100 Goroka-Kotuni Thursday, August 6. Weather much as yesterday, with the addition of a smart, brief shower about 5 p.m. Up the slopes again, this time to an elevation of 2340 m by corrected aneroid. Forest too badly wrecked for me to get any idea of what the canopy trees may have been in most of it. One relic big tree was of the myrtaceous genus with small leaves, small green flowers, and one-seeded fleshy fruits which was prominent on Mt. Wilhelm. This timber operation here would be called cracker-style in Florida, and it is a good example of the cut-out and get-out philosophy which perhaps has to be in a primitive country just being opened up. Everything big enough to cut has been cut, regardless of the quality of the timber. The lease of 3500-4000 acres has just about been cut out, as regards timber profitable to exploit, in about 8 years of operation. Jim Leahy Sr. began the enterprise; sold it to his nephews Joe, Rod and John Collins about 6 years ago! John sold his share to his brothers perhaps 2-3 years ago. Basic plant in the mill is a Canadian bench; there are two smaller saws. There is no roof over the mill (this is a wet climate); the whole show is roughly planned and ill kept. The only level ground is around the saws. No proper stacking is done; the lumber is taken down to Goroka by truck as soon as sawn. Waste lies over the place. Grubs must be in it, for the whole dump is actively rooted by pigs around the edges. Most of the present waste is consumed in the cooking fires of the many natives employed. Payroll now about 160 including contract gangs which bring in the logs. Formerly the logs were brought in by bulldozers, but this no longer pays. Natives drag them by ropes, to the accompaniment of much noise, and shoot them down the mountain sides. The operation extends to over 9000 ft. on the slopes. Royalty paid to government is sixpence per 100 super feet for hardwoods, tenpence for softwoods. Selling price in Goroka is a flat rate of seven pounds per hundred, eight pounds per 100 dressed. Labor is fed on sweet potatoes and a weekly issue of canned meat. Daily ration 8 lbs of sweet potatoes; bought in the lower part of the Kotuni Valley at 1/2 penny per pound and carried up on the returning timber truck. Van has had a good start. Natives have brought in a Phascolosorex; traps this morning yielded a Pseudohydromys, 3 Melomys sp., and the inevitable Rattus niobe. Locals have brought in numerous frogs and odd snakes and lizards. Having some anxiety of late about my throat. The strep condition with which I left the U.S. was finally subdued by antibiotics but not cured, apparently. A minor flare-up began during our last week on Pengagl Creek, and became worse. For several days now I have been dosing myself with 1,200,000 units of penicillin and the conditions seems to be improving. Don't feel much like strenuous field work. Friday, August 7. Considerable amount of rain in the early hours of last night. Increased sunshine today. No rain to 6 p.m. Guided by TIKI, a Mt. Hagen boss boy of about 6 years service at the sawmill, I climbed to the crest of a spur towards the head of Iamahagi Stream to examine an occurrence of beech forest which begins at 8650 ft. (taking the sawmill altitude as 7200 ft.) and continued to my stopping point at 8800 ft. Beech forest is always impressive. Here the Nothofagus was practically sole dominant in an open to scattered stand of big, straight trees with rough dark gray bark and stubby, heavy limbs very heavily laden with cushioned moss, and epiphytic ferns and orchids. The showy tubular red Rhododendron of the Pengagl country was there, too, as a high epiphyte, also an almost tree-sized Vaccinium in a profusion of red blooms.