is published

PIM index ’45-’55 is published

19th-century

whalers, too

Two new indexes which pro vide keys to a large amount of historical information on the Pacific islands have recently been published by the Pacific Manuscripts Bureau (PMB), Canberra. They are: Cumulative Index to Pacific Islands Monthly, volumes 16 to 25. (August 1945-July 1955).

(Isbn 0 86784 474 4.)

Where the Whalers Went: An Index to the Pacific Ports and Islands visited by American Whalers (and some other ships) in the 19th Century) (ISBN 0 86784 471 X).

The new index to PIM is a successor to one covering volumes 1 to 15 (August 1930- July 1945) published by Pacific Publications in 1968. The new index contains 344 pages, is printed on heavy, durable paper, and is bound in black cloth. It is divided into five sections; biographical entries (175 pp.), companies (12 pp.), contributors (16 pp.), ships (28 pp.) and territories (102 pp.). A four-page index to place names completes the volume.

The compilation of the index was sponsored by 18 State and university libraries in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands. The compilers were Mrs Margaret Woodhouse, of Syd ney, compiler of the first 15year index, and Mrs Gaye Tryon of Canberra.

The project was organised, co-ordinated and ultimately edited by Robert Langdon, ex ecutive officer of the PMB, and a former assistant editor of PIM.

Langdon was also the editor of Where the Whalers Went.

This index provides a key to the activities of more than 2100 American whaling, trading and naval ships whose logbooks are held in more than 40 institu tions and private collections in New England, USA.

Copies of the logbooks are available on microfilm in the principal Australian libraries, in the Alexander Turnbull Library,

Wellington, New Zealand, and in the library of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu.

The microfilms were obtained under two New England micro filming projects organised by the PMB in 1970 and 1976.

Where the Whalers Went su persedes in that it greatly augments and occasionally cor rects an index published under the title Thar She Went: An Interim Index to the Pacific Ports and Islands visited by American Whalers and Traders in the 19th Century (Robert Langdon, ed.) Canberra, 1979.

The new index contains 318 pages, 140 more than its prede cessor. It is case bound in blue cloth.

The index provides a quick chronological key to much of the maritime history of the Pacific in the 19th century. It indicates the precise dates on which the ships indexed were at any particular port or island in Australia, New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island and Pitcairn Is land as well as the Bonin, Galapagos, Juan Fernandez, Kermadec, Line and Phoenix Groups, which were not in cluded in the previous index.

A researcher interested in the island of Rotuma, for example, will find references to 109 visits by American whalers and other vessels between 1825 and 1894 19 more than in Thar She Went. The index also pro vides the numbers of the films on which the ships’ logs appear, so that the references may be found on consulting the films in a matter of minutes.

Copies of both indexes are available from the PMB. The cost of Where the Whalers Went, including surface post age, is SA3S in Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, and SUS4O posted to the USA and elsewhere. The PIM index is $5 dearer in both currencies.

Full postal address is; Pacific Manuscripts Bureauh, Research School of Pacific Studies, Aus tralian National University, Canberra, 2601.