WELLINGTON STUDENT HONOURED.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14099, 19 July 1911, Page 7

WELLINGTON STUDENT HONOURED.

TO LEAD EXPLORING EXPEDITION.

MR JENNESS'S CAREER AT OXFORD.

(from oun owv cobmwpondbht.) LONDON, June 9. The many friends at Victoria College of Mr Diamond Jenness will learn with pride of the honour that has been conferred upon him by Oxford University in selecting him to lead an anthropological expedition to New Guinea. The Committee of Anthropology has had the matter in hand for somo time and has gathered the necessary funds from various colleges interested :-—Balliol. Magdalen, Brasenose, Exeter, Christ Church, Exeter University, Lincoln, Corpus Christi and Jesus. The Common Unive-sity Fund and Sir William Anson and Dr Arthur Evans have also contributed liberally. The choice of a leader fell on Mr Jenness, of Balliol, who came to Oxford from New Zealand some years ago with ffrst-class honours in classics and sundry scholarships.

Mr Jenness will probably reach Papua in November, making Goodenough Island his base of operations. The D'Entrecasteaux Group, of which this is one, lies off the south-east coast of New Guinea, and whon Sir William Macgregor arranged for the partition of the New Guinea field amongst the different missionary societies, these islands fell to the Methodists. Tho station of Bwaifoga, which is to he Mr Jenness's headquarters.;.. is one of the finest fruits of the "UetVo'l-V if ,; v ".

and the expedition is assured of the helpful co-operation of tho Key. a. Bailantyne and all the Methodist missionaries. The Lieutenant-Governor of Papua has also given his official sanction to tho expedition. The first work of the expedition, while it gets into touch with tho natives and learns something of their manners and* tongue, will oe the survey of the D'Entrecasteaux group, with a detailed study of Goodenough Island. There are ethnological repsons already in view which will probably necessitate visits to the Trobriinds and to Rossell Island. Mr Jenness tells mc that in the first place the expedition will consist of one, himself. He has to go to the D'Entrecasteaux group and make a ocmplete study of the natives, their social life, folklore, arts, etc., besides making a collection of specimens of native handiwork for the Pitt-Rivers Museum at Oxford. The expedition is tho outcome of the efforts of air R. R. Marett. University Reader in Sociology, and Mr H. Balfour, keeper of the Pitt-Rivers museum, tho two protagonists of anthropology at Oxford.