"Director" Wreck

Loss of Fahnestock Expedition

THE three-masted American schooner “Director II", which brought an American Museum of Natural History expedition, led by Mr. Sheridan Fahnestock, from the United States to Brisbane, via Central Pacific Islands, ran onto a reef four miles from the pilot station, outside Gladstone, on the coast of Queensland, on October 18, and be came a total wreck.

The arrival of the expedition in Bris bane was reported in the October “PIM”.

The expedition was en route to make scientific collections on the Great Barrier Reef. The expedition had collected a large amount of material, on its way across the Pacific.

Mr. Fahnestock went hurriedly to Gladstone and other Queensland ports, and tried to get tug-boats, etc., to pull his yacht off the reef; but a south easter came up before they could make a worth-while attempt, and the schooner began to break up.

Mr. Fahnestock said that all of the

expedition’s equipment, including 20,000

dollars’ worth of hydrographic material was under water and already ruined.

Charts of the Pacific, which the party had been making for the British Ad miralty and the United States Hydro graphic Office; the insect collection; the collection of native music recordings and the material on bird habitat groups had been saved. One of the most important collections was to have been of the bird habitat group of the Barrier Reef.