, about 16 miles south of Adelaide; this was described by

Finlayson, who stated that it seemed to be closely related to the New

Zealand fossil Palaeeudyptes antarcticus. Following this, Burdett estab-

lished a small trust fund, on the understanding that it be used for the

purpose of furnishing awards for the discovery in South Australia of

AUTONOMY 165

fossil remains of rare or unknown marsupials, birds or reptiles, in

Pleistocene, Miocene or earlier geological deposits, on condition that the

material is lodged in the South Australian Museum. Burdett was a noted

grower of native flora at Basket Range, in the Mount Lofty Ranges, and

was deeply interested in the work of the Museum; he died in March, 1940,

and now the garden is maintained by his family.

Autonomy

Since 1884, under the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery Act

and its amendments, the three departments had been under the care and

control of a Board of Governors, with standing committees and an

administrative section. In 1926 the Audit Department conducted a general

enquiry into the administration of the institution and made suggestions

for greater efficiency. Seven years later the President of the Australian

Council for Educational Research, Frank Tate, C.M.G., IS.0., M.A., pro-

posed that the Carnegie Corporation be invited to make a survey of

Australian libraries. The Corporation in 1934 sent Ralph Munn of the

Carnegie Institute at Pittsburg Pa., who with Ernest R. Pitt, Public

Librarian of Victoria, prepared a report which was released early the

following year. A further report from the Auditor General in 1935

agreed substantially with the findings of Munn and Pitt in regard to

library administration. This year Reginald J. Rudall, M.P., presented

a long and considered speech to the House of Assembly, urging the

establishment of free lending services in the Public Library, as had been

suggested in the Munn-Pitt report. Following this, the Government

appointed Dr. A. Grenfell Price as a one-man commission to enquire into

the matter and he prepared a report, issued in April 1936, recommending

extensions of the activities of the Library and suggesting division of

the existing institution into three, with a separate Board for each. The

following year comments were presented by the Public Service Commis-

sioner, and in 1938 bills were introduced to divide the three departments.

The Libraries and Institutes Act, the Museum Act and the Art Gallery

Act, all of 1939, became operative on February 1, 1940.

At its final meeting on January 30, the Board unanimously adopted

the following gracious resolution:

That this Board, before dissolving, acknowledges the encouragement

and assistance extended to it by successive Governments and the public;

gratefully recalls its benefactors, and places on record its appreciation of

the way in which its officers have assisted to raise to their present status

the institutions under its control; and extends its best wishes to its

successors.

166 REORGANIZATION, 1928-1940

Board of Governors of the Public Library, Museum and Art Gallery of

South Australia, 1939-40

Richard Sanders Rogers, M.A., D.Sc. (Adel.),

M.D., and Ch.M. (Edin.), F.L.S. (Lond.)

(1896). : :

William Harold Langham, F.C.LV. (1927*). | qa molnlod Peale

Alexander Melrose, LL.B. (1928) Pt crann:

Sydney Talbot Smith, M.A., LL.B, (Cantab.) ’

(1921).

B. S. Roach, J.P. (1918).

R. N. Finlayson (1929).

Professor Thomas Harvey Johnston, M.A.

D.Se. (1934t).

Professor Sir Douglas Mawson, O.B.E., B.E.

D.Se., F.R.S. (1934).

Elected by the

University of

Adelaide.

Elected by the Royal

Society of South

Australia.

Elected by the Royal

South Australian

Society of Arts.

Elected by the Royal

Geographical Society

of Australasia (S.A.

Branch).

Elected by the

Adelaide Circulating

Library.

Henry Ernest Fuller, J.P., F.R.A.LA. ae Elected by the

spe (are Yee.

John Charles Goodchild (1938).

Ferdinand Lucas Parker (1936).

Arthur Webb Pettit (1931).

Stanley Herbert Skipper, LL.B. (1934). Institutes Association

Richard Sutton (1936). of South Australia.

*Also held office for two years, 1923-5.

tAlso held office for two years, 1927-9.

The figures in brackets denote year of appointment or election to the

Board.

Chairmen (to 1897-98) and Presidents (from 1898-99) of the Board

Charles Todd, Esq., C.M.G., 1884; H. T. Whittle, Esq., M.D., J.P.,

1884-85; Ven. Archdeacon Farr, LL.D., 1885-86; Hon. Allan Campbell,

M.L.C., 1886-87; C. T. Hargrave, Esq., M.I.C.E., 1887-88; Abraham

Abrahams, Esq., J.P., 1888-89; J. M. Day, Esq., 1889-90; David Murray,

Esq., J.P., 1890-91 to 1893-94; the Hon. Sir S. J. Way, D.C.L., 1894-95 to

1898-99; the Right Hon. Sir S. J. Way, Bart., P.C., D.C.L., 1899-1900 to

1907-08; W. J. Sowden, Esq., J.P., 1908-09 to 1917-18; Sir William Sowden,

Kt., 1918-19 to 1925-26; S. Talbot Smith, Esq., M.A., LL.B., 1926-27 to

1928- 29; R. S. Rogers, Esq., M.A., M.D., Ch.M., 1929- 30 to 1930- ole H, P.

STAFF 167

Moore, Esq., J.P., 1931-32; B. S. Roach, Esq., J.P., 1932-33 to 1934-35;

W. H. Langham, Esq., F.C.1.V., 1935-36 to 1936-37; S. Talbot Smith, Esq.,

M.A., LL.B., 1937-38 to 1938-39; H. E. Fuller, Esq., F.R.A.LA.,,

J.P., 1939-40.

Museum Scientific and Technical Staffs, 1939-40

BDivector: oi wesc ere Sey Ta eeyeats nee Cay Herbert M. Hale

Rthnologist Ree all Pe ee ee os ae N. B. Tindale, B.Sc.

Acting Ethnologist (during absence of

Eithnologist): 0c, ee ae wee a C. P. Mountford.

Entomologist... ..... cy Efi ety cea MRT H. Womersley, F.E.S.

Conchologist ash. 0 ete hee as ely B. C. Cotton.

Assistant in Zoology (birds) ....0 0. ee ee H. T. Condon.

Assistant (part-time, minerals) 20.00 wu. wu. ae W. Warhurst,

Sc.

Cadet (insects) (oc neste a cs ieee

irley J. Davey.

ClerRS usa ME. itl i SEES. Fag Seay Fane. Ucoukr:

Taxidermist ...... _ ...... A Ne ets. ae &.8. A. L. Rau.

Senior Assistant (plaster casting) _..... _..... J. Conroy.

A. Hay.

Assistants (preparatorial) 0.00 0 o M.E. McAnna.

P. F. Lawson.

Honorary Staff

Consultant 9220 Soy a hal Eka Professor T. Harvey

Johnston, M.A., D.Sc.

Curator of Anthropology .00 00.0... T. D. Campbell, D.D.Sc.

Curator of Mammalia 00 00. ou... H. H. Finlayson.

Curator of Mineralogy Prof. Sir Douglas Mawson,

O.B.E., B.E., D.Se., F.R.S.

Craniologist 000 ce cee tee F. J. Fenner, M.B., B.S.

Assistant Conchologist =... F. K. Godfrey.

Assistants in Ethnology aa ae pier Hig

Assistant in Zoology 20.00 wee coun Keith Sheard.

Following is a summary of the principal Administrative and Museum

officers between 1884 and 1940:

Administration :—Robert Kay, General Director and Secretary, 1884-

1904; J. R. G. Adams, Principal Librarian and Secretary, 1904-1908,

General Secretary, 1908-1919; Hately W. Marshall, J.P., General Secre-

tary, 1919-1940.

Museum :—J. W. Haacke, Ph.D., Director, 1883-84; E. C. Stirling, M.A.,

M.D., Honorary Director, 1889-1895; E. C. (later Sir Edward) Stirling,

M.A., M.D., C.M.Z.S., Director, 1895-1912 and Honorary Director 1913-

1914; E. R. Waite, F.L.S., Director, 1914-1928; Professor T. Harvey

Johnston, M.A., D.Sc., Honorary Director, 1928-1931; H. M. Hale, Director,

1931-1940.

TROUBLOUS TIMES 1940-1946

The Museum Board

The Museum Act, 1939, provided for a Board, to be called “The Museum Board”, and to consist of

five members appointed by the Governor, who also “may from time to time appoint one of the

members to be chairman of the Board”. The primary responsibility of the Board was to be care and

control of all exhibits and other personal property acquired for the purposes of the Museum, with

the Director and his staff as the functioning officers under the South Australian Public Service Acts.

Troublous Times

1940 - 1946

The Museum Board

The Museum Act, 1939, provided for a Board, to he called “The

Museum Board,” and to consist of five members appointed by the

Governor, who also “may from time to time appoint one of the members

to be chairman of the Board’. The primary responsibility of the Board

was to be care and control of all exhibits and other personal property

acquired for the purposes of the Museum, with the Director and his

staff as the functioning officers under the South Australian Public Service

Acts.

The first Museum Board, appointed in January, 1940, comprised:

Professor Thomas Harvey Johnston, M.A., D.Sc. (Chairman)

Professor Sir Douglas Mawson, O.B.E., B.E., D.Sc., F.R.S.

James Hay Gosse.

Thomas Draper Campbell, D.D.Sc., D.Sc.

Richard Sutton, J.P.

James Gosse (Knight Bachelor, 1947) was a Company Director,

Chairman of the Zoological Society of South Australia and Chairman

of the Fauna and Flora Board controlling the Flinders Chase sanctuary

on Kangaroo Island. He was the son of William C. Gosse, Deputy

Surveyor General of South Australia, 1875-1881. The business ability

of James Gosse and his contacts simplified arrangements for transport

of materials and for expeditions. As Chairman of the Flinders Chase

Board he was deeply interested in the western end of Kangaroo Island,

and he encouraged and assisted financially several Museum collecting

trips to this locality.

R. Sutton at the time of his appointment to the Board had retired

from a senior position in the Education Department and thus a useful

link was formed with the last-named.

169

170 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

The other three members had been associated with the Museum

for periods ranging from 17 to 34 years.

The Act having come into force on February 1, 1940, the date fixed

by proclamation, the Board held its first meeting five days later. The

Director presented a review of the activities of the Museum and a copy

of this was sent to the Public Service Commissioner. During the same

month necessary formalities were carried out, including adoption of

a Common Seal and the transfer of bequest moneys allotted to the

Museum under the previous Board.

The administrative offices at the front end of the east wing became

part of the Museum, which now occupied the whole of this wing and the

northern building. Some reallocation of space was thus possible. Until

1940 the scientific periodicals section of the Museum library was housed

in a large L-shaped room, previously occupied by the Director and

adjoining the entomological section. These books were now removed to

the spacious room used by the previous Board for its meetings and the

overcrowded entomological collections were transferred to the vacated

area. The Director’s office was established in another of the front rooms

and there the Board holds its monthly meetings.

World War II

The Board and the staff were faced immediately with the difficulties

and responsibilities resulting from the Second World War. At once

several necessary tasks were completed; for example, the rearrangement

of portions of the Stirling Gallery was accelerated, a small Egyptian Hall

was made ready for opening, and all material stored in the fumigation

chamber for lack of space was removed to the annex of the Stirling

Gallery, and temporarily stored in old show cases. Steel racks had

been installed in the spirit room in the ancient Armoury and all material

in alcohol still remaining in the main buildings was placed there to await

reorganization. Housing of the palaeontological collections bequeathed

by Professor Walter Howchin, and not already housed in steel cabinets,

was hurried on, but complete incorporation with the other material

was not possible because Barbara Warhurst, the scientific assistant in

the section, already had taken up duties in connection with munitions

productions in Victoria. The Ethnologist, N. B. Tindale, finished prepara-

tion of an extensive paper on tribal distribution of the Australian

aboriginal, from data obtained during the Harvard-Adelaide Expedition

of 1938-39; also, a report by him on the social status of the half-caste

aboriginals was submitted to the Government, while a tribal map was

put in press, this last to form the basis of future field investigation. Dr.

Frank Fenner, Honorary Assistant Physical Anthropologist, completed

his important paper on the Aitape fossil human skull and was soon on

Active Service in the Army.

WORLD WAR II 171

In 1941 W. B. Hitchcock of the entomological section was called

up for duty in the Australian Military Forces, as also was one of the

preparators, P. F. Lawson. Another preparator, M. E. McAnna, and

next year Tindale and Condon also, joined the Royal Australian Air

Force. John Conroy had retired in 1940 after almost 40 years of work

in the Museum, leaving a great many tangible records of his industry.

Archibald Hay now took over some of Conroy’s duties. Hay

previously had painted many casts for the exhibition galleries, as well

as backgrounds for some of the smaller group cases. In April, 1941,

he received well-deserved recognition of his artistic ability when he

gained the Ethel Barringer Memorial Award, which included a scholar-

ship at the South Australian School of Arts for two years. He submitted

an aquatint of the Chateau Rambures, France, which was the head-

quarters of General Cannan, of the 11th. A.I.F. Infantry Brigade in 1918.

This was linked with Hay’s Active Service in the First World War.

Miss Gwen Dolores Walsh was added to the staff in 1941 as Artist

and Photographer. She prepared many illustrations for the galleries

and for research papers. In association with T. D. Campbell she developed

a keen perception for worth-while artefacts amongst the stone debris

on aboriginal camp sites. She resigned in 1949 to take up a position

at the University of Adelaide.

When Japan entered the War in 1941, the Museum Board approached

the Minister with a recommendation that a large part of the collections

be removed to safer storage away from Adelaide as an air raid precaution.

The proposal was immediately approved and the services of the Architect-

in-Chief’s Department were made available. Followed a search for suit-

able quarters. The Director, with other departmental heads and Board

members, first inspected the wine-cellars scattered in the Mount Lofty

Ranges, but for one reason or another these proved unsuitable; finally,

following the bombing of Darwin early in 1942, the Government decided

that a disused railway tunnel would provide an ideal shelter for the

State’s most cherished possessions. Cleaned, drained and equipped with

platforms and electric lighting for the whole of its length of 700 feet,

this proved an efficient and convenient shelter.

Meanwhile, packing of the Museum’s collections was proceeding—

41 insect cabinets containing most of the type specimens, the greater

part of the reserve collection of birds, 600 cases of ethnological

specimens, and so on-——the whole valued at £94,000 for War Risk

Insurance purposes. All, together with some of the rarer exhibited

mammals, were soon removed to the tunnel, the whole project being

greatly accelerated by the active interest of the Minister (the Hon. S.

172 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

Jeffries (Kt., 1953), the Public Service Commissioner, and Lt. Col. George

Dorricut Shaw, of Gallipoli fame; Shaw died in August, 1954.

The permanent staff, never adequate, was now seriously depleted

considering the work in prospect. Two of the three officers ordinarily

available in the preparatorial section were on service and the greater part

of the time of taxidermist A. Rau was taken up with routine care of

the collections, in and out of the Museum; the honorary officers helped

materially in supervision and general attention, for which assistance the

Board duly expressed its appreciation.

One man in particular is worthy of special mention—Harold More

Cooper. Cooper, between October 1941 and 1954, performed continuous

service in H.M.A.S. Torrens Naval Establishment, Birkenhead, South

Australia, in an honorary capacity, firstly as a rating and then as an

officer. During the war years this entailed at times duty up to 12 hours

per day and sometimes seven days per week. His service included duties

in the Recruiting and Demobilisation Offices and the refitting of small

vessels taken over by the Royal Australian Navy for war purposes. In

view of this, the other activities of this energetic man are remarkable.

For a long time Cooper had been collecting stone implements from the

deserted native camp-sites in South Australia and during his field trips

had secured much natural history material for the Museum, and further

had worked within the institution in an honorary capacity. For example,

during 1940-1 he presented many hundreds of land shells from the far

north of South Australia, and hundreds of stone implements, preparing

as well card-catalogue records of camp-sites. He spent months ini

classifying, labelling and cataloguing the thousands of stone and bone

aboriginal artefacts in the collections. Early in 1942 he was appointed

as part-time Assistant Ethnologist and was responsible for the packing

and removal of the above-mentioned ethnological material to safe quarters.

Almost half of the exhibited specimens on the Stirling Gallery had been

removed, and Cooper now turned his attention to rearrangement of those

portions of the gallery not previously reorganized; during this the floors

of the cases, formerly black, were painted in light colours, thus display-

ing the specimens more effectively. No official field-work was possible

but Cooper made a number of short private expeditions to the far north,

the southern districts, and Kangaroo Island, securing an extraordinary

number of large and small stone implements; he discovered camp-sites

previously not examined, and collected in addition botanical specimens

and more land shells. Such unstinting service and enthusiasm entailed

considerable personal sacrifice. As he was receiving a salary, not large,

from the Museum, he was unable to qualify for pay from the Naval

Department and this in later years precluded him from receiving Rehabili-

WORLD WAR II 173

tation Benefits or other privileges with exception of such war medals

as were applicable.

With the threat of attack from Japan, members of the staff soon

were busy with preparation of A.R.P. equipment for protection of the

interior of the building and its contents, the staff, and the visiting public;

much of the equipment was obtained with Museum funds, and after an

inspection in May, 1942, the Board considered all arrangements

satisfactory.

The next undertaking concerned the Army Education Service and

during the following year 100 lectures and demonstrations were given in

the Museum, in camps and in hospitals. Some of these dealt with

camouflage in animals, reef-life, food-getting in the Australian interior

and details of the terrain of some of our country. It was here that field

expeditions and the 16 mm. film obtained by University and Museum

proved extremely useful. One film, of three reels, was almost in shreds

when the Army Education Service activities finally ceased.

The Education Service was well organized and carried out a compre-

hensive programme; later our efforts were extended to the A.W.A.S. A

typical day in the life of the Army women was as follows:

1. A talk by the writer illustrating camouflage in fishes and principles

applied in the Navy.

2..A discussion with Womersley on mites and harmful insects.

3. A visit to the taxidermist, A. Rau, who demonstrated preservation

methods.

4. Professor J. B. Cleland was heard on human anatomy.

5. At the Zoo the Director, V. D. Haggard, gave some pertinent facts

regarding animal life in Australia—

after which the party went back to work in their various departments.

At the request of the Deputy Director of Medical Services, Dr. A. R.

Southwood, members of the scientific staff visited the Loveday Internment

Camps during March and May 1942 to examine the River Murray, its

billabongs and seepage areas, in order to report upon Mollusca, Crusta-

cea and fishes which might act as secondary hosts for various internal

parasites, particularly trematode worms, known to have been detected

in prisoners of war. In view of the possibility of excreta infecting the

local fauna, and thus introducing such parasites into our poputation,

preventive measures were suggested. Keith Sheard (now D.Sc.) as

Assistant in Zoology, co-operated with the Director in part of this work

and also in enquiries concerning fishing, crustaceans and other marine

life. He also was soon lost to the Museum, for in June, 1942, he resigned

to take up research in the Fisheries Division of C.S. & I.R. A month

or so later, he became Honorary Marine Zoologist to the Museum, an

174 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

arrangement which assisted further the happy co-operation existing

previously. The close link with the Fisheries Division was maintained

during the war, when dredgings and tow-nettings from the waters of

Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and South Australia were sent

to the Museum, where they were sorted and in part reported on. In

addition the Museum was used as a base for plankton and sampling of

South Australian sea-water, both by Sheard and honorary workers collect-

ing on behalf of the Division.

In 1942 Crustacea were being collected by officers of the Australian

tribal class destroyer H.M.A.S. Arunta and sent to the Museum, We

supplied the ship with the face-cast of an Aranda native and also with a

Bull-roarer from the same tribe. This last became the token of the

Arunta and was secured to the bulkhead of the poop above the ship’s

battle honours. H.M.A.S. Arunta, sister ship of Warramunga was built

at Williamstown, Victoria, and commissioned towards the end of World

War II; she proceeded later to Korea and there performed valuable

services in action—bombarding enemy shore defences, escorting air-craft

carriers and conducting general patrol duties.

In November, 1943, a request was made by the “Army Inventions

Directorate” for reports on, and suggested steps to prevent, ship-hull

fouling by marine growth; this was particularly important in the case

of sea-plane floats. Suggestions, principally from the biological angle,

were made by B. C. Cotton as Museum Conchologist and the military

authorities expressed their appreciation of this approach to the problem.

During December, 1948, a request for information on possible food

supplies in case of shortage was received from the “Department of War

Organization and Industry”. A suggestion was made by the Conchologist

that many shellfish could be canned as food, and a report, covering many

edible species found in this State, together with life histories and other

information, was submitted. One example cited was the Goolwa Cockle

(Plebidonax deltoides) living in huge quantities at certain places round

the Australian coast. The suggestion was not implemented at the time,

a letter in reply stating “that the proposition could only be recommended

for consideration in connection with post-war development”. Since the

war, New South Wales has started the industry and South Australia

is following suit.

With limited staff, relatively few additions were made to the exhibi-

tion galleries during the war years. Human skeletal material was made

readily accessible to classes. Sir Douglas Mawson arranged a special

series of minerals of current interest—those associated with the conduct

of the war. A large mounted kangaroo was prepared for recruiting

purposes and rats for health demonstrations.

WORLD WAR II 175

Before the days of the motor car, two saddlers in Adelaide exhibited

each a dappled horse, originally coming from Germany over 100 years

ago. One of these, much the worse for wear, was handed to A. Rau for

renovation at the Museum. It required hoofs, mane, tail, harness and

repainting. The life-like result, seating “Queen Elizabeth at Tilbury’,

was used by students of St. Peter’s College as part of an historic pageant

“This England” to raise money towards the war effort.

In our exhibit of the week case, the famous V for Victory sign

was pointed by special displays of Western Australian boomerangs

(made on a definite V-shape) and shields painted or carved with the same

design.

The Education Department soon expressed a desire that, as far as

possible, school children should not congregate away from their class

rooms and it was decided that the regular Museum class should be

discontinued temporarily. Nevertheless, large numbers of school children

continued to visit the Junior Museum and informal talks were given

by the three remaining members of the scientific staff whenever oppor-

tunity offered. One of the precautions taken was temporary removal

of the glass-sided observation bee hives from exhibition; these, always

popular with both adults and children, were likely to prove an embarrass-

ment if damaged.

It is worthy of note that the first specimen of the cabbage White

Butterfly (Pieris rapae) known from South Australia was caught at

Murray Bridge in January, 1942, and sent to the Museum for identifica-

cation by Womersley. The larva of the species is injurious to certain

vegetables. It spread from Europe across America to Hawaii, and then

to New Zealand, from whence it came to the coastal districts of New

South Wales and Victoria about the year 1939; now it had crossed the

border into South Australia. Despite attempts to eradicate it in our

State it is now well established.

Womersley, as Museum Entomologist, was called upon for many

investigations in his particular field. At the request of the Central Board

of Health he made a mosquito survey of the Ceduna and Koonibba

areas, with special attention to the possible occurrence of Aedes aegypti,

the mosquito responsible for the carrying of dengue fever. In connection

with experiments conducted by the Army authorities he made visits to

the south-east of the State to study the tea-tree itch mite (Trombicula

samboni), a species described by himself.

Some of the mites on which Womersley had been working consti-

tuted, in fact, a war-time problem, in that certain species were responsible

for Scrub-typhus and Scrub-itch when troops were operating in New

Guinea and the Pacific Islands. Taxonomic research on these centred on

176 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

the South Australian Museum, and was carried out in association with

officers of the Medical Directorates of the Australian Army and Air Force,

the American Scrub Typhus Commission, the Research Units of the

American Navy, and the British South-east Asia Command.

Scrub-typhus has been known in Japan for about 1,000 years, and

rivals malaria as a medical problem in some parts of New Guinea.

Americans estimated that it cost them 200,000 man-days in Dutch New

Guinea alone. British troops in Burma and Malaya suffered heavy casual-

ties from the disease.

After the United States entered the war, numbers of American

servicemen were for a time in South Australia, not as many as in the

eastern States, but at one time a lot, and one recalls some amusing

incidents. For example, in the course of A.R.P. work an articulated

human skeleton was placed for convenience near the main entrance of

the Museum. A group of G.I.’s entered, immaculate as usual when on

leave, and one, quickly noting the aforesaid skeleton, came to attention

in front of it, gave a snappy salute and remarked, “You’re looking a bit

thin on it Bud”.

A note deserving of record concerns Army relations with the abori-

ginals of the interior. A direct contact was made in the person of our

then Honorary Assistant in Ethnology, Miss Alison Harvey, who was on

the staff of the Northern Territory Administration attached to the Native

Affairs Branch, and whose routine work was carried out at Alice Springs.

Miss Harvey made many enquiries regarding social service measures and

labour regulations applied to half-castes, visited Mission Stations and

depots in the MacDonnell Ranges and studied aboriginals in native settle-

ments and hospital wards. She expressed the opinion that Army medical

attention had excellent results insofar as the natives were concerned and

that “the treatment of the aborigines provides an impressively successful

and efficient feature of Army control”.

Some New Interests

At the first meeting of the newly appointed Museum Board, a letter

had been received from the Field Naturalists Section of the Royal Society

of South Australia, offering to the Museum unconditionally a large

Herbarium formed by the Section. There being at this time no Govern-

ment Herbarium in South Australia the offer was accepted at once, and

thus a new section was established.

Dr. Richard Schomburgk, when Director of the Botanic Gardens

(1866-1890), had founded and built up a herbarium in the eastern hall

of the Botanical Museum. After his death there had been no continuity

SOME NEW INTERESTS 177

of effort; the herbarium was depleted and later neglected. In 1953 the

office: of Keeper of the Herbarium was established at the Botanic Gardens

and two years later the Museum Board agreed that the Museum collection

of plants be handed over to the Board of that Department when ac-

commodation was made available there, and the appointment made.

An assistant was employed to curate the South Australian Museum

herbarium, which was constantly added to by interested persons, and

by the staff when engaged in field work. In addition the Field Naturalists

did more than present their collection; members of their Botany Club

offered their services in pressing and naming plant material, services

carried out mainly during week-ends.

Professor John Burton Cleland identified himself closely with the

work in this section and eventually agreed to become Honorary Botanist

at the Museum.

This new interest soon resulted in further acquisitions. In 1907 the

South Australian Government had purchased a collection of remarkable

water-colour paintings of Australian wild-flowers; these are the work

of Mrs. Marion Ellis Rowan (1847-1922), a Victorian flower painter and

a lover of nature who travelled over Australia in order to depict the flora

of our country. At the same time Alexander George Downer, a South

Australian barrister, purchased an additional 20 examples of Mrs. Rowan’s

work and in 1917 these were bequeathed to the Government. The pictures

are each 21 inches by 14 inches and represent 100 different subjects; all

had been framed and handed over to the Education Department. Towards

the end of 1940 the Minister approved the transfer of these delightful and

meticulous paintings to the Museum, as part of the property under control

of the Board. They are exhibited on the walls of the entrance hall to the

Australian Court, 40 or so being shown at a time, changes being made at

intervals.

Then, through the interest of Miss M. Burdett of Basket Range, and

particularly Miss Alison Ashby of Blackwood, the exhibition in the

Museum of freshly-cut Australian wild flowers was commenced in 1940,

and so popular did the innovation prove to be that it has been maintained

ever since; adjacent is a varying selection of Miss Ashby’s water-colour

paintings of flowers, and at the best season of the year fresh specimens

of approximately 200 named species are shown. This display would have

been impossible without the practical assistance of Miss Ashby, who each

week sends to the Museum a carton of cut blooms from her famous

Blackwood garden, known to all lovers of Australian flora. Soon

after the establishment of the exhibit as a permanent feature she presen-

ted her collection of pressed flowers and at about the same time accepted

a position as Honorary Associate in Botany.

178 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

When the British Parliamentary Delegation was in Adelaide during

June, 1944, several of its members visited the Museum, notably Dr. Edith

Summerskill, Lord Listowel and Major Sydney F. Markham, who, with

Professor H. C. Richards, had surveyed the Australian Museums a decade

before; the native flowers attracted the enthusiastic attention of the

party. Major Markham referred to the fact that the “Adelaide Museum

10 years ago, from the point of view of public exhibition galleries, had

presented one of the most difficult problems in Australia, because it had

been arranged on purely scientific lines with little regard for the fact

that the average member of the public was neither a Latin scholar nor

a scientist”. He stated also that in his opinion the change during the

past ten years had been remarkable and that he was “particularly

impressed with the series of the origin of the Australian man, the

Children’s Museum, wild-flower tables and bird habitat groups”.

It was at the suggestion of J. B. Cleland that an addition was

made to the flower display—a ‘‘weeds of the month” exhibit. The number

of visitors attracted by the array of introduced plants which have become

such a nuisance to agriculturists and gardeners astonished us, some people

coming at regular intervals to ascertain the names of the seasonal species.

Five years after the establishment of the Museum herbarium, Ernest

H. Ising, an enthusiastic South Australian botanist, presented his large

collection of plants, one of the most valuable which has been gathered

in South Australia, a generous and welcome gift. Ising himself later

spent long hours in the Museum, labelling and reorganizing his collection.

Attendances at the Museum remained good throughout the war and

at times were greatly increased because of visiting members of the

Military, Naval and Air Forces. This also meant many additional enquiries

for attention by the depleted scientific staff. A query which once again

arose persistently, concerned the method of birth of marsupials—the

kangaroo in particular. In 1943 the specimens supplied by Wood Jones

were rearranged in a separate case near the front entrance and at the

same time a booklet was prepared entitled “The Birth of the Kangaroo”;

this, with some amplification, was based on the previously mentioned

pamphlet prepared by Wood Jones for private circulation. The revised

booklet was displayed for sale at the Zoological Gardens as well as the

Museum and it was not long before all copies were sold. A further

edition was issued and the sales continue steadily to this day, many

thousands of the booklets having been sold.

N. B. Tindale, who had become a Wing Commander in the R.A.A.F.,

in 1943 and 1944 made small collections of ethnological objects from

Markham Valley, New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, during tours of

duty with the United States Army.

SOME NEW INTERESTS 179

It would seem that by this time most of the large private collections

of ethnological material in South Australia had been secured by the

Museum, although a few were still known to exist. A selected series of

crude axes and other large stone implements found by L. Kurtze in

the Port MacDonnell district had been purchased in 1932. This collector

and his son, C. F. Kurtze, possessed a small private museum at Portland

in Victoria, and there the writer went in 1944 to purchase a further

3,000 specimens, including cutting tools and axes, from the south-east

of South Australia and from Western Victoria.

C. P. Mountford led two small University expeditions to Central

Australia in 1938 and 1940 securing further material; specimens collected

by persons on Active Service in the Pacific Islands and elsewhere were

sent in, and a number of useful, and sometimes rare, minor collections

were purchased or donated.

Dr. E. Angas Johnson had been contributing to the ethnologia for

a long time. Amongst welcome donations from him there now came

a perfect pair of Kurdaitja shoes, the best of our series. Angas John-

son eventually donated the whole of his large gatherings of Australian

ethnological and mineral specimens.

Few illustrations of the Adelaide tribe of aboriginals are available

but in 1944 an important purchase was made of a large oil painting,

depicting four white people watching a corroboree at the foot of the

Mount Lofty Ranges. This was made by J. M. Skipper in 1840 and its

value will increase with time.

Included in the materials from the Kurtze museum was a meteorite

taken near Dimboola, an aerolite now known as the “Dimboola”

meteorite. In 1941 additional material from the Box Hole crater was

acquired and a further part of the Bond Springs irons was purchased

in 1942,

The collection of Australian tektites (australites) was added to

materially during this period. Mervyn Pens in 1940 presented a further

series, amplifying earlier collections made by him in the neighbourhood

of Florieton, and during the same year a collection of more than 7,000

specimens made by Constable John W. Kennett was purchased; these,

with the assistance of aboriginals, were collected in the area surrounding

Charlotte Waters, in the Territory. In 1943 a valuable series secured

by Francis D. Warren of Finniss Springs Station was donated and other

specimens were presented by J. E. Johnson of Moonta. Smaller individual

series were obtained from other collectors and it now seems certain that

the Museum possesses the most extensive and representative collection

of australites extant.

180 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

J. E. Johnson in 1942 presented the whole of his extensive and valu-

able collection of named and catalogued minerals, mainly Australian in

origin and principally from Wallaroo, Moonta and Broken Hill. The gift

from this diligent and well informed mineralogist comprises the largest

single mineral collection ever presented to the Museum. Some of the

australites mentioned above had been picked up with aboriginal stone

implements on camp sites and had been skilfully chipped by the natives

to form small cutting tools, or microliths.

During the year 1945 a good sum was paid for a collection of minerals,

rocks and australites which had been accumulated at Kalgoorlie, in

Western Australia, during a period of more than 30 years, by Spencer

Cook; this includes an extensive range of minerals, among which Western

Australian tellurides are well represented. The numerous australites are

nearly all from Western Australia and some particularly large ones are

included.

The radio-active minerals were augmented by a presentation by R.

Fuss of a collection of uranium specimens from Mount Painter, made in

the early days of radium mining in South Australia by his father, Charles

Fuss. A few years later uranium was to loom large in the affairs of South

Australia.

The Premier, the Hon. Thomas Playford, was pushing the develop-

ment of the Leigh Creek coal field; samples, as mined, were exhibited and

the public informed that this is a sub-bituminous coal of far greater fuel

value than the much used brown coal of Victoria.

In 1940, discussion on the occurrence of the Platypus (Ornitho-

rhynchus anatinus) in South Australia was revived, a further specimen

having been received from the lower River Murray some time before; a

few years later still another was sent in from Berri, where like several

others it was trapped in a drum-net.

On October 5, 1944, one of the most extensive strandings of whales

in history occurred in South Australia. It was reported that a great num-

ber of “large fish” or “sharks” had come ashore at Port Prime, on the

east coast of St. Vincent Gulf and approximately 30 miles north of

Adelaide. Because of petrol restrictions, no vehicle was available at the

Museum but some of us were able to make a necessarily brief visit to the

place on the following day; this was made possible through the courtesy

of the Editor of the Adelaide News, to whom the writer is indebted for

the accompanying illustration. The party consisted of Harvey Johnston,

B. C. Cotton with the Museum cinema-camera (left figure in photo-

graph), and the writer.

On arrival we were confronted with the sight of more than 200 Black-

fish or Pilot Whales (Globicephalus ventricosus) scattered on the tidal

flats. Most were dead, some were still breathing and a few had energy

SOME NEW INTERESTS 181

enough to thresh their tails, so forming deep hollows in the sand. The hot

summer sun had raised blisters on the black skin of even living specimens

and the unfortunate mammals must have suffered torture until death

relieved their distress.

Blackfish or Pilot Whales (Globicephalus ventricosus) stranded at Port Prime,

South Australia, 1944

At Port Prime the tide when ebbing recedes from the low fringing

sandhills for a distance of about two miles. A deep channel leads into the

sand flats and it is possible that the whales followed inshore this “run”

(the term applied to such channels by South Australian fishermen) and

so, because of the rapid fall of the tide in the upper reaches of the Gulf,

came to grief on the flats.

Cotton’s interest, apart from pictorial records, was centred on the

fact that toothed whales feed largely upon squids and cuttlefish, which

form part of his studies. We made measurements and notes, and Harvey

182 TROUBLOUS TIMES, 1940-1946

Johnston searched the digestive tracts of a couple of specimens for para-

sitic worms.

The photograph here reproduced shows a small section of the beached

whales at Port Prime. A few days later it was discovered that a further

90 specimens were stranded a mile or two north of the main herd, while

isolated examples were reported along a 20-mile stretch of beach between

Port Parham and Gawler. For a while the decomposing whales presented

a problem, but eventually they drifted away on a high tide.

On V.P. Day (August 15, 1945) a Green Turtle (Chelone midas)

was captured off our south-eastern coast, the first occasion on which this

northern species had been seen alive in South Australian waters, where

only two other species of marine turtles have been taken. The Luth or

Leathery Turtle (Dermatochelys coriacea) is not uncommon, and not long

before, as on several previous occasions, one of these giants, 6 feet in

length, had become entangled in the line of a crayfish pot. The Logger-

head (Caretta caretta) is known to South Australia only from a single

specimen collected at Port Noarlunga by our friend, Dr. Cecil Hackett in

1924.

The Molluscan collections were added to by interested persons in the

Forces, particularly C. M. Deland, who early during the war was stationed

in New Guinea. Noteworthy was a large parcel of shells gathered near

Admiralty Island. The Rev. H. K. Bartlett forwarded a large consignment

of land snails and freshwater shells from Rossel and Brooker Islands,

while the captain of a ship travelling between Australia and New Zealand

was another contributor; by dredging, the latter obtained shells and marine

animals, which he preserved in a refrigerator until they reached Adelaide.

Post-war Planning

The Hon. S. Jeffries retired as Minister of Education in 1944 and the

Board expressed to him its appreciation of his active and helpful interest

in the Museum during the difficult war years. The portfolio was now

given to the Hon. Charles L. Abbott.

After the tide of war had turned, thoughts went to the future. The

large and valuable collections which had been stored away from the city

as an air raid precaution were returned to the Museum. The reinstallation

of this material emphasised the urgent need for more storage space and

for more cabinets and other containers.

Hopes ran high for a long-awaited extension of buildings, the previous

30 years constituting the longest period in the history of the Museum

during which no additional accommodation had been provided; none of

us could foresee then the post-war housing problems which were to arise.

The Chairman of the Board and the Director attended a meeting of

the Art Galleries and Museums Association of Australia and New Zealand,

POST-WAR PLANNING 183

early in 1944, when administrative and other matters pertaining to these

institutions were discussed. The lay-out of proposed post-war buildings

was considered with a view of modern requirements. It was agreed

unanimously that the questions of adequate staffing and the status of

personnel were deserving of the most serious attention as soon as

conditions made this possible.

Amongst the programmes envisaged in Adelaide was a considerable

extension of the Children’s Museum.

In a report to the Government, the South Australian Museum Board

emphasised

the urgent need for extension of Museum buildings and of adequate

staffing. Even the existing accommodation is far from satisfactory. People

who constantly use the facilities of the Museum for classes and so on,

complain regarding the uncomfortable atmosphere of the buildings in

winter. It says much for the wide interest of our exhibits that during the

cold season members of the public should have sufficient enthusiasm to

visit our frigid and inadequately lit galleries. Attention has been drawn

to these matters before .... Lack of adequate exhibition and storage

space became acute years ago, and the position is now extremely unsatis-

factory. The vast amount of material under the care of the Board is not

receiving the attention it deserves because of makeshift storage facilities

and because of lack of staff. Exhibition space is so limited that justice

cannot be done to displays illustrative of our fauna and of our aborigines.

There is, for instance, no room to exhibit our remarkably good collection

of insects and of Mollusca. Only a small proportion of the birds occurring

in our own State can be shown. A gallery for fishes and another for

reptiles is desirable, and so on. Particularly one may mention our ethno-

logical collections which could be made a feature of a new Museum. Many

of the 40,000 objects of this collection were secured years ago, and today

it can be said that literally some of them are worth their weight in gold.

Some of the material from the Pacific Islands for example cannot be dupli-

cated. Portion of it is displayed in the old red brick Museum, but neces-

sarily the specimens are placed close together in the cases with the idea

of affording safe housing for as much of this valuable material as is

possible. To the public such an arrangement is meaningless and these

stored specimens alone could be spread out to fill a very large hall so as to

illustrate by means of labels, maps and photographs, the life and interests

of the Pacific peoples. This and other projects cannot be considered until

vastly more floor space is available. To allow for immediate extensions

and to cover requirements for the next half century, it is estimated that

60,000 square feet of additional floor area is necessary.

The Board waited on the Minister and discussed the possibility of

extension of the Museum, to occupy the central position of the plan formu-

lated in the seventies. It was pointed out that when the Public Library,

Museum and Art Gallery had become Government Departments in 1940,

the existing buildings were placed under the care and control of respective

boards but that unoccupied areas had reverted to Crown Lands.

THE LAST DECADE 1946-1956

Readjustments

In response to previous representations of the Boards of the Library, the Museum, and the National

Art Gallery, the Governor’s Deputy in 1948, under the provision of the Crown Lands Act, dedicated

land to be under care of the respective bodies. The sketch reproduced on p. 187 shows the position

of the various buildings referred to in this history. Lean-to work rooms were erected at the rear of

the old Armoury in 1955, but apart from this no additions have been made to the buildings for moer

than 40 years, although a considerable sum has been spent on storage facilities and alterations to

exhibition galleries.

The Last Decade

1946 - 1956

Readjustments

In response to previous representations of the Boards of the Library,

the Museum, and the National Art Gallery, the Governor’s Deputy in 1948,

under the provision of the Crown Lands Act, dedicated land to be under

care of the respective bodies. The sketch reproduced on p. 187 shows the

position of the various buildings referred to in this history. Lean-to work

rooms were erected at the rear of the old Armoury in 1955, but apart from

this no additions have been made to the buildings for more than 40 years,

although a considerable sum has been spent on storage facilities and

alterations to exhibition galleries.

Land dedicated to the Museum Board is hatched in the accompany-

ing plan, which is not to exact scale; this central area is flanked on the

west by lands dedicated to the Public Library and on the east by those

allotted to the National Art Gallery.

The buildings allotted to the Museum Board are cross-hatched in the

plan, which serves to show also the sites of the strange assortment of

buildings and temporary structures to which the Museum has fallen heir

and illustrates an obvious administrative disadvantage—the necessity for

accommodating some of the staff and collections in scattered outbuildings,

some a century old.

It will be noted that the macerating house (the 1861 Gas House and

its later addition) is situated on Library lands, as also are the whale sheds

and the fumigation chamber. Museum outbuildings on the other hand are

occupied in part by the Children’s Library (ground floor of old Police

Barracks) while as a “temporary” expedient a structure to house the

Country Lending Service of the Public Library was erected in 1942 on

land dedicated to the Museum six years later; an addition to this was

completed in 1949. There is some overlap of occupation in the case of the

National Art Gallery also.

185

186 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

The present Minister of Education, the Hon. Baden Pattinson, has

visited the Museum on several occasions and hag discussed the needs of

the institution with members of the Board and the Director. In October,

1954, members of Parliament, in response to an invitation of the Board,

inspected the Museum and the ancient outbuildings; such inspection was

considered desirable by the Board in view of the increasing use of make-

shift accommodation for important collections and the necessarily scat-

tered housing of staff.

Changes in the personnel of the small Museum Board have occurred

during the last six years. Richard Sutton died suddenly in August, 1950;

Cabinet appointed Vincent D. Haggard, Director of the Adelaide Zoo, to

fill the vacancy, thus establishing a still closer link. between the two

institutions.

A year later a severe loss was suffered in the death of T. Harvey

Johnston, not long before the date of his retirement as Professor of

Zoology at the University. The Government then sent in his place C.

Warren Bonython, son of Sir Lavington Bonython and a young man

already with a background of scientific research. At the same time Pro-

fessor Sir Douglas Mawson was elected by Cabinet as Chairman.

In 1952, again during the month of August, Sir James Hay Gosse

passed away, and thus the Board lost a sound adviser on financial matters

and, as already mentioned, a keen supporter of any projects connected

with Kangaroo Island, the sanctuary on which became one of his main

interests during his latter years. Soon Mrs. Elizabeth Robson Simpson, a

daughter of Professor J. B. Cleland, took his place.

The list of Honorary Curators was extended by the appointment of

Professor A. A. Abbie to co-operate as Physical Anthropologist with T. D.

Campbell (who became Professor of Dental Studies at the University of

Adelaide in 1954), and of Dr. F. Martin Glaessner and Dr. R. V. South-

cott as Associates in Palaeontology and Acarology respectively.

The inadequacy of the curatorial staff in relation to the collections

had been evident more than ever during World War II. The position of

Assistant in Mineralogy and Palaeontology had remained vacant since

early in 1940 and at the close of the War the Board informed the then

Minister (the Hon. R. J. Rudall) that the mineralogical collection was still

suffering from the want of a full-time curator in this section of the

Museum’s activities. Dr. Charles Fenner, who had retired from his

position of Director of Education, was then added to the staff, occupying

a position in the palaeontological section, while William Rex Riedel, a

science graduate from Adelaide University, filled the office of Assistant in

Mineralogy and Palaeontology early in 1947. Riedel left Adelaide in 1950

to pursue in Sweden his studies of the Radiolaria. His research in

Europe was recognised by the Royal Society of London, and with the aid

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188 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

of a grant from the last-named as well as a Fulbright scholarship he

worked for a further year in Massachusetts and in the Scripps Oceano-

graphic Institute of California.

Dr. Fenner at once plunged with enthusiasm into the work of regis-

tration and cataloguing of the invertebrate fossils and also the australites,

of which he made a particular study. He arranged and labelled a teaching

series of fossils and, as a former teacher and Director of Education, he

was naturally an excellent mentor to parties of school children in the

Museum. He retired at the age of 70 in May, 1954, and died a year later

after a long illness; among the last of his activities were preparation of

a separate register of the Australian tektites in the collection and a paper

describing some recent additions.

Francis John Mitchell commenced work at the Museum in 1946, his

main concern being with the reptiles and frogs. Gordon Flinders Gross

became Assistant in Entomology in 1947 and Assistant Entomologist in

March, 1951. Trevor Dennison Scott, like Riedel and Gross a science gradu-

ate from the University of Adelaide, took over the position of Assistant

in Marine Zoology early in 1951.

Riedel was reappointed to the staff in 1954 to fill a newly created

permanent office, that of Palaeontologist. In June, 1955, however, he

resigned in order to continue his research at the Scripps Oceanographic

Institute. Towards the close of the same year Brian Daily, B.Sc., was

appointed Museum Palaeontologist, and soon commenced a re-organisation

of the older fossils, being interested particularly in the Cambrian deposits.

Womersley continued in field and laboratory his taxonomic studies of

the superabundant mites. Early in 1947, having received a substantial

grant from the United States Public Health Department, he left for 12

months to study the collections in other institutions and to confer with

specialists in the United States and England. The above-mentioned grant

assisted in publication of Womersley’s magnum opus, a monograph of

some Acarid mites—“Trombiculidae of the Asiatic-Pacific Region” which

occupies the whole of volume X of the Records of the South Australian

Museum, comprising 674 pages and including 118 plates.

After his retirement in 1954, and before resuming work at the

Museum as Honorary Acarologist, Womersley spent some months in New

Guinea with his son John S. Womersley, Forest Botanist in the Forestry

Department of New Guinea at Lae. Towards the close of 1955 he was

appointed as salaried Acarologist—a new office.

In March, 1955, Dr. Edward Thomas Giles became official Entomolo-

gist at the Museum. A New Zealander, he had just completed a post-

graduate course at the Imperial College, London, there securing his Ph.D.

He worked particularly on the morphological affinities of the Dermaptera

SOME INNOVATIONS 189

to the Orthoptera, as he intended to further pursue his investigations

of the last-named order of insects.

Amongst the post-war suggestions for improvement was the proposal

that curators in charge of the larger sections of the Museum should be

supplied with independent clerical and other assistants; this was imple-

mented in 1947. Some changes in personnel of the preparatorial staff

occurred, while in addition to the artists a modeller was appointed for

preparation of gallery exhibits—a most successful introduction.

Some Innovations

At the beginning of this period members of the staff who had been on

Active Service returned and by mid-1946 work on the exhibition galleries

was resumed.

Paul F, Lawson, one of the preparators, carried out numerous experi-

ments with plastics as media for replicas of objects for display. Using

rubber latex and Polyvinyl-chloride he produced life-like representations

of frogs, lizards, snakes and other creatures, infinitely superior to spirit or

“stuffed” specimens. He also developed and published a description of

“Methods of Demonstrating Human and Mammalian Circulatory Tracts.”

As mentioned earlier, E. Burgess, of Kangaroo Island, in 1926

collected bones of the extinct small Island Emu (Dromaius diemenianus)

in the Kelly Hill Caves discovered by him; these included a complete

skeleton. Sir James Gosse, Chairman of the Board controlling the Flinders

Chase Reserve on Kangaroo Island, as well as member of the Museum

Board, suggested that from our available skeletal material and from data

concerning the mounted skin in the Paris Museum (the only one in exist-

ence) it might be possible to prepare a reconstruction of the dwarf emu

as it appeared in life. The Director of the Paris Museum generously sup-

plied photographs showing plumage and other details and Lawson was

entrusted with the task of reconstruction. A field trip was made in order

to secure a mainland emu with plumage corresponding in colour to the

dark Island species and then, with the skeleton as a guide to proportions,

the mannikin was built, using Polyvinyl-chloride for the head, legs and

feet.

It will not be disputed that an important factor in Museum display

is the first impression a visitor receives when entering the doors. Not

very long ago most of the museums in Australia presented to the public

vistas of black cases. Most, if not all, of our museums have changed the

colour of the framing of their exhibition cases, a long procedure and an

expensive one. In the case of the South Australian Museum, arrangements

were made for some of the attendant staff to carry on with painting

whenever practicable. It was, of course, essential to ensure that from

time to time persons with experience in painting were added to the

190 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

attendant staff and the scheme has proved eminently satisfactory, due

to the enthusiastic co-operation of this section of the personnel.

It was considered that in the matter of public education we could

stress the desirability of protecting our native animals and plants. As a

beginning a case designed by the Ornithologist, H. T. Condon, was installed

by A. Rau and his assistant, showing the game birds of South Australia

and drawing attention to the fact that ducks, snipe and quail, and their

allies, together with the Bald Coot, are recognised as important game

birds and that, owing to closer settlement, drainage of swamps and subse-

quent loss of breeding grounds, legislation is necessary to ensure that

these game birds are not exterminated. It is shown that, for instance,

only 40 quail may be taken by one person per day, and that the daily

bag limit for ducks is 12 per person. Specimens of each of our ducks,

snipe and quail are mounted against a pale green background, each with

a map of Australia showing the distribution of the species, and a label

giving the alternative popular names (as well as the scientific name)

and the dates of the Close Seasons. In juxtaposition are displayed the

totally protected birds in South Australia, with a copy of the Animals and

Birds Protection Act, and a list of all the sanctuaries. Public interest in

this display indicates that such “protectionist” information could usefully

be extended and emphasised.

Apart from dioramas, the bird gallery still had on exhibition the

group case arranged during Waite’s term as Director. Waite on arrival

in Adelaide was faced with a number of square cases about 12 feet by

12 feet by 8 feet in height. The contents constituted what perhaps may

be called ‘“pseudo-dioramas”; an appropriate background was painted on

the wall, some ground work and trees were installed, and on these were

placed, for example, all South Australian water birds, parrots or hawks,

in different cases of course. Under this scheme each bird has a number

and a key label is attached to the outside of the case. Two irritating

factors arise. To ascertain the name of any particular bird it is necessary

to look from the bird to the key label; secondly, in an exhibit of this

type the birds are not always displayed to the best advantage and it is

difficult to study closely details of many of them. Condon, in collaboration

with taxidermist A. Rau, and artist H. Bowshall (who came on the

staff in 1950) carried out some great improvements on these old cases.

False backs were installed on three sides, the result being in effect three

upright cases, not very deep from back to front, two at right angles to

the other. In two of these modified cases South Australian hawks and

parrots are mounted against backgrounds painted pale blue, with indica-

tions of cloud. In the case of the hawks each species is accompanied by

a cut-out small painting showing the underside as seen in flight.

A major undertaking during this decade was preparation of an

“Indonesian Hall” fully illuminated with artificial lighting and occupying

SOME INNOVATIONS 191

the southern third of the top floor of the east wing. It was opened by

the Director of Education in 1954 and has attracted so much public

attention and approval that some detailed description is warranted. The

Hall was designed to illustrate the earlier cultures of man and also more

modern collections from South-eastern Asia, The last-named series have

been arranged to show the origins of civilized man and his development

through the stages of neolithic agriculture and the early Iron Age in

the lands of South-west Asia.

As a departure from the conventional approach to the subject of

early civilizations in which the cultures of the near East, and in turn

Egypt, Greece, Rome and modern Europe are successively displayed,

an attempt was made to indicate the principal cultural sequences which

have affected areas between South-western Asia and the Pacific,

treating in turn the Indus Valley cultures, India, Malaya, Eastern Asia,

Indonesia and the Pacific Islands around Australia. Because of the

difficulties in obtaining an adequate number of specimens to illustrate

the archaeology of cultures such as that of the Indus Valley, appropriate

reproductions and models in clay were made. These, based on published

photographs and drawings, are used in place of specimens which are

not available. The three dimensional replicas properly coloured are effec-

tive in demonstrating details of designs on Harappa pottery, the general

appearance of Indo-Sumerian clay figures, and such objects as the toy

model carts and children’s toys as were found, for instance, at Mohen-

jodaro. Care is necessary to ensure that the student knows that he is

viewing a reproduction or model and not an original. The advice once

given by the late Dr. George C. Vaillant of the Pennsylvanian University

Art Museum has been taken seriously; he postulated that often a care-

fully and scientifically made reconstruction or copy of the best available

specimen is far more effective in educating than is a second-grade or

broken fragment of an original.

Included in the Indonesian Hall is a feature not hitherto adopted

at the South Australian Museum—the preparation of miniature dioramas

based on a scale of 10 cm. equals 1 metre. The artizan now available on

the staff, Leonard V. Wills, an excellent craftsman, constructed a new

type of case in which sloping glass is used, but so built-in that there is

no effect of looking into a picture frame. This case has been constructed

on a triangular base to enable it to be placed with one side against a wall;

the third side carries photographs in a shallow frame, glassed but indepen-

dent of the outer case. Miniature dioramas are made portable so that they

may be replaced in a few minutes. To enable adjustments to be made in

lighting for different scenes the fluorescent light sources are on movable

cradles and may be shifted readily from side to side within the outer case

of the diorama.

192 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

The creation of this considerable exhibit occupied the services of

seven members of the staff, under the supervision of the Anthropologist

(N. B. Tindale), for more than two years; the idea for the gallery

had grown out of his experience in the Orient and the inspiration of visits

to leading museums in the United States and Europe. Harold E. Burrows

as museum assistant personally installed and printed labels for most of

the smaller cases. Harry J. Bowshall (artist) and Madeleine P. Boyce

(artist and photographer) painted large murals and prepared photographs

and many other illustrations. Quintin G. Harris, as modeller, is respon-

sible for the miniature dioramas. Harris has modelled small aboriginal

figures (one-sixth natural size) for the Australian ethnological gallery

also; one series, arranged to depict a ceremony of the Pitjandjara tribe

has evoked favourable criticism.

Paul F. Lawson made an outstanding contribution by preparation

of life-size figures of a Maori Chief and his daughter, the latter seated

on the doorstep of a house. These figures display effectively the clothing

and decorative articles worn by the original inhabitants of New Zealand.

The Indonesian Government at Djakarta, through the Department of

External Affairs at Canberra, made a generous donation of Balinese

dancing costumes to assist the project. These comprise a complete outfit

for a “Legong”’ dancer, suitable for wearing by a girl of about 11 years

of age as well as the principal items of a “Djanger”’ dancer intended to

fit a young woman of 16-18 years; sketches showing the mode of dressing

accompanied the specimens.

The Conchologist, B. C. Cotton, with the aid of his artist-assistant,

at this time arranged in table cases an extensive teaching series of

Mollusca, illustrating life-histories, types of shells and colour sketches

of the whole animals. This attractive exhibit replaced study collections of

shells now available with other material, in the conchological cabinets.

So numerous became enquiries regarding the common Mollusca of

our southern shores that Cotton prepared a booklet intended for the

beginner, school children and teachers; it is well illustrated and covers 226

species common to South and Western Australia. The first edition of

“South Australian Shells” was published early in 1946, when the Educa-

tion Department at once purchased 1,000 copies; two further editions

have been issued to date.

A constant demand for euphonious aboriginal words, or the mean-

ings of aboriginal words, led to the preparation by H. M. Cooper of a

selected “2,000 Australian Aboriginal Words and their Meanings”. This

also soon ran into a second edition, and is still in great demand despite,

as in the case of other booklets, an increased cost.

Black and white postcards previously available, and depicting

Museum objects, were superseded by a set of coloured cards, five illus-

Maori models, life size, in Soutl: Australian Museum, 1949

SOME INNOVATIONS 193

trating some of the bird dioramas and one of the aforementioned recon-

struction of the Kangaroo Island Emu.

Because of numerous public enquiries regarding our reptiles, a popular

booklet, “Harmless or Harmful”, dealing with South Australian snakes,

was prepared by Mitchell; published in 1955, this. commanded a ready sale.

A coloured Museum poster, prepared some years before, was displayed

by courtesy of the South Australian Railways Commissioner, 200 copies

being shown on Station notice boards throughout the State.

From time to time series of articles in the press, focusing attention

on selected specimens specially exhibited, attract attention, as also do

publicised accounts of the results of field and research work.

With an increasing influx of “New” Australians it was considered

advisable to place on the galleries additional general explanatory labels

in German and Italian, and appreciation of these has been freely expressed.

It is felt that all these measures have contributed in maintaining

annual attendances during the last few years at an estimated level of

about one-fourth of a million, an excellent attendance in relation to the

population of the State.

Soon after the war the Board referred again, in its annual

report to the Government, to the educational work carried on with school

children. It was pointed out that for many years school classes have

absorbed much of the time of curators and technical staff “thus inade-

quately employing the specialized qualifications’. The Board felt that

after this lapse of time and considerable effort “a definite decision should

be made as to whether this activity shall be a recognised function of

the Institution with more definite liaison and assistance from the Educa-

tion Department”. Continuing further the idea of utilizing the Museum

as a source of teaching material, attention was called to the fact that in

many other museums travelling cases were provided for circulation

amongst schools; such cases deal with insects of economic importance,

bird-life, structure of animals, teaching collections of minerals and so

on. Numerous requests from schools show that a demand exists and

it is hoped that in this direction also labour and financial assistance will

be forthcoming.

Work with school children is still carried on, but necessarily on a

reduced scale. Two years ago the Director of Education expressed his

appreciation of our efforts and regretted that the shortage of teachers

remained a restricting factor.

Within the Museum there has been at least some extension of

teaching facilities. Cotton has assisted the Visual Aids Section of the

Education Department in preparation of strip films, and various exhibits

in the Children’s Museum have been used for the same purpose. Two

194 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

years ago arrangements were made for groups of hard-of-hearing children

to visit the Museum with their teachers, to lip-read talks by members

of the Museum staff and to handle relevant specimens. Students from

the School of Arts continue to attend weekly classes in the Museum.

Following the war an important development was the formation of

an Australian UNESCO Committee for Museums; a valuable result

is that the Directors of the various Australian museums are given an

opportunity of meeting together at least once annually. In addition

to this the Commonwealth Government set up a Museums co-operating

body, a welcome contribution to the co-ordination of the work of Austra-

lian museums.

During World War II large collections of natural history material

in the Museum at Manila, in the Philippine Islands, were totally destroyed

or looted by the Japanese. The Manila authorities appealed to UNESCO

for assistance and at a meeting of the Australian UNESCO Co-operating

Body for Museums it was agreed that collections should be sent from

each State to the Philippine Islands through UNESCO. The South

Australian Museum Board donated a considerable collection of Australian

anthropological material, a series of reptiles and Amphibia, comprising

a good cross section of the commoner species of snakes, lizards and frogs

found in South Australia, as well as fishes, crabs and prawns and a

hundred species of typical South Australian shells. Several store boxes

filled with pinned insects and a collection of scorpions and spiders

preserved in alcohol were also sent, while herbarium specimens were

assembled to indicate the type of plants growing in South Australia.

At about the same time the Commonwealth Government agreed

to finance the preparation of a travelling exhibition to illustrate the

life of the Australian aboriginal. A working party was set up and during

the initial stages of preparation Tindale travelled to Sydney and a lay-out

following the general plan which had evolved during the formation of

the Indonesian Hall was put forward and adopted. Subsequently the

South Australian Museum supplied a considerable amount of material,

including bust and face casts, weapons and implements. The photographs

supplied included a dozen 10 inch by 12 inch enlargements of photographs

selected from the magnificent series of F. J. Gillen negatives.

Other Australian museums contributed and finally 24 panels were

prepared, which were sent abroad on tour under the direction of UNESCO.

The writer was appointed a corresponding member of the Inter-

national Committee on Monuments under UNESCO in 1951, on the pro-

posal of the Government and with agreement of the aforementioned

Committee.

In 1953 UNESCO sponsored a seminar for discussion of ‘‘The Role

of Museums in Education”; this was held in the National Museum in

FIELD AND RESEARCH WORK 195

Melbourne. Delegates from all States attended and amongst papers read

were four prepared by members of the South Australian Museum staff.

Field and Research Work

After necessary readjustments had been made and arrears of work

with the collections overtaken, field work was resumed in 1948. In the

course of the last nine years members of the staff carried out trips,

mostly of a few weeks duration, to various parts of South Australia—

Greenly Island, the Lake Torrens area, the Lake Eyre Basin, Gawler

and Flinders Ranges, Central Australia, the South-east of the State,

Kangaroo Island and other South Australian localities—as well as to

Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia.

Gross and Mitchell have made ecological studies in their respective

fields, paying some attention to the higher altitudes in arid areas, particu-

larly the more inaccessible parts of the steep Elder Range, 25 miles north

of Hawker. For this last the two investigators travelled with light hiking

gear and proved that so equipped it is practicable to make good collections,

not only of reptiles and insects but also of plants.

T. D. Scott visited many parts of the southern coast, his studies

being confined in the main to fishes; he successfully completed a useful

study of the life-history of the commercial whiting (Sillaginodes puncta-

tus) in South Australia, showing that the female of the species spawns

for the first time when 5-6 years of age. This research must prove

valuable; the whiting referred to is highly prized as a table delicacy

and Scott’s results demonstrate that further protective measures are

desirable.

In June, 1955, Scott and P. F. Lawson left Adelaide to study at the

University of California, having been granted leave of absence for twelve

months.

As Honorary Botanist, J. B. Cleland suggested that watercolour

sketches of South Australian fungi should be made for permanent record

whenever specimens became available in the vicinity of Adelaide. By

mid-1948 Gwen D. Walsh had prepared 120 accurate drawings and these

are added to from time to time. Some were reproduced in colour to

illustrate a paper in the Records (1947) prepared by Cleland and J. R.

Harris and dealing with some species of Australian fungi possessing

antibiotic properties. Work on this subject in the Institute of Medical

and Veterinary Science in South Australia has attracted considerable

attention abroad and a request was received from the Botanic Gardens in

New York for spores of a “mushroom” illustrated in the abovementioned

paper.

196 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

During 1947-1949 the Conchologist (B. C. Cotton) was seconded to —

the South Australian Department of Mines to undertake identification of 2

Tertiary Mollusca resulting from stratigraphic work carried on by the

Department.

Following requests from C.S.I.R.O. and Agricultural Departments for

identifications of introduced snails and slugs in Australia, work on collec-

tion and identification of specimens had been commenced in 1937 by

Cotton and a paper was published in the South Australian Naturalist

with a view to encouraging observation of these pests. Travelling and

other difficulties handicapped this work during the war, but since extensive

searches were made by Cotton in Western and South Australia, Victoria

and New South Wales. As a result a large collection was accumulated,

with a view to identifying and assessing variation from types of the

many species now distributed in all States. In later years this was

continued in collaboration with Dr. H. E. Quick of London, President

of the Malacological Society, who has made a special study of the problem

and has greatly assisted by comparing original European types and

exchanging comparative material. A complete catalogue of snails and

slugs introduced into Australia was published in the Museum Records

in 1954 showing the origin and distribution of 35 species.

N. B. Tindale in 1947 published an account of long continued

researches in the subdivision of Pleistocene time which he had undertaken

in a search for reliable data on the antiquity of Man in Australia. His

earlier work (1933) on marine interglacial terraces of the Pleistocene in

South Australia had proved useful to F. E. Zeuner, the authority on

Pleistocene climates. His data and conclusions have helped to stimulate

Australian interest in the subject and have received support from later

work. He has in still later papers challenged the conclusions of those

who would read into Australian recent history a “Great Arid” period,

whose supposed effects have been so vast as to directly affect the present

day fauna and flora,

In January and February 1949 Tindale visited Tasmania in order

to complete work on a study of the half-caste aboriginals on Cape Barren

Island. This was in furtherance of some of the investigations begun by

the Harvard-Adelaide Expedition immediately before the war. Subse-

quently the Queen Victoria Museum at Launceston published a lengthy

paper by Tindale entitled “Growth of a People’, an important contribution

giving an account of the formation and development of a hybrid aboriginal

and white stock on the islands of Bass Strait, Tasmania, 1815-1949.

A combined effort of the Melbourne and Adelaide natural history

museums resulted in the recovery in October 1949 of the long-dead trunks

of 52 Coolibah trees, valued because of their aboriginal carvings. The

existence of such trees has been known for years; the carvings are wavy

FIELD AND RESEARCH WORK 197

and snake-like and their meaning is not entirely clear. Those collected

were situated on a station property at Collymongle, near Collarenebri

on the Barwon River, in New South Wales, and for a long time had been

part of one of the surviving Bora grounds, or native initiation sites,

in Australia. Mr. Lindsay Black, of Leeton, New South Wales, had for

long been actively interested in adding to our knowledge of aboriginal

stone-age culture, and wrote several papers on various aspects of tribal

lore. It was through him that Tindale and Donald Tugby, Ethnologist at

the National Museum in Melbourne, were able to arrange the two-week

tree-felling expedition to this site. Of the trunks collected, 25 went to

Melbourne, 25 to Adelaide and two to the University of Queensland. In

all probability these trees were carved about the year 1863 and were

touched up in 1885; they were originally painted with red ochre and

pipe clay by the aboriginals but old natives in the district have now no

satisfactory explanation of their significance. It was as tangible relics

of a culture that is fast dying that these fragile hollow trunks were cut

down to preserve them from possible destruction by bushfires and certain

deterioration by weather.

In many parts of South Australia there occur aboriginal rock-

carvings (or petroglyphs) of which the living natives appear to know

very little. The first of such carvings to be noticed in the State were

reported by a police officer, E. G. Waterhouse, in 1902; since then a

great many more have been discovered. Some consist merely of circles

or barred circles, but in others silhouettes or outlines of animals have been

pecked out on the rocks, while tracks of various creatures are delineated.

It has been suggested that certain of these tracks imitate the foot-

prints of the extinct marsupial Diprotodon and the fossil Ratite bird

Genyornis; the bird carvings usually are not particularly well defined.

In 1950, however, F. J. Hall (formerly an honorary ethnological assistant

at the Museum) and two companions found a large number of native

carvings near water holes in the bed of Eucolo Creek, in the vicinity

of Pimba on the Adelaide-Perth Railway. These include series of giant

bird tracks, each about 18 inches in greatest length; although old they

are far more definite and clear cut than similar representations previously

recorded. In 1865 or 1866 the Rev. J. E. Tenison Woods of Penola,

noted for his keen interest in fossil remains, came into possession of leg-

bones of a large extinct bird from the South-east of the State. Thirty

years later Stirling and Zietz considered that these bones in all probability

were referable to Genyornis. Tenison Woods, in describing his find,

made the statement that the bird ‘“‘appears to have been contemporaneous

with the natives, for these bones are marked with old scars, one of which

most certainly has been inflicted by a sharper instrument than any in

possession of the natives at present; there were, however, fragments

of flint buried with the bones, and a native well about 50 yards away”.

198 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

Plaster casts were made for the Museum of a representative series

of the Eucolo carvings, including these giant bird tracks. The detailed

nature of the latter, showing the separate claw and pad impressions of the

bird, suggested to Tindale that the native artists may have been familiar

with fresh tracks. They may yet be regarded as corroborative evidence

that Genyornis was still alive when the aboriginal came to Australia.

Support for such a conclusion appeared in the studies at Lake Menindee,

New South Wales, which were published in the 1955 volume of the Museum

Records. The archaeological remains of aborigines of three cultures were

found in beds which appeared to overlap the period, in the Early Recent, of

the extinction of the great Pleistocene suite of mammals of which

Diprotodon, Procoptodon and Protemnodon are representatives.

In August, 1951, a successful anthropological expedition was made

to Yuendumu in Central Australia by the University and Museum. This

was the sixteenth expedition to Central Australia organized by the Board

for Anthropological Research. More than 100 natives were studied, while

three cinema films and ethnological material were secured; the sacred

cave at Ngama was examined during the course of this expedition. Dr.

T. D. Campbell organized the venture and later he and others returned

to the station on several occasions with smaller parties.

It was in 1950 that attention was drawn to Lake Eyre when, after

it had been dry for 30 years or so, it was filled to its geographical

boundaries. During the preceding year flood-waters from the north-east

began to spread over its surface. Supplemented by further flcods and

unusually heavy rain over the centre of the Lake Basin, the highest

water level was reached about October, 1950; in May and again -in

December of that year C. Warren Bonython made the earlier of a number

of expeditions to determine the rate of natural evaporation of the waters

and to carry out other investigations. As it was considered that the

favourable season would provide unusual opportunities for collecting

natural history material a Museum party left in November to work in

the Flinders Ranges, and a week later, at the invitation of Bonython,

met the last-named and his group of investigators at Leigh Creek, en route

to the Lake. On this occasion the Museum party (Gross, Mitchell and

Lawson) were accompanied during the first part of the trip by a visiting

entomologist, Dr. W. L. Brown of the Museum of Comparative Zoology

at Harvard, U.S.A.; the reptiles and insects secured from this inhospitable

region are of unusual interest.

Influenced by his growing interest in the vast Lake Eyre Basin,

Bonython suggested to the Board that the Museum should secure further

Diprotodon material from Lake Callabonna, and that as a first step

additional bones should be recovered for experimentation in order to

discover more efficient methods of preservation. Half a century before,

Stirling wrote:

FIELD AND RESEARCH WORK 199

The condition of the bones varied very much—some were so friable

that they crumbled into powder and could not be removed; others, usually

in moist places, were wet, soft and of the consistency of putty. Curiously

enough, for reasons which are not clear, some bones from wet places

were firm and hard, while others, from ground that was comparatively

dry, were soft. As a rule those in best condition came from localities

which, without being too wet, were moderately damp. The bones, thus

varying in condition and consistency, required very different methods of

preparation. The greatest difficulty was undoubtedly due to the circum-

stance that the bones were saturated with what was practically a

concentrated saline solution. In fact, all their cavities were so filled

with this fluid that it was necessary to allow a considerable time for it

to drain away. In other cases the bones were encrusted and impregnated

with gypsum crystals. From such causes the bones became in dry weather

brittle and liable to break or crack, and in damp weather difficult to dry.

Very careful and patient methods of treatment had consequently to be

adopted and will still be necessary until the salt is removed.

The methods of preservation and restoration practised by Zietz had

occupied a great deal of time and labour. It was decided that a Museum

party should make a preliminary survey of the Lake during the autumn

of 1953 with a view to investigating the whole problem.

It was now found that Professor R. A. Stirton of the University of

California at Berkeley would be coming to Australia as a Fulbright

Research Scholar at about this time, in order to search for Tertiary

mammalian fossils. Stirton, a field worker of tremendous energy, has

wide experience in collecting fragile fossil bones and was asked to lead the

Museum party during the course of his own investigations in the Lake

Eyre Basin, which he planned to visit on the advice of Sir Douglas

Mawson, who was of opinion that the country east of Lake Eyre was

a likely place for discovery of Tertiary mammalian remains.

Stirton, accompanied by a graduate student from his University

(Richard H. Tedford), arrived early in 1953 and at once agreed to the

proposal. The fossils found by Tindale and Birdsell at Lake Menindee

in 1939 (see p. 154), although more recent than the Tertiary, attracted

his interest, so much so, that, with Tindale and Tedford, he journeyed to

the site, on the Darling River in western New South Wales.

A second and longer expedition, to include Lake Callabonna in its itine-

rary, left Adelaide in April, 1953, the party consisting of Stirton and

Tedford, Lawson from the Museum, and Geoffrey D. Woodard, a graduate

geology student at the University of Adelaide. A 314 ton Canadian Ford

truck was driven by Lawson, as it was decided that a heavy vehicle, with

four wheel drive, would be desirable for transport of heavy fossils and

equipment. Stirton had already purchased a Land Rover with a trailer and

this vehicle proved more efficient for prospecting and generally more

mobile than the larger truck. A reconnaissance trip was carried out in

the difficult country west of Lake Eyre but none of the desired Tertiary

200 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

fossils was found. The party turned south and made their way to Lake

Callabonna.

The final site on which Zietz had worked in 1893 was discovered with

difficulty but eventually evidences of the 60 year old camp were found

and nearby were skeletons of Diprotodon, easily located, when not

exposed, by probing the mud with steel rods, a method which had been

practised by Zietz. In 20 days the party collected the complete skeleton

of an adult, part skeletons of two juveniles and the skull and jaws of

another. All, carefully encased in plaster, were brought to Adelaide.

His mission still not accomplished, Stirton, with Tedford and Wood-

ard, next investigated the country east of Lake Eyre and there found

at Lake Palankarinna a Tertiary marsupial fauna which included remains

of a new genus of kangaroo, and bones of two undescribed genera of

diprotodons. Dr. Harold C. Reynolds, Research Fellow at the University

of California, arrived in Adelaide at this time in order to conduct field

research on some of our marsupials, using the Museum as a base during

his operations in South Australia. As a preliminary he immediately left

in his own station-waggon, to join the party at Lake Palankarinna.

At the close of this expedition Stirton decided to return to South

Australia a year later to explore further this deposit, leaving arrange-

ments in the hands of the South Australian Museum.

In view of the proved advantages of the Land Rover in the rough

interior one of these vehicles with steel trailer was purchased by the

Museum. Stirton duly came to Adelaide in July, 1954, and with a cinema-

tographer flew north to join a party working at Lake Palankarinna, which

had been gazetted a fossil reserve. The advance party consisted of L. F.

Marcus and Woodard from the University of California, and William

Cassidy, Riedel and Lawson of the South Australian Museum staff. The

Lake deposits worked out, Stirton and his associates continued to Queens-

land and New South Wales.

Although Riedel, as Museum Palaeontologist, accompanied this expedi-

tion to search for mammalian remains in the Lake Eyre Basin, inverte-

brate fossils claimed his closest attention in the laboratory. His most

important research project was the segregation and critical identification

of Radiolaria from cores; the remains of these minute creatures are

proving a valuable factor in determining the age of rock formations.

In April, 1955, H. Bowshall, P. Lawson and W. Riedel went to Yalpara

Station, near Orroroo, to collect a Diprotodon which had been reported

there. The skeleton was found to be practically complete, but in a poor

state of preservation. As much of it as possible was prepared and

brought back to the Museum.

Immediately following the last-mentioned trip, G. F. Gross together

with T. D. Scott and artist H. Bowshall, left for the Lake Eyre Basin.

FIELD AND RESEARCH WORK 201

More than eight inches of rain had fallen in the Oodnadatta district and,

for the second time in five years, there was considerable water in Lake

Eyre North and South. Under these circumstances the Board decided

that the Museum party should visit the area at intervals of three months

in order to record the conditions obtaining at successive periods, to secure

collections of the animals and plants then occurring, and to secure all

possible ecological data. Dr. Giles, as Entomologist, N. B. Tindale, G. F.

Gross, F. J. Mitchell and R. Hill (an officer from the Botanic Gardens Her-

barium) also took part in subsequent expeditions.

During the past ten years a considerable number of overseas anthro-

pologists came to South Australia to study various facies of the large

ethnological collections. In 1953, for example, Dr. Ruth Underhill,

formerly Professor of Anthropology at Denver University, U.S.A., spent

two periods examining our Australian collections. Dr. and Mrs. Richard

Waterman, of the North-Western University of Illinois, were given

research facilities and studied the sound records of aboriginal songs

and speech; subsequently they spent a year or so in the Northern

Territory before returning to the Museum to assemble their data.

Professor and Mrs. Hartshorn, of the University of Chicago, paid

several visits and made copies of drawings and tjurunga designs.

Dr. Joseph Birdsell, with Mrs. Birdsell and an assistant, again made

his headquarters at the Museum from whence he organized an expedition

of two years duration to the northern parts of the Continent in order

to continue work on the genetics of our aboriginals inaugurated by

the pre-war expedition. Tindale, from April to November, 1953, spent six

months with the Birdsells in North-western Australia and secured much

data on his subject, including the tribal distribution of the aborigines;

he collected large quantities of zoological and other material, and pur-

chased ethnological specimens in the field with money granted from

bequest funds. Notably, he contacted two old aboriginal men in this area

who proved to be the last surviving natives with knowledge of the

pressure-flake technique used in the making of the beautiful crenulated

spear-heads peculiar to this part of the Continent. Willing to demonstrate

their skill, these grand old men continued to supply for months afterwards

choice examples of the almost lost craft of the pressure-flaked stone

worker.

For a good while contacts had been maintained with the few remain-

ing aboriginals of Yorke Peninsula; in 1953 the death of the last man

who possessed data of their culture severed one of the few remaining

links with the original native inhabitants of that area.

Several American researchers, under the auspices of the Fulbright

Plan and other bodies, spent considerable periods at the Museum. William

Cassidy has already been mentioned; a meteoritics expert and graduate

from the University of New Mexico, he came to South Australia in 1953,

202 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

studying for a year in the institution and in the Geology Department

at the University. He was attracted to the Museum, naturally, by the

unusually large collection of about 18,000 Australian tektites, as well as

other meteorites available in Adelaide. Cassidy became a full-time member

of the Museum staff for the latter half of 1954 and supervised the making

of a meteorite cutting machine, a long-felt want. The machine was

constructed by A. Rau and his assistant; Rau being a skilled technician,

the apparatus was quickly assembled and meteorites successfully sliced,

including the difficult Huckitta pallasite.

In the latter half of 1953 Cassidy, with Land Rover and trailer and

with Gross as companion, travelled to North-western Australia, Darwin

and Central Australia, ten weeks being spent in the field. Tindale joined

them at Hall Creek for a visit to Wolf Creek crater. A meteorite crater

was known to exist at this place, south of East Kimberley Range—in fact

it had been photographed from the air. Large and small fragments of

highly weathered meteoritic material were recovered from this crater

and sent to Adelaide, where about one-third of the 1,000 pounds or so

remain; Cassidy distributed the remainder to other museums and univer-

sities. At the Henbury craters, near Alice Springs, Cassidy and Gross

found many impactites—small droplets of melted rock formed when this

great meteorite fall occurred.

The Collections

Most additions to all sections during the past decade were either

donated by interested persons or were secured in the field by members

of the honorary and permanent staffs; only a few relatively large collec-

tions were purchased.

In 1950, John T. Mortlock, pastoralist, of Mintaro, South Australia,

bequeathed to the Museum Board a sum for purchase of specimens for

exhibition.

Ethnologia, important because of their increasing rarity, came in

small collections from all parts of Australia, various districts in Papua

and New Guinea, Rossel Islands and the vicinity, the Solomon Islands

and the Bismarck Archipelago. By exchange and presentation specimens

were acquired from England and Europe, Japan (Ainu) and India,

Mexico, Egypt and North Africa.

Soon after the war, Mrs. P. P. King generously donated a series

of New Zealand clubs and we were delighted to find that these included

a valuable greenstone Mere, the finest received since the superlative

example presented by Sir George Grey in the 19th century.

Amongst the larger donations were fine series of aboriginal stone

implements and cylindo-conical stones gathered by the late Dr. W. D. K.

McGillivray in the Broken Hill area; these were presented in 1950 by

H. L. C. Cotton of Broken Hill. A year later Dr. D. Parkhouse and Miss

orites in South Australian Museum, 1954

Apparatus for cutting mete

THE COLLECTIONS 203

M. A. Parkhouse donated a notable Australian collection, that made by

the late T. A. Parkhouse, who worked amongst the people of the Larakia

tribe in the Northern Territory in the 1890’s, and who in 1895 published

two anthropological papers recording his observations.

Following the death of Dr. C. E. C. Wilson of Adelaide, well known

as a private collector, his family sent to the Museum ethnological objects

from New Guinea, New Caledonia, the Solomon Islands, and Oodnadatta

in South Australia; included is a small group of most interesting specimens

from southern South Australia, representing types of implements once

used in the vicinity of Adelaide and exceedingly rare in Australian

museums.

Two outstanding contributors to the New Guinea and Papuan ethno-

logia during the last five years or so must be mentioned. The Rev. A. P. H.

Freund, operating in the Central Highlands of New Guinea, supplies

specimens of unusual value, in that not only do many of them represent

types new to the Museum, but they are accompanied with photographs

and are most carefully documented. In 1952 the Lae Valley, also in the

Central Highlands, was occupied by a Catholic Mission and there Mr. L.

Howie procured a fine and welcome collection for the institution.

Considerable additions to our North Queensland material came to

hand in 1953.°* During 1927-28, and again in 1934, Miss Ursula H.

McConnel, a Queensland anthropologist, conducted field research in the

Gulf of Carpentaria region of Cape York Peninsula and especially on the

Kendall, Holroyd and Archer Rivers, working with the aid of grants

from the Australian National Research Council. Her collections were

deposited through courtesy of the last-named body and technical data

were published in the Records of the South Australian Museum. The

key specimens, 160 in number, were particularly welcome, being comple-

mentary to those obtained in 1926 by Tindale and the writer on the

east coast of Cape York Peninsula and likewise demonstrating Papuan and

Torres Straits Island influences upon mainland cultures. Comparable

series were distributed by Miss McConnel to collections in Sydney and

Canberra.

Our Malayan aboriginal collections were being built up in 1951-1953

with meticulously documented specimens through the activities of Peter D.

Rider Williams-Hunt. His sudden tragic death in June 1953, through

falling into a trap defending a native village near Tapah, cut off our link

with Malayan ethnographic research. Through him we had received

useful archaeological material from the Gua Kerbau Cave in Perak, as

well as specimens illustrative of the negritos, with whom he had identified

himself.

Some important material has been acquired during the last three

years.

204 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

An outstanding purchase in 1954 was the Savage collection from

Naracoorte, comprising 943 registered ethnological items as well as

numerous minerals and zoological specimens. There were priceless old

carved wooden figures from the Papuan Gulf, as well as an amazing

variety of specimens covering all phases of human activity from the

old Stone Age to the mechanical gadgets of the 19th century, even includ-

ing a fine model of a sailing ship in a glass bottle.

In the latter half of 1954 the Honorary Associate in Ethnology

(C. P. Mountford) was in charge of a National Geographic Society’s

Melville Island expedition, the personnel of which comprised American

and Australian ethnologists, an anthropologist, a geologist and an orni-

thologist. Mountford’s research was centred on the art, myth and cere-

mony of Melville Island.

The collection of bark paintings and ethnological objects collected

during this expedition to Melville Island was received in exchange for

assistance made available in elaboration of field reports for publication.

It comprises 359 specimens and includes striking series of carved wooden

grave post figures (pukamuni) and associated ceremonial objects, paint-

ings on bark made for him, and a series of demonstration-hafted chipped

stone axes.

With some further contributions by Mountford to the collections of

bark paintings the South Australian Museum now possesses approximately

300 of these examples of native art—probably the greatest number in

any museum at present.

A collection of approximately 2,700 Pacific Island and Australian

specimens was purchased in 1955 from C. 8. Ashley of New South Wales

and also a large selection from the collection of the Rev. F. W. Brasher,

these being principally from the Solomon Islands. The Ashley collection

is notable for series of archaeological stone implements from coastal New

South Wales and contains much ethnographic material from various

Pacific Islands. Notable in the Brasher collection is a series of three

hafted stone hammers, and two trinkets worn by chiefs and of types

rarely seen. Much of the material in this collection originally came

from the Rev. A. H. Voyce, whose own collection in the Solomons was

destroyed during the war with Japan.

Sir Douglas Mawson at this time presented a series of arrows and

other welcome ethnological specimens, some from the New Hebrides,

and others from collections made by his father, R. E. Mawson, who

was in the Vailala River area many years ago.

A donation also of unusual interest was made by R. B. Morrow.

This comprised a series of objects used by a native magician at Sturt

Creek, North Western Australia, including human arm bones and emu

feather plumes; the aboriginal concerned had taken part in the killing of

a native woman.

THE COLLECTIONS 205

Our Australian ethological collections, like those of other museums

in Australia, are not entirely comprehensive. It is a matter for regret

that by 1890 it was almost too late for adequate gathering of data and

materials of aboriginals of parts of the southern and south-eastern fringes

of the Continent, where the earliest European settlements had been estab-

lished. Since then more than half a century of accumulation of data in

Australia has not remedied this deficiency completely; anthropologists

for all time may be under necessity of studying key south-eastern Austra-

lian ethnographic material in European collections. One of the tragedies

of the mid-century is that not all of these collections are available now;

during World War II several of them were destroyed, including the

Ethnographic Museums at Hamburg and at Frankfurt-am-Main; formerly

these last two were the largest collections of Australian ethnographic

material outside of Australia. During his visit to Europe in 1936-7 Tindale

photographed many key items, some of which are no longer in existence.

In the South Australian Museum the ethnological material registered

and catalogued to date comprises 48,000 entries, some of which, particu-

larly in the case of smaller aboriginal stone implements, cover very many

individual specimens. The collections occupy four large store rooms and

are housed in standard containers or on racks; 1,250 cabinet drawers

are filled with the smaller perishable and delicate specimens, while glass

cases are utilized for larger material in the same category. Two of

the storerooms, containing 30,000 specimens, are sealed and protected with

napthalene vapour.

All museums of natural history are fully aware that the use of fumi-

gants and insect deterrents is an essential feature of curatorial work.

It may be well to mention here that our experience with para-di-

chlorbenzene, sometimes recommended as a safeguard to insect infesta-

tion, has not been happy. In the first place it is said to be effective for

its purpose only at relatively high temperatures and is therefore of

uncertain value. Secondly, with ethnological material it can cause con-

siderable destruction, for, in the presence of para-di-chlorbenzene fumes

over a long period, resins used in the hafting of aboriginal axes, the

attachment of spear-heads and so on, partially liquify and cease to hold

in place the stone implements. At least one other Australian museum

has suffered similar damage.

There are approximately 9,800 ethnological specimens on exhibition

at the present time, in cases occupying two-fifths of a mile in running feet.

Although the Commissioner of Police and his staff continue to send

to the Museum aboriginal skeletal material which comes to their notice,

a steady falling off has been noted during the last ten years. It is con-

sidered that this decline reflects a progressive exhaustion of local deposits

but at the same time may be accentuated by better farming methods

206 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

and the reduction of soil erosion, which so frequently exposed native

burials.

The mammal collection, while fairly representative, is not very large,

little more than 6,000 specimens (skins, skeletons, skulls, ete,), having

been registered. Much of the material has been collected by the staff,

honorary or otherwise, during expeditions and field work, and the rest

has been acquired mainly by donation. Never in the history of the

Museum has a full-time salaried mammalogist been appointed and while

this position obtains no consistent building up of the collection necessarily

can be anticipated. The Australian and extra-Australian mammals occupy

a considerable part of the exhibition Space available; they are for the

greater part much overcrowded and until such time as floor areas for

displays are vastly increased dioramas for effective presentation are

impracticable.

It is worthy of note that a young Pigmy Right Whale (Caperea

marginata) came ashore near Port Lincoln in Spencer Gulf during

December, 1955. The skeleton of this example was recovered by A. Rau,

with the assistance of G. F. Gross. At the same time the skull and part

of the skeleton of a large adult were obtained. The specimen concerned

had been found about five years before on the beach at Coffin Bay (also

near Port Lincoln) by J. G. Haggarty, who donated the bones,

together with photographs of the whale, secured when it was stranded.

These comprise the fourth and fifth examples of this rare species to

be recorded from South Australian coasts (see also p. 51).

In February, 1956, a young male example of the Strap-toothed Whale

(Mesoplodon layardii), almost 15 feet in length, was seen swimming in

the American River Estuary on Kangaroo Island for about a week, after

which it became stranded in shallow water in an obviously injured condi-

tion. The skeleton was recovered by F. J. Mitchell and assistant prepara-

tor T. H. J. Chesterfield. This is the twelfth specimen to be recorded,

on definite evidence, in South Australian waters.

Fortunately, Professor R. A. Blackburn, of the University of Adelaide,

and some friends were on vacation at the locality when the whale was

noticed alive in shallow water and made some interesting observations

concerning the life colouration of the specimen. Dorsally this was brown,

with a noticeably bronzy sheen when viewed obliquely; the ventral

surfaces were described as off white tending to grey. Very soon after the

animal died, however, a rapid change in colouring ensued and a few

days later the upper surfaces were ebony black. It seems obvious, there-

fore, that in previous descriptions of South Australian specimens the

skin colours given were due to post-mortem changes, It may be mentioned

that a Beaked Whale about 14 feet in length, and possibly referable to

Mesoplodon layardii, was observed by the writer swimming in Vivonne

THE COLLECTIONS 207

Ray on the south coast of Kangaroo Island in January, 1926. The dorsal

colouration of this example was chocolate brown.

The last important addition to the ornithological section was made

early in 1956 when Professor Emeritus J. B. Cleland presented his large

collection of several hundreds of skins of Australian birds together with

a few of foreign birds. This and a collection of Australian plants pre-

sented at the same time to the State Herbarium are the result of Professor

Cleland’s lifelong interest in birds and in the botany of Australia.

Professor Cleland, now in his 78th. year, is following actively all his

interests and is still continuing strenuous field work with undiminished

vigour,

The present ornithological collection has been built up by the efforts

of the staff and through gifts, exchanges and purchases. Over 10,000

cabinet specimens from all Australian States are referable to 659 species

out of a possible total of 707, and there are more than 6,000 clutches of

Australian eggs and about 2,000 items in the osteological collection.

None of the bird specimens taken by Gould, Sturt and other early

explorers is included. Indeed, as already mentioned, it will always be

a matter for regret that very few of the numerous specimens gathered

with such enthusiasm by the intrepid collectors during the beginning of

the second half of the last century were retained. The oldest study skin

is believed to be that of a Night Parrot (Geopsittacus occidentalis)

which dates from about the year 1880, and there are many others which

are known to be more than 60 years old.

Most of the birds on exhibition are in excellent condition and the

collection has grown steadily during the last 40 years. In the research

collection the foreign birds are poorly represented, but there are about

3,500 skins and 500 clutches of eggs. In recent years foreign birds

have been obtained mainly from the Adelaide Zoological Gardens.

Generally speaking, facilities for ideal housing of the study collec-

tions of birds have not been made available and wooden cabinets of all

shapes and sizes, and derived from many sources, are employed. Also,

until recently, the drawers were crammed to overflowing and to overcome

the difficulty of finding specimens readily a card-indexing system was

inaugurated by the former honorary curators Morgan and Sutton. The

system works well and is believed to be superior to that employed in

any other Australian museum. Thus, although the ornithological collec-

tion might be regarded as small and badly housed by world standards,

the material is readily available for taxonomic analysis and fills many

of the gaps in the better-publicised collections in Melbourne and Sydney.

Recently, some new wooden cabinets with interchangeable drawers

have been provided for storage of Australian material and these have

208 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

enabled part of the collection to be arranged in a manner comparable

to that adopted overseas.

The reptile and amphibian collection contains a good cross-section

of the Australian herpetofauna, but is deficient in specimens from coastal

and highland districts in New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania, The

foreign collection is small and for the most part restricted to material

obtained in the Indo-Australian Archipelago and South-east Asia.

A register commenced in 1911 contains 3,700 data entries estimated to

cover 14,000 specimens. Large series of specimens obtained on expeditions

into Central Australia and the Northern Territory, as well as casual

donations to the Museum prior to 1911, were not registered. Although

the appointment of a permanent officer in charge of this section has

resulted in identification and registration of about 1,000 of these “old

collection” specimens, it is estimated that several thousand unregistered

specimens, including some Stirling and Zietz types, still remain scattered

through the collection.

A useful contact with the Underwater Spear-fishermen’s Association

of Western Australia was made when F. J. Mitchell visited that State

early in 1954; as a result an excellent collection of Western Australian

fishes has accumulated in Adelaide, sent for identification by spear-

fishermen, in many separate batches and from many different localities.

Ray B. Hambly Clark, a big-game fisherman in South Australia,

had promised to catch and deliver to the Museum a White Pointer Shark

(Carcharodon carcharias). In 1954, fishing from a yacht near Kangaroo

Island, he caught a specimen 1,424 pounds in weight and more than 12

feet in length; this duly came to the Museum and from it a papier-mache

cast was made. The stomach of this example contained several full-grown

Kangaroo Island wallabies which had been used as decoys, a large Skate

and various marine odds and ends. A more intriguing find was that of

a lady’s ear-ring in the stomach of another shark caught during the same

year. A large White Pointer, over 15 feet in length and weighing 1,919

pounds had been captured, also off Kangaroo Island, in 1941 by another

well-known expert, G. R. Cowell, using 54-thread line; a cast was made

of the head, and this with the original teeth installed is mounted on a wall

of an exhibition hall with a painted representation of the rest of the fish

running back from the head. These are by no means the largest White

Pointers. from Australian waters; one from Port Fairy in Victoria, and

recorded many years ago, was 361% feet in length.

The fish collection preserved in spirit comprises some 10,000 specimens

of Australian and exotic species. The major portion of the collection

consists of the fishes of South Australia together with the abovementioned

series from Western Australia. Almost every species of fish known to

occur in South Australia is represented, but the collection is deficient in

THE COLLECTIONS 209

specimens from the eastern and northern coasts of Australia. On display

the casts of Australian fishes include comprehensive series of the common

food and big-game fishes of South Australia, together with replicas of

fishes from other parts of Australia having a particular interest, such as

the Australian Lung-fish (Neoceratodus forsteri) from the Burnett River

of Queensland.

Recent expeditions, particularly those to Lake Eyre, have resulted

in large additions to the insect collections, and specimens are more

meticulously documented than previously; Tindale, who retains an interest

in Lepidoptera, collects these insects whenever opportunity offers and

added by personal effort thousands of butterflies and moths to the

cabinets. Small collections combined to furnish many thousands of insects

in all groups from localities in each State; from the islands of north-

eastern Pacific and from Malaya and North America. Acaridae from Asia,

the Pacific Islands and Australia were sent in great numbers for examina-

tion by Womersley.

It was during the year 1947 that the collections of Lepidoptera in

Australia were to attract more wide-spread attention of the press than

ever before. One morning in 1946 the caretaker reported that during

the previous night the lock on the front doors of the eastern wing of

the Museum had been forced. Later it became apparent that this was no

casual effort but evidence of one of the most unusual and well planned

thefts from three Australian museums, although in Adelaide the thief

was fortunate in that the burglar alarm normally operating was

temporarily out of order. It was discovered that almost 3,000 butterflies

were missing from the entomological cabinets of the Australian Museum

in Sydney, the National Museum in Melbourne, and the South Australian

Museum. The Lepidoptera missing from Adelaide numbered over 600, and

were valued at £3,000; like those from the other museums concerned

they were specially selected rare or unique specimens and obviously had

been purloined by a skilled if unscrupulous entomologist. Early in 1947 the

matter was put in the hands of the police and it was not long before Scot-

land Yard located the missing butterflies in Surrey, at the home of a

private collector who, shortly before his depredations were discovered,

had left Australia by plane for England. Scotland Yard seized the

specimens and prepared a report for the Director of Public Prosecutions;

the thief, admitting unlawful possession was fined £100.

The butterflies were sent to the British Museum, where Dr. John W.

Evans (now Director of the Australian Museum) rendered valuable

assistance in preparing them for safe transport back to Australia. In

July 1947 they were landed in Adelaide, where the entomologists from

the three museums which had suffered spent more than a week sorting

the respective collections.

210 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

Credit for the size of the insect collection in the South Australian

Museum must go to A. M. Lea, Entomologist from 1911 to 1932. During

his term more insects were added to the collection than either before or

since (see pp. 92.94). If the present rate of acquisition is not accelerated,

the pre-eminence of the South Australian entomological collections as the

largest in the Commonwealth, if not in the Southern Hemisphere, will

soon be challenged by the fast-growing collections of the Division of

Entomology of the C.S.I.R.O. in Canberra. In a review “Entomological

Research in Australia—1948-1954,” issued by the last-named body, it is

stated that: “As a corollary mainly to the ecological work and biological

control, there has been a marked increase, more by necessity than design,

in the amount of taxonomic work carried out by officers of the Division

of Entomology. The volume of such work which needs to be done is so

great that the museums and universities, whose responsibility it has

previously been considered, have been unable to cope with it”.

Lea’s curatorial methods were in advance of most of his contempo-

raries but now, a quarter of a century later, several deficiencies are

apparent in the technique of curation previously practised. In the light of

modern taxonomic and faunal survey techniques, unthought of in Lea’s

day, and in anticipation of the time when insect classification will reach

the advanced stage of that of birds and butterflies, we have departed from

his practice of keeping only two specimens of a species from each State.

Large entries are a sine qua non and considerable effort will be necessary

to expand our series of each species, wherever this is possible. It is also

becoming more usual to attach considerably more environmental detail

on the specimen labels, towards the day when museums will be in a

position to enter more fully into the faunal survey field.

Because of the very large volume of material, and the method of

storage, which in itself provides a visible catalogue and register, only

significant specimens are formally registered or catalogued. Types and

certain material of lesser value, which has been the subject of systematic

investigation, have been registered, and entries under this heading now

comprise over 20,000. Collections on which considerable environmental

data are available have been catalogued; as this is a recent innovation only

1,700 references have accumulated but both register and catalogue entries

often apply to many specimens.

The insect collection is housed in 49 cabinets (of which 27 have

interchangeable drawers) and 200 store-boxes; small forms are contained

in 670 boxes of microscope slides and a few shelves in the spirit room

are occupied by specimens preserved in fluid. Because of lack of space

the entomological exhibit is small; it is located in only 10 display cases,

and comprises about 600 specimens.

The reference collection of Mollusca is now one of the largest in

Australia, the principal part occupying 800 steel cabinet trays

THE COLLECTIONS 211

and 12 wooden cabinets of about 400 trays. The original Museum

collection grew under W. T. Bednall’s care to one of considerable size,

while valuable additions were made by Professor Ralph Tate. A big

step forward was made when the extensive Verco collection was presented

to the Museum in 1926. This contained much of the rare dredged material

obtained by Joseph Verco in South and Western Australia to a depth of

300 fathoms.

Selected specimens from collections of chitons accumulated by a

number of specialists, W. T. Bednall, F. L. Saunders, Dr. W. G. Torr, E.

Ashby, and the Rev. B. J. Weeding, form the Museum collection of this

group, one of the most comprehensive in the world.

Our micro-slide collection of molluscan radulae numbers about 700 and

may be one of the largest extant, many of the slides being prepared

by the expert in this field, Professor Gwatkin.

The great number of specimens handled has rendered registration of

all material impossible with available staff, but rare, or important, and

holotype specimens, are registered and indexed. These alone are referred

to in 14,500 entries in the molluscan register.

Continuous work on previously undescribed species in the collection

has built up our holotype specimens to about 1,000, these being in steel

cabinets in a separate strongroom.

We are fortunate in possessing a valuable library of the rare early

works on Mollusca, purchased from all parts of the world and mostly

donated by Sir Joseph Verco.

The extensive conchological collections have proved of great value

in economic investigations. in connection with water bores, minerals, har-

bours, shore lines, parasites and pests and have been extensively studied

by visiting scientists.

Collections of Crustacea, Echinodermata, Bryozoa, Brachiopoda,

Corals and Sponges are also of considerable size and contain many holo-

types. Holotypes of the late Professor T. H. Johnston’s Helminths are

also preserved in our collection.

Government bores, sunk in the vicinity of Adelaide to augment the

water supply of a growing population, during this period resulted in a

recovery of large quantities of Pliocene fossiliferous material, including

many Mollusca. The Burdett trust fund, founded to furnish awards for

finding of certain vertebrate fossils, was first drawn upon in 1954 when

Dr. F. M. Glaessner was rewarded for recovery of a Tertiary penguin

bone from Port Noarlunga in South Australia. He accepted the small

grant with some diffidence and immediately bent his efforts towards

securing further fossil penguin material and as a result two additional

bones were donated, these having been discovered by research students at

Mount Gambier in the South-east of the State.

212 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

The fossil collections now include many thousands of specimens, most

of which are stored in standard steel cabinets in the palaeontology section;

to date more than 10,000 have been registered and catalogued. During

the early years of the building up of these collections, many specimens

which the South Australian School of Mines had purchased from European

dealers, were donated to the Museum, with the result that we now have

series of representatives of many groups from classical European locali-

ties. Important local fossils which entered the collections during those

early years include much of the then newly-discovered Pleistocene verte-

brate material from the northern and south-eastern parts of the State,

and from Kangaroo Island. Many fossils from the South Australian

Tertiary were also obtained during that period.

Apart from additions made by the Museum staff, the Australian

fossil collections were augmented by the acquisition of parts of private

collections (those of W. J. Kimber, E. Ashby, and C. J. May). A series

of type specimens of Archaeocyathinae was acquired from Robert

Bedford of the Kyancutta Museum in 1937. The largest and most

significant private collection of fossils is that bequeathed by Professor

Walter Howchin—it comprises a very large number of specimens belong-

ing to many different groups, and has filled many of the gaps which

previously existed.

The Cocunda meteorite was acquired in 1946. A small siderolite,

this was found by Byron Polamka near Cocunda Rocks in the Hundred

of Inkster, Eyre Peninsula. The large iron from the Box Hole crater was

received in 1949 (p. 163) and three years later a small fragment of the

Rawlinna meteorite (Western Australia) ; the main body of this meteorite,

weighing approximately half a ton, was sent by the finder, A. J. Carlisle,

to the Perth Museum. The Wolf Creek meteorite from North-western

Australia has been referred to already.

It was in 1949 that two diamonds from Echunga in the Mount Lofty

Ranges were purchased (see p. 22) after examination and report by

an expert.

At the present time the most important part of the mineralological

collections comprises the specimens from the upper (oxidized) levels of

the metalliferous lodes at Wallaroo, Moonta, Mount Painter, Broken Hill,

etc. Collecting by the Museum staff, and acquisition of material from

private collectors, has ensured that this Museum possesses adequate

collections of these relatively rare oxidized minerals which have since

been removed by mining operations. The interest and foresight of Sir

Douglas Mawson, Honorary Mineralogist for so many years, has been

largely responsible for the high quality of these collections. By the

effective use of a small proportion of these specimens as exchange

material, good specimens of minerals from overseas have been obtained,

BOARD AND STAFF 213

and most of these have been used, together with Australian material,

as exhibits. It is unfortunate that the Museum has never had a permanent

mineralogist, for this has resulted in disorganized storage of the reference

collections. However, the large number of mineral specimens in the

collections, built up steadily over a long period, form the basis of good

reference and research collections on which a useful active mineralogical

section can be founded.

Recently, almost at the close of the first century of activities of

the South Australian Museum, the titles of members of the staff in

charge of the respective collections were changed to conform to those

used in the larger museums in Australia and elsewhere.

South Australian Museum Board, 1955-56

Professor Sir Douglas Mawson, O.B.E., F.R.S., D.Sc., B.-E. (Chairman).

Professor Thomas Draper Campbell, D.Sc., D.D.Sc., F.D.S.R.C.S. Lond.,

F.D.S.R.C.S. Edin.

Vincent Debonaire Haggard.

Charles Warren Bonython, B.Sc.

Mrs. Elizabeth Robson Simpson, M.Sc.

Past Members, 1940-1952

Professor Thomas Harvey Johnston, M.A., D.Sc. (Chairman 1940-51).

Sir James Hay Gosse, 1940-52.

Richard Sutton, J.P., 1940-50.

Scientific and Technical Staffs, 1955-56

Administration:

Director: H. M. Hale, O.B.E.

Clerk and Shorthand Typiste: H. C. Speers.

Clerk and Typiste: J. J. Dallwitz.

Anthropology:

Curator: N. B. Tindale, B.Sc.

Assistant Anthropologist: H. M. Cooper.

Assistant: H. E. Burrows.

Shorthand Typiste: Mrs. M. Beswick.

Birds:

Curator: H. T. Condon.

Reptiles:

Curator: F. J. Mitchell.

Fishes:

Assistant Curator: T. D. Scott, M.Sc.

214 THE LAST DECADE, 1946-1956

Insects:

Curator: E. T. Giles, Ph.D., M.Se., D.LC., F.R.E.S.

Assistant Curator: G. F. Gross, M.Sc., F.R.E.S.

Assistants: V. Richardson.

Mrs. M. Kenny.

J. Golding,

Arachnology:

Acarologist: H. Womersley.

Assistant: Mrs. G. K. Ashby.

Mollusca:

Curator: B. C. Cotton.

Assistant: G. E. Num.

Fossils and Minerals:

Assistant Curator: B. Daily, B.Sc.

Assistant: J. C. Golding.

Preparatorial:

Preparators: A. L. Rau.

P. F. Lawson, A.P.LA.

Assistant: T. H. J. Chesterfield.

Artist: H. F. Bowshall.

Modeller: Q. G. Harris.

Artisan: L. V. Wills.

Artist and Photographer: M. P. Boyce.

Temporary Artist: P. Catcheside.

Printing Assistant (labels): H. Ellis.

Library:

Librarian: L. M. Johnson.

Assistant: S. H. Hannaford.

Honorary Staff

Anthropology:

Physical Anthropologists: Professor T. D, Campbell, D.Sc., D.D.Sc.,

F.D.S.R.C.S., Lond., F.D.S.R.C.S., Edin.; Professor A. A. Abbie,

Ph.D., F.R.A.C.P., M.D., D.Sc.

Associate in Ethnology: C. P. Mountford, O.B.E.

Mammals:

Curator: H. H. Finlayson.

Fishes, etc.:

Marine Zoologist: K. Sheard, D.Sc.

Arachnology:

Associate in Acarology: R. V. Southcott, M.B., B.S.

HONORARY STAFF 215

Minerals:

Curator: Sir Douglas Mawson, F.R.S., D.Sc., B.E.

Fossils:

Associate: M. F. Glaessner, Ph.D. (Vienna), D.Sc. (Melb.).

Botany:

Botanist: Prof. J. B. Cleland, C.B.E., M.D., Ch.M.

Associate: Alison Ashby.

What of the Future?

The South Australian Museum holds outstanding collections, in some

sections unexcelled in Australia.

The improvisations and makeshifts which have been practised for

half a century and more have reached the stage when drastic action is

necessary if South Australia is to maintain in suitable accommodation a

natural history museum worthy of the State.

The now archaic plan of the 1870’s, illustrated in the architectural

drawing facing p. 35, and the sketch of the present layout on p. 187

speak for themselves.

There is no satisfactory alternative to provision of an entirely new

Museum building, preferably in a landscaped setting and planned to meet

modern requirements. Spacious exhibition floors unencumbered by sup-

porting pillars are required, with allowance for subdivision into small halls

of suitable proportions by means of movable partitions, because elasticity

of internal arrangements is a vital necessity in modern museum display.

A well considered lighting scheme is of paramount importance; suitable

and compact working accommodation for carrying out the functions of

the institution are essential. Above all, no building plan should be so

static as to present difficulties and limitations for future expansion, in

keeping with the growth and development of our State. For it is a

fact that South Australia after having been for a century one of the

poorest States in the Commonwealth is now among the most prosperous,

its population increasing at a rapid rate.

No natural history museum can function without a staff of scientific

workers. Incoming specimens (unlike, for example, books acquired by a

library) are rarely named, and until they are identified, this often entailing

description of new species, they cannot be registered and catalogued, and

installed in their proper place in the classificatory system. Further, the

acquisition of specimens no longer entails the mere collection of material;

fuller associated data are assuming greater importance and indeed are

demanded by researchers everywhere.

217

218 WHAT OF THE FUTURE?

The record of research conducted within the South Australian

Museum and in the field is one of which our City and State may be proud.

The efforts of the staff during the past half century have vastly increased

the usefulness of the collections, but continuation of the policy of provid-

ing up-to-date equipment and laboratory facilities is essential if young

men are to be attracted to a museum career.

Index

Abbie, A. A., 186

Abbott, C. L., 182

Acarid Collections, 162, 175, 188, 209

Acts of Parliament, 4, 5, 10, 37, 48, 89, 97,

154, 165, 169, 170, 190

Adams, J. R. G., 97, 187

Adelaide Circulating Library, 48, 97

Adelaide International Exhibition (1887),

64, 69

Adelaide Philosophical Society, 4, 7, 8, 10,

12, 14, 15, 32, 35, 37, 43, 72

Aedes aegypti, 175

Alderman, A. R., 163

All-Australian Peace Exhibition, 104

Amytornis goyderi, 26

Anamalopteryz casuarina, 78

Andrews, F. W., 17, 18, 26, 40, 42, 45, 46

Angas, C. Howard, 78

Angas, G. Fife, 6, 13, 32, 78, 105, 106

Angas, G. French, 6, 12, 78

Angas, J. Howard, 32, 33, 78

Antaretie Dogs, 110

Antarctic Research Expedition (1929-31),

155

Anthrenus, 23, 73, 98

Anthropological data, 81, 87, 131, 151/157,

159, 196/198, 201, 204, 205

Anthropological Research, Board for, 125,

151, 154, 198

Anthropological Society, 124, 155, 158

Apparatus, 137, 144

Aquaria, 89, 104, 105

Aquila audaxz, 148

Archaeocyathinae, 212

Armoury, 98, 140/142, 170

Army Education Service, 173, 174

A.R.P., 171/176, 182

Art Gallery, 39, 54, 59, 69, 97, 100, 105,

109, 140, 143, 147, 185

Artona catoxantha, 121

Arunta, H.M.A.S., 174

Ashby, Alison, 177

Ashby, E., 163, 211, 212

Ashbyia lovensis, 112

Aurora, 91, 135

Austin, J. B., 15

eee Antarctic Expedition, 91, 110,

Australian Court (East Wing),

105, 107, 144, 146, 148

Australian Museum, 13, 23, 26, 42, 78, 80,

96, 130, 162, 209

78, 103,

219

Australites, 164, 179, 180, 188, 202

Autonomy, 165

Ayers, Henry, 24

Ayliffe, P. St. B., 52

Babbage, B. H., 5, 8, 120

Baker, W. H., 130, 136

Balaenoptera musculus, 117

Balaenoptera physalus, 62

Banded Stilt, 156

Bandicoot, Pig-footed, 53

Barnes, G. A., 103, 109

Barr Smith, R., 60

Barr Smith, T. E., 59

Bartlett, H. K., 158, 182

Barwell, Henry, 136

Basedow, H., 86

Basking Shark, 103, 104, 160

Bates, Daisy, 157

Bathurst Island, 94

Beazley, G., 37, 41/43, 47, 49, 51, 62, 63,

65, 66

Bednall, W. T., 20, 65, 67, 129, 163, 211

Benin Bronzes, 81

Bensly, E. von B., 72

Bequest Funds, 75, 76, 78, 100, 113, 136,

149, 170

Berardius arnuxti, 160.

Bird Collections, 2, 7, 13, 15, 17/19, 21,

25/27, 29, 42, 49, 59, 62, 80, 83, 84, 86,

88, 89, 938, 112, 114, 116, 119, 122, 126,

127, 133, 160, 207

Birdsell, J., 154, 199, 201

Birth of Kangaroo, 50, 132, 178

Bishop, J. F., 54

Blackburn, T., 59, 61, 68, 80, 93, 145

Blackfish, 180, 181

Black, Lindsay, 197

Black Rat, 107, 108

Boards, 4, 10, 37, 48, 49, 70, 71, 97, 98, 125,

151, 154, 165, 166, 171, 176, 185, 186,

198, 194, 198

Bonython, C. W., 186, 198

Bosanquet, Day Hort, 78

Botanical Collections, 176/178, 195, 207

Botanic Gardens, 64, 176

Rower Bird, 88

Bowshall, H., 190, 192, 200

Boyce, Madeline P., 192

Brachiopoda, 211

Brazier, J., 130

220 INDEX

Brice, J., 100

British Antarctic Expedition, 110

British Association for Science, 101

British Museum, 2, 3, 32, 51, 68, 77, 86,

93, 126

Brolga, 148

Brookman, G., 72

Browne, L. G., 65

Brown, Francis Lady, 129

Brown, H. Y. L., 56, 57, 78

Bryozoa, 211

Buildings, Museum, 9, 28/32, 34/36, 68/70,

97, 98, 100, 116, 139/142, 146, 182, 183, 185,

186, 217

Burdett, Miss M., 177

Burdett, W., 164, 165, 211

Burgess, E., 122, 133, 189

Burke and Wills, 16

Burrows, H. E., 192

Caldwell, W. H., 45

Callabonna, Lake, 56/59, 76, 83, 112, 156,

198, 199, 200

Caloprymnus campestris, 2, 155, 159

Calvert Exploring Expedition, 80

Campbell, T. D., 125, 131, 136, 152, 153,

155, 169, 171, 186, 198

Caperea marginata, 51, 206

Cape York Peninsula, 122

Carcharodon carcharias, 208

Caretta caretta, 182

Carnegie Corporation, 146, 147, 149, 165

Carnivorous Bat, 53

Cassidy, W., 201, 202

Centennial Exhibition 8. Aust. (1936), 159

Centennial International Exhibition, Mel-

bourne (1888-9), 65

Cetorhinus maximus, 104

Chaeropus ecaudatus, 53

Chelone midas, 182

Chequered Gudgeon, 89

Chesterfield, T. H. J., 206

Chiastolites, 91

Children’s Hall, 148, 175, 178, 193

Cilento, R. W., 131

Cladorhynchus leucocephalus, 156

Clark, John, 113

Clark, John Howard, 7, 8, 32

Clark, R. B. Hambly, 208

Cleland, J. B., 45, 61, 108, 125, 173, 177,

178, 186, 195, 207

Cleland, W. D., 20

Cloud, T. C., 23, 67

Cockatoo, Rose-breasted, 110, 148

Cockerall, J. T., 66

Cockle, Goolwa, 174

Coconut Moth, 121

Coin Collection, 46, 52, 100, 147

Collections:

Acarids, 162, 175, 188, 209

Birds, 2, 7, 18, 15, 17/19, 21, 25/27, 29,

42, 49, 59, 62, 80, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89,

93, 112, 114, 116, 119, 122, 126, 127,

133, 160, 207

Coins, 46, 52, 100, 147

Crustaceans, 20, 25, 42, 93, 112, 122, 135,

162, 211

Dispersal of, 18/23, 44, 47

Egyptian, 68, 72, 85, 129, 170

Ethnologia, 12, 17, 20/22, 42, 46, 47, 52

53, 64, 65, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86, 88, 105,

107, 110, 115, 119, 122, 124, 126, 128,

142, 150, 151, 154, 157/159, 172, 178,

179, 196, 197, 202/205

Fishes, 15, 41, 42, 64, 93, 103, 109, 112,

122, 135, 160, 208, 209

Foraminifera, 156

Fossils, 7, 14/16, 19, 23, 27, 55/59, 76/79,

110, 117, 127, 128, 134, 150, 154, 156,

164, 165, 170, 198/200, 211, 212

Herbarium, 176/178, 195, 207

Insects, 6, 15, 21, 25, 42, 52, 59, 65,

82/84, 86, 93/95, 111/115, 117/119, 120,

121, 122, 124/127, 161, 162, 209, 210

Meteorites, 21, 90, 91, 127, 128, 163, 179,

202, 212

Minerals, 13, 15, 23, 24, 42, 64, 67, 89/91,

126, 180, 212, 213

Mollusea, 7, 15, 20, 27, 67, 84, 86, 93,

122, 129, 130, 162, 163, 182, 192, 196,

210, 211

Radiolaria, 186

Reptiles, 15, 17, 18, 21, 25, 42, 59, 84,

86, 93, 95, 112, 122, 182, 188, 208

Colonial and Indian Exhibition (1886), 63,

Condon, H. T., 143, 151, 171, 190

Conroy, J., 105, 131, 143, 171

Cook, Spencer, 180

Coolidge, H. C., 86

Cooper, Charles, 5, 9

Cooper Creek, 56, 110, 112

Cooper, H. M., 172

Corals, 211

Cormorant, 148

Cornock, T., 53, 58

Cotton, B. C., 138, 156, 163, 174, 180, 181,

192, 193, 196

Cowell, G. R., 208

Criticism of Buildings, 36, 37, 39, 98, 146

Crustacean Collections, 20, 25, 42, 93, 112,

122, 185, 162, 211

Curr, E. M., 61

Cydia molesta, 162

Daily, B., 188

Dampness, 73

Davenport, Robert, 86

Davenport, Samuel, 21

Davis, A. C., 115

Deland, C. M., 157, 159, 182

Denham, Lord, 78 :

Dermatochelys coriacea, 182

Dermestes, 98

Desert Chat, 112

Destitute Asylum, 98, 114, 116/118, 140,

142

Devon Downs, 150

INDEX 221

Diamonds, South Australia, 22, 212

Diaprepocoris personata, 114

Diggles, 8., 18

Dinornis, 51, 78

Dioramas, 63, 148, 149, 190, 191

Diprotodon, 16, 17, 55/59, 76/79, 110, 117,

197, 198, 200

Discovery, 155

Dispersal of Collections, 18/23, 44, 47

Dobroyde Museum, 18, 53

Dodd, W. Ft, 94, 95

Dodwell, G. F., 163

Downer, A. G., 177

Doyle, A. Conan, 109

Dromaius diemenianus, 122, 189

Dunstan, J. H., 89, 90

Early Days, 1

East Wing, 37, 97/101, 103, 139, 170

Echinoderms, 211

Egyptian Collection, 68, 72, 85, 129, 170

Egyptian Column, 68, 72, 129

Elder Exploring Expedition, 59

Elder, T., 59

Endeavour, Federal Trawler, 85, 111

English, A. C., 126

Ethnological Collections, 12, 17, 20/22, 42,

46, 47, 52, 53, 64, 65, 80, 81, 83, 84, 86,

88, 105, 107, 110. 115, 119, 122, 124, 126,

128, 142, 150, 151, 154, 157/159, 172,

178, 179, 196, 197, 202/205

Eucalptus, Fossil, 78, 79

Euro, 50

Evans, J. W., 209

Everard, William, 31, 52

Exhibits, 29, 55/59, 62/68, 101, 103/111,

131, 147/149, 155, 156, 171, 189, 190/192,

194, 207, 217

Expeditions, 14, 16, 26, 58, 59/62, 80, 114/

116, 122, 123, 125, 126, 151/155, 170, 196,

198, 199, 201, 204

Eyrean Grass Wren, 26

Eyre, Lake, 17, 23, 26, 55, 78, 86, 87, 153,

198/201, 209

Face Casts, 152, 153

Farrell, James, 5

Fenner, Charles, 186, 188

Fenner, Frank J., 157, 170

Ferguson, A., 124

Field Naturalists, 20, 176, 177

Field Work, 14, 16, 26, 45, 53, 56, 58/62,

111/126, 130, 149/156, 162, 170, 172,

195/202, 204, 206

Finlayson, H. H., 134, 154, 155, 159, 164

Finnis, B. T., 5

First World War, 101, 107/109, 114, 131, 137

Fish Collections, 15, 41, 42, 64, 93, 103, 109,

112, 122, 135, 160, 208, 209

Fiveash, Rosa C., 54

Fletcher, W. R., 68

Flinders Chase, 132, 169, 189

Flinders Island, Qld., 122, 123

Flinders Island, 8. Aust., 132

Flinders Ranges, 15, 120, 153, 195, 198

Flower, William H., 37, 42, 51

Foelsche, P., 20

Foraminifera, 156

Forster, Anthony, 5

Fossil Collections, 7, 14/16, 19, 23, 27, 55/

59, 76/79, 110, 117, 127, 128, 134, 150,

154, 156, 164, 165, 170, 198/200, 211, 212

Founding of Museum, 4/11

Freeling, A. H., 6

Frenchman’s Rock, 109

Freund, A. P. H., 203

Fruit Moth, 162

Fuss, R., 180

Galah, 110

Galway, Henry, 103

“Gang Forward”, 59

Gardner, Jacob, 15, 17, 25

Gas House, 9, 12, 29, 39

Gawler, Col. G., 2, 4

Gawler Museum, 13

Genyornis, 16, 17, 59, 76, 197, 198

Geopsittacus occidentalis, 18, 61, 207

Giles, E. T., 188, 201

Gill, H. P., 38, 54

Gillen, F. J., 61, 106

Glaessner, F. M., 186, 211

Glenelg, Lord, 2

Globicephalus ventricosus, 180, 181

Glyde, Lavington, 32

Godfrey, F. K., 156

Gonipterus scutellatus, 125

Gordon, John, 85

Gosse, James H., 169, 186, 189

Gosse, William, 31, 169

tothenberg, Wreck of, 20

Gould, John, 4, 12, 13, 18, 53

Goyder, George W., 16

Green Turtle, 182

Grey, George, 2, 6, 15, 52, 86, 155

Groote Eylandt, 119

Gross, G. F., 188, 195, 198, 200/202, 206

Ground Sloth, 78

Grus rubicundus, 148

Guest, E., 82

Gwatkin, Prof., 211

Gymnorhina hypoleuca, 148

Haacke, Wilhelm, 38/48, 68

Haast, J., 19, 30

Hackett, C. J., 153, 182

Haggard, V. D., 173, 186

Hailes, N., 5

Hale, H. M., 96, 113, 114, 120, 122, 130, 136,

144, 149, 151, 156, 162, 173, 179, 194, 203

Hall, Robt., 3

Hall, T., 90

Handbooks, 136, 156

Hanson, Richard Davies, 1, 31, 32

Harceus, W., 15

Harris, Q. G., 192

222 INDEX

Hartshorn, Prof., 201

Harvey, Alison, 176

Harwood, Lucy M., 137

Hawker, R. M., 84, 89, 127

Hay, A., 143, 171

Heating, 74

Heinrich, H. A., 157

Helminths, 211

Helms, R., 59

Herbarium, 176/178, 195, 207

Higgins, W. M., 1

Hindmarsh, John, 2

Hitchcock, W. B., 171

Horn Expedition, 60, 62

Horn, W. A., 52, 60/62, 68

Hossfeld, P. F., 131, 157

Howchin, W., 55, 96, 122, 132,

150, 156, 170, 212

Howden, G. R., 91

Howie, L., 203

Hrdlicka, Ales, 132, 152

Hunter, A. J., 115

Hurst, H., 56

Hydrurga’ leptonyx, 65, 160

Hyperoodon planifrons, 160

134, 136,

Indonesian Hall, 190/192

Insect Collections, 6, 15, 21, 25, 42, 52, 59,

65, 82/84, 86, 93/95, 111/115, 117, 119,

120/122, 124/127, 161, 162, 209, 210

Institutes ” Association of 8.A., 48, 70, 97

Isaacs, George 8., 27

Ising, E. H., 178

Jeffries, Shirley, 148, 172, 182

Jervois, William F. D., 36, 48

Johnson, E. Angas, 179

Johnson, J. Angas, 81, 90, 106

Johnson, J. E., 179, 180

Johnston, T. Harvey, 134, 138, 144, 155,

169, 180, 181, 186

Johore, Sultan of, 64

Jubilee International Exhibition, Adelaide

(1887), 64, 69

Jubilee Exhibition Building, 63, 69

Jury, T., 127

Kakatoe rosetcapilla, 110, 148

Kangaroo Island, 14, 20, 109, 122, 182, 150,

169, 172, 186, 189, 208

Kangaroo Island Emu, 122, 189

Katydid, 161

Kay, Robert, 20, 33, 48, 49, 74, 83, 95, 97

Keartland, G. A., 60, 81, 116

Kenyon, A. F., 130

Keppel, F. P., 146/148, 153

Kerr Grant, 163

Khedive of Egypt, 68

King, P. P., 202

Kintore, Lord, 52, 54, 68, 69

Kogia breviceps, 160

Krause, Prof., 81

Kreussler, Mrs., 65

Kurtze, C., 179

Lake Callabonna, 56/59, 76, 83,

198/200

Lake Eyre, 17, 23, 26, 55, 78, 86, 87, 153,

195, 198/201, 209

Lake Palankarinna, 200

Lankester, Ray, 76

Lawson, P. F., 145, 171, 189, 192, 195,

198/200

Lea, A. M., 91/94, 111, 113/115, 117, 121,

124, 127, 136, 145, 151, 161, 210

Leadbeater, J., 18

Leathery Turtle, 182

Le Hunte, G., 97, 106

Leopard Seal, 65, 110, 160

Leptonychotes weddellii, 66

Leto staceyi, 127

Levuana iridescens, 121

Lewis, J. W., 26

Liebler, O., 88

Light, G. T., 33

Lighting, 9, 12, 29, 147, 148, 183, 217

Limb, R., 77, 91, 103, 109, 117, 143, 161

Lindsay, D., 59

Lipfert, O., 160

Listowel, Lord, 178

Litchfield, J. P., 1

Littler, F. M., 126

Loggerhead Turtle, 182

Lower, Oswald B., 52, 65, 127

Lueas, T. P., 115

Lung-fish, 209

Luth, 182

112, 156,

McAnna, M. E., 145, 171

McConnel, Ursula H., 203

MacDonnell Ranges, 60, 61, 88, 106, 157, 176

MacDonnell, R. G., 8

Macerating House, 40, 98

McGillivray, W. D. K., 202

McGilp, J. Neil, 156, 160

McKinlay, J., 16

McRae, M., 137

Macropus, 17, 79

Magpie, 148

Mammal Collections, 18, 15, 17/19, 21, 29,

49, 55, 59, 82, 84, 86, 95, 119, 122, 126,

134, 159, 206

Markham, S. F., 146, 147, 178

Marshall, H. W., 137

Marsupial Mole, 53

Mathews, E. H., 130, 163

Mathews, Gregory M., 116

Maurice, R. T., 78, 84

Mawson, Douglas, 23, 89/91, 95, 110, 130,

131, 155, 163, 164, 169, 174, 186, 204, 212

May, Lewis, 162

Mechanies Institute, 4, 5

Megaderma gigas, 53

Megatheriwm americanum, 78

INDEX 223

Melbourne International Exhibition (1880-

81), 23, 24

Melbourne Museum, 18, 26, 196, 197

Melville Island, 94

Mesoplodon grayi, 159

Mesoplodon layardii, 119, 159, 206

Meston, A. L., 159

Meteorites, 21, 90, 91, 127, 128, 163, 179,

202, 212

Meyrick, E., 82, 127

Microscopes, 137, 144

Milne, W., 31

Minchin, R. E., 62, 65

Mineral Collections, 18, 15, 23, 24, 42, 64,

67, 89/91, 126, 180, 212, 213

Mitchell, F. J., 188, 195, 198, 201, 206, 208

Mitchell, Thomas, 55

Mites, 162, 175, 188, 209

Moas, 19, 51, 78

Mogurnda, 89

Molineux, Albert, 20, 54

Molluscan Collections, 7, 15, 20, 27, 67, 84,

86, 93, 122, 129, 130, 162, 163, 182, 192,

196, 210, 211

Moloch horridus, 3

Moore, H. P., 2

Morgan, A. M., 133, 156, 207

Morgan Thomas Bequest, 75/76, 78, 100,

113, 136, 149

Mortlock, J., 202

Mountain Devil, 3

Mountford, C. P., 153, 155, 179, 204

Mount Gambier Museum, 14

Mueller, F. von, 14

Mugilogobius galwayi, 103

Mules, W., 161

Mulligan, Lake, 56

Munn-Pitt Report, 165

Murray, D., 30, 81

Museum beetle, 23, 73, 98

National Museum, Melbourne, 18, 26, 196,

197

Natural History Society of S. Aust., 4

Neales’ Exchange, 5

Neoceratodus forsteri, 209

New Australians, 193

Newland, V. M., 84

Night Parrot, 18, 26, 50, 61, 207

Noake, O. N., 41, 62, 67, 96, 138

North, A. J., 80

North Queensland Expedition, 122

North Wing, 68/73, 78, 97, 117, 144, 147

Notoryctes typhlops, 54, 55

Nototherium, 16, 79

Ogilvy, Balfour, 126

Ogyris splendida, 161

Oquris zozine, 161

O'Neill, T., 81

Opossum, 124

Ornithorhynchus, 3, 85, 180

Owen, Richard, 6, 16, 17

Owen, W., 12, 17

Pacific Islands Expedition, 114/116

Pademelon, 50

Palaeeudyptes antarcticus, 164

Palankarinna, Lake, 200

Para-di-chlor-benzene, 205

Paris Exhibition (1878), 21

Parkhouse, D., 202

Parsons, F. E., 126

Pataecus fronto, 33

Pattinson, Baden, 186

Pearson Islands, 132

Pelecanus conspicillatus, 148

Pelican, 148

Peters, Mrs. G. E., 158

Phalacrocorax varius, 148

Phascolomys, 17

Phascolonus gigas, 58, 79

Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition (1876),

21, 74

Fhillips, J., 84

Philosophical Society, 4, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14,

15, 32, 35, 37, 43, 72

Pieris rapae, 175

Pilot Whale, 180, 181

Pitt, E. P., 165

Plan of Buildings, 187

Plastics, 189

Filatypus, 3, 85, 86, 180

Playford, T., 180

Plebidonaz deltoides, 174

Police Barracks, 98, 140, 141, 145, 185

Polytelis alexandrae, 14, 53

Price, A. Grenfell, 165

Price, Thomas, 97

Princess Alexandra Firrot, 14, 53

Prionodura newtoniana, 88

Procoptodon, 198

Protector, H. M. C. 8., 41

Protemnodon, 198

Publications of Museum, 44, 45, 114, 135,

136, 188, 192, 193, 195, 196, 198, 203

Public Library, 4, 27, 28, 30/34, 36, 37,

39, 65, 69, 70, 73, 82, 97/99, 119, 136,

137, 140, 143, 165, 185

Fulleine, R. H., 65, 88, 157, 159

Radiolaria, 186

Ragless, F. B., 56, 58

Ramsay, E. P., 13, 18, 26, 53

Rat-Kangaroo, 2, 155, 159

Rattus rattus, 108

Ham 2, 143, 147, 172, 173, 175, 190, 202,

Rau, F. J., 66, 67, 72, 74, 110, 137, 143

Rau, O., 41, 45, 62, 67, 72, 110, 112, 187, 143

Records of S. Aust. Museum, 114, 135, 136,

188, 195, 196, 198, 203

Reese, L., 155

Rees, Rowland, 31, 33

Reptile Collections, 15, 17, 18. 21, 25, 42,

59, 84, 86, 93, 95, 112, 122, 182, 188, 208

Retort House, 9, 12, 29, 39

Reuther, J. G., 78, 86, 87

224 INDEX

Reynolds, H. C., 200

Rhinoceros sondaicus, 86

Richards, H. C., 146, 147

Riedel, W. R., 186, 200

Robertson, R. M., 16, 17, 79

Robinson, William C., 48

Rogers, R. 8., 138

Rorqual, 62

Rothschild, Lord, 116

Rowan, Marion E., 177

Rowe, A., 129

Royal Commissions, 30, 31, 34, 69, 140, 151

Royal Geographical Society, 30, 48, 106

Royal Society of S. Aust., 4, 30, 44, 48, 50,

54, 60, 76, 81, 90, 112, 132, 134

Royal Zoological Society of S.A., 62, 65, 82,

84, 85, 104, 169, 173, 178, 207

Rudall, R. J., 151, 165, 186

Rumbelow, W., 161

Salt Creek Fossils, 16, 17, 79

Santi, F., 41

Sarawak, Rajah of, 54

Sarcophilus ursinus, 79

Saunders, F. L., 211

Saupe, A., 41

Schomburgk, R., 32, 176

School Children, 145, 146, 149, 175, 188, 193

School of Arts, 29, 109

Scott, T. D., 188, 195, 200

Schultze, F., 17, 18, 25

Schulz, J. F. W., 126

Serub-itch, 175

Scrub-typhus, 175, 176

Second World War, 154, 170, 186, 194

Shackleton, E., 91

Shaw, G. D., 172

Sheard, H. L., 157

Sheard, K., 162, 173

Shepherdson, H. U., 158

Shield Shrimps, 108

Siliquoferia grandis, 161

Sillaginodes punctatus, 195

Simplon, Trawler, 111

Simpson, Elizabeth R., 186

Simson, A., 113

Skulls, Aboriginal, 81, 87, 132, 146, 152, 205

Smeaton, T. D., 32

Smith, E. T., 65

Smithsonian Institution, 21

Society of Arts, 30, 37, 48

Soirees, 9, 10

South Australian Institute, 4

South Australian Literary and Scientific

Association, 1

South Australian Museum, 39

Southcott, R. V., 186

South-western Pacific Expedition, 114/116

Southwood, A. R., 173

Spencer, Baldwin, 60, 61, 106

Sperm Whale, 37, 38, 62, 160

Sphenodon punctata, 19

Spiny Anteater, 3, 45

Sponges, 211

Stansfield, G. J., 143

Stapleton, P., 159

Stevens, H. G., 158

Stirling, Edward, 13, 49

Stirling, Edward Charles, 13, 37, 43, 46,

48/54, 56, 58/62, 66, 68, 70/72, 74/78.

80/84, 87/89, 95/97, 100, 105/107, 109,

136, 198, 208.

Stirling Gallery, 107, 170, 172

Stirton, R. A., 199, 200

Stow, A., 30

Strehlow, C., 88

Strzelecki Creek, 56, 110, 112

Stuart, J. MeDouall, 14, 16, 207

Study Collections, 24, 27, 36, 43, 146

Sturt, C., 207

Success, H.M.S., 51

Suk, V., 152

Sultan of Johore, 64

Summerskill, Edith, 178

Sutton, John, 122, 133, 156, 207

Sutton, Richard, 169, 186

Sydney International Exhibition (1879-80),

22, 24

Tachyglossus aculeatus, 3, 45

Tantanoola, 150

Tartanga, 150

Tasmanian Devil, 79

Tasmanian Tiger, 19, 82

Tate, Frank, 165

Tate, Ralph, 35, 43, 59, 60, 68, 72, 99, 130,

211

Taxidermists, 15, 17, 18, 25/27, 37, 40/42,

45, 49, 53, 62, 66, 67, 72, 84, 98, 110,

112, 137, 143, 147

Tedford, R. H., 199, 200

Tektites, 164, 179, 180, 188, 202

Tepper, J. G. O., 40, 42, 46, 47, 59, 61, 68,

72, 80, 88, 89, 91, 92, 94, 117

Termites, 73, 140, 144

Thefts, 73, 209

Therapon welchi, 112

Thomas, C. G., 50

Thomas, K. H., 158

Thomas, Morgan, 75

Thomas, R. Grenfell, 131, 150

Thylacinus cynocephalus, 19, 82

Thylacoleo carnifex, 17, 79, 128

Thylogale eugenti, 50

Tindale, N. B., 86, 113, 119, 122, 127, 136/

138, 145, 149/151, 153, 154, 156, 159, 162,

170, 171, 178, 192, 196/199, 201/203, 209

Toas, 87

Todd, Charles, 21, 31, 60

Toolach, 50

Torr, W. G., 130, 163, 211

Torrens, H.M.A.S., 172

Tose, F., 147, 149

Town Hall Adelaide, 10

Trawling Cruise, 111

Trichosurus vulpeculus, 124

Triops australiensis, 108

Trombicula samboni, 175

INDEX 225

Tropaeum imperator, 127

Troughton, E., 3

Turtle-bone Log, 20

Typhlops, 137

Underhill, Ruth, 201

UNESCO, 194

University of Adelaide, 35, 37, 48, 49, 59,

147, 151/153

Vaughan, Crawford, 81

Verco, J. C., 65, 67, 84, 85, 96, 129, 130,

136, 138, 145, 162, 211

Vogelsang, T., 158

Wagner, L., 161

Waite, E. R., 61, 95, 98, 99, 103, 104, 107,

109, 111/113, 115/117, 120, 122, 135/138,

143, 159

Wallabia greyt, 50

Wallaby, 50

Walsh, Gwen D., 171, 195

Ward, Ebenezer, 34

Ward, Keith, 122

Warhurst, Barbara, 170

Waterhouse, Frederick G., 11, 14/21, 23/25,

27, 29/31, 33, 38, 39, 53, 66, 67

Waterhouse, George R., 11, 32

Waterhouse, J., 20

Waterman, A. E., 103

Waterman, R., 201

Watkin-Brown, W. T., 126

Watson, Archibald, 59, 111

Watt, J. A., 60

Way, Samuel J., 37

Weddell’s Seal, 66, 110

Wedge-tailed Eagle, 148

Weeding, B. J., 211

Welch’s Perch, 112

Wells, H. G., 149

Wells, P., 16

Western Australian Museum, 18, 160

West Wing, 34/37, 42, 48, 68, 69, 72, 73,

81, 97

Whales, 37, 38, 50, 51, 62, 117, 119, 159,

160, 180/182, 206

Wheat Weevil, 114, 115

Wheeler, W. M., 111

White Ants, 73, 140, 144

White, H. L., 26, 116

White, S.A., 110, 112

White, Samuel, 19, 112

White, William, 126

White Butterfly, 175

Whiting, Spotted, 195

Whitlock, F. Lawson, 26

Whitridge, W. R., 10

Wigley, T., 6

Wild Flower Display, 177, 178

Williams-Hunt, P. D. BR., 203

Wills, L. V., 191

Wilson, C. A., 3, 6

Wilson, C. E. C., 203

Wilson, J., 158

Wilson, J. S., 16

Winnecke, C., 60, 62

Withers, E., 27

Womersley, H., 145, 156, 162, 173, 175, 188,

209

Woodard, G. D., 199, 200

Wood Jones, F., 131, 132, 134, 136, 137,

152, 154, 178

‘Wood-Mason, J., 19, 20

Woods, J. Crawford, 37

Woods, J. E. Tenison, 197

Woodward, A. Smith, 76

Wragge, C., 81

Wright, E. D., 1

Zietz, A. H. C., 40/42, 47, 54, 56, 58/62,

65, 72, 76, 77, 79, 86/89, 199, 200, 208

Zietz, F. R., 76, 79, 87, 89, 107, 120, 132,

133, 136, 137

Zoological Society of 8. Aust., 62, 65, 82,

84, 85, 104, 169, 173, 178, 207