AMERICAN EXPEDITION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23772, 27 September 1940, Page 9

AMERICAN EXPEDITION

TWO STUDENTS' TRAVELS VOYAGES IN THE PACIFIC On their way back to the United States to resume their studies at Yale University, two American students. Messrs. P. M. Wilson and P. W. Farley, arrived from Noumea yesterday by the Honolulu Clipper. They have spent several months" 011 the American schooner Director 11., which is at present in New Caledonian waters in the course of a South Pacific cruise in the interests of the American Museum of Natural History. Both students of sociology at' Yale, Messrs. Wilson and Farley obtained a year's leave to accompany the expedition, and have visited Galapagos, the Marquesas, islands of Samoa, the Society Group and Fiji. "We came across the remains of three old wrecks on Conway Reef, an uninhabited stretch of coral that rises a few feet above the sea between Suva and Noumea," Mr. Wilson said. "One was that of a whaler, and the others were possibly old-time men-of-war •or pirate craft. We picked up a couple of old guns from one of them. They were almost rusted away." Keen interest was also taken by the two young men in evidence of an early civilisation seen on one of the smaller islands in the Fiji Group. They said slabs of stone were to be seen thero bearing hieroglyphics that could not be deciphered. Some of them, however, were almost identical with designs engraved on stones found in.lndia. Messrs. Wilson and Farley will spend several weeks in New Zealand before leaving for the United Stater, by steamer.