Bulolo-Lae Tom has been in the goldfields area since 1926. He took up an extensive bit of auriferous ground early in the piece, and held on to it. He and his son Colin are now profiting from gold sluicing. Tom presented to me a fine example of prehistoric stone "mortar", larger than most I have seen, which was unearthed last year, 40 feet below the surface, in his sluicing operations. The mortar was in use as a bird bath at the foot of Tom's front steps. It will go to the Museum. Tom was always a teller of tales. Finding an eager listener in Van, he held forth about the old gold prospecting days. Being shot at with Kukuku arrows, etc. Also, his boys have told him, there is some mammal in the forests of their native mountains in the direction of Mt. Missim - a fairly large mammal - which etas their garden crops, and seems unknown to white men (and perhaps even the natives). Tom will talk for a specimen to be brought in. He has seen very large bones which were unearthed in the Bulolo area, but no small bones. Bulolo is in an area in which Tertiary marsupials have been found. In the lower valley of the Bulolo we ran into heavy rain which continued over the Markham fall. At Gurakor we called in at the road camp to gain local information and were treated to a beer by Jim Sullivan, an Irishman 30 years in the country, and stationed on the Gurakor road section for several years. A very attractive view from here over a section of the Markham Valley to the Finisterre Mountains, some 40 miles distant. Monday, April 6. My day spent first in splitting with John Womersley the botanical material collected during the weekend, then preparing my share for drying at the Forest Herbarium. Prepared 28 numbers of flowering plants and ferns and still have some to go. John and Van scouring the town for camp gear, and having difficulty in finding what we want. Some items, such as enamel plates, unprocurable. Lae is no longer a frontier town. Its business is done largely with coffee planters and service industry personnel living locally. The Department of Forests is again coming to our rescue, and providing a number of items which we can not buy locally or could buy only at high cost for temporary use pending the arrival of our cargo on the 16th. We hope to get out of the town and establish our first bush camp within the next two or three days. About 5:30 in the afternoon I drove out to the Budebum Creek area where, earlier in the day, Van and John had found what was described as a very promising area of tall primary forest 6-7 miles out of town. The forest much broken by grass on ground formerly cultivated by a rather numerous native population. Much tall old second growth rain forest of lowland type, and primary forest which has been heavily logged. A nice small area of apparently almost undisturbed tall forest seen on the banks of the creek. All this area, John Womersley says, was a vast ordnance depot during the war. Dumps were dispersed all through the forest. Apparently no one has been blown up so far by planted land mines and such relics, but it is not a place to wander about in too freely. Van has 36 traps set in the area tonight. He shot a small Pipistrellus in the broad bed of the creek at our terminal point. In town today Van and John met the Rev. George Horrolt, German born Lutheran missionary at Gurakor, on the Bulolo Road. Horrolt very cordially invited us to use the Mission as a base, and use a spare house there. This would be the best possible site for a camp at about the 2000 foot level in this general area.