New Data on Fly-Sepik Region

in New Guinea

A VALUABLE contribution to geo graphical science is a pamphlet by Mr. Stuart Campbell, just published by the Royal Geographical Society.

Mr. Campbell is well-known in Papua as the aviator who accompanied Mr.

Ward Williams on his prospecting expe dition to the headwaters of the Fly River in 1936-7, and who successfully main tained communication between the isola ted camp, established by Mr. Williams in the vicinity of the Star Mountains, and the outposts of civilisation near the mouth of the Fly River, in Western Pa pua. Mr. Campbell, in the course of his work, made an accurate and detailed map of the unknown mountainous coun try between the headwaters of the Fly and the headwaters of the Sepik—an area which lies around the junction of the boundaries of Papua, New Guinea, and Dutch New Guinea. Mr. Campbell made detailed notes of the character of the country and of the numerous tribes of unknown and primitive people who in habit the plateaus and valleys, and he used this material in a lengthy address delivered before the Royal Geographical Society in London in May, 1938.

The address, together with what is probably the first detailed map of the region referred to, has been issued by the Society as a pamphlet, entitled “The Country Between the Headwaters of the Fly and Sepik Rivers, in New Guinea”.

Mr. Campbell is now in practice as an engineer in Melbourne.

Captain R. Savage, of the New Guinea Treasury Department, and Mrs. Savage arrived in Victoria from Rabaul by the March “Neptuna”.