DEATH OF EXPLORER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22627, 15 January 1937, Page 9

DEATH OF EXPLORER

CALIFORNIAN AIR CRASH WIFE EXPECTED TO LIVE LOS ANGELES, Jan. 13 The well-known American explorer, Mr. Martin Johnson, who was on board the transport aeroplane which crashed in the mountains near Burbank, California, yesterday, has succumbed to his injuries. Mrs. Johnson is expected to live, although she is suffering from a fractured knee joint, concussion and numerous abrasions, and is semi-conscious. Three others of the survivors are in a serious condition.

Mr. Martin Johnson was born at Rockford, Illinois, in October, 188-1. Ho became well known as a traveller and exploror in troyical countries and in 1924 ho began to make a five-year film record of tho vanishing wild life of Africa for the American Museum of Natural History, under the title of Martin Johnson African Expedition Corporation. He returned to Africa in 1929 to study pygmy life in the Belgian Congo. In 1935-36 he visited the jungles of Borneo, taking back to America the largest orang-outang ever captured, weighing 3001b. The total bag of tho expedition was 20 animals. Mr. Johnson made 151,000 feet of film of amazing nature spectacles and 400 still photographs. He intended this year to take an expedition to tho Belgian Congo. He was the only member of Jack London's "Snark" voyage to complete tho trip in 1917. Ho helped to build the Snark and was tho last to leave her. He married Miss Osa Helen I/eighty, of Kansas, in 1910 and she has been his constant companion in his travels.