Midway Islands
p. 74 · Read in the full issue
—an important station on the Pan-American Airways new route across the North Pacific, ’Frisco to Hong Kong—are so called because they are about half way between California and China (says the Honolulu Star-Bulletin).
And the plural is correct —there are two islands. Originally called Brooks islands (Middle Brooks or Eastern and Lower Brooks or Sand Island) after Capt* N. C.
Brooks who discovered them July 5, 1859, they were annexed and named Midway in September, 1867, by the U.S.S. Lackawanna.
Nobody then could have imagined their value as a station in trans-Paciflc air transportation 70 years later!
Another explanation of the name Midway is that the islands are precisely 12 hours from Greenwich, marking the middle point of time’s march around the world.
Mr. Richard Archbold, leader of the American Museum of Natural History expedition in Papua, arrived in Sydney by the Neptuna on October 10. He was ac companied by Mr. R. R. Rogers (pilot and mechanic) and Mr. E. Julestedt (radio operator). Mr. Archbold said that the loss of the valuable seaplane proved a great drawback, but he is returning to U.S.A. to buy another, and will continue ihe expedition. He is taking back to America many specimens of Papuan birds, mainly birds of paradise and quail.
Three .members of the party, Messrs. A.
L Rand (ornithologist), G. H. Tate (mam ologist), and L. J. Brass (botanist) are still in the territory, collecting specimens in the lower reaches of the Fly River.