L. 12, P. 2 height of the rainy season at Mabaduane and Daru. The characteristic feature of the savannas I have just described above is the giant nest of termites, great pinnacle-like structures, eight to ten feet in height. I suspect to that Brass will discover some new plants for the collection there. He remarks that he has already taken a number of typically Australian plants, that hitherto he has not found in New Guinea. All the little boys and girls of the village are out collecting insects and lizards, etc. for me. It keeps me quite busy making record of all the contributions so that when they have brought together enough specimens I can give each one some sort of gift. Tonight at 5 Julstedt came through clearly again (in cw of course) and we learned that the Veriveri got back this afternoon and our notes to Archbold and Dr. Vernon had been delivered. Mabaduan has been settled about thirty years according to one informant, the people coming from the Binaturi river, and still earlier from Old Mawatta, the place we visited last week. Mabaduan streets are real. It has some; and at least one has a name (King Street). The new Chrch is built of concrete blocks and has a tile roof. It seems to me that a white man must have governed that job. But close by us is a flag-staff with halliards and so forth (to which our aerial is now moored)? and a small monument of concrete commemorating the loss by cyclone of several Mabaduanites. The Streets of the town are bordered with mango and coconut trees for shade and sustenance. In fact they have very large coconut plantations. In short the village is really wealthy and no inconsiderable resources(for Papua) At ten p.m. Julstedt again came through (though fading a little) to say that the Mira is hired and will be at Daru some time after the 27th and the plane will be back tomorrow or Friday. Thur. Apr. 16. Strong wind part of the night: possibly the season is shifting to southeast. That is due to happen any day, as with the sun moving steadily north to make the summer of the northern hemisphere, the northeasttrades withdraw and the southeast winds come farther north. There is some story of Arabs having been wrecked near here and having intermarried with the natives then inhabiting this place. One or two of the "councillors" have the appearance which one would expect under such circumstances. The names of three of the head men are: Abua, Cogibu, and Bahliss. Other names I have picked up are Yamata and Tom (the latter need not be explained). The rat traps yielded more poorly than I had hoped (before getting here), but four specimens were brought in: three Rattus ringens, one R. brachyrhinus. The Mabaduane granite is a pyroxene granite in which the feldspar scrystals have reached lengths in some cases of two inches. It appears to be a true granite, unsheared, though displaying a certain amount of jointing. The exposed blocks have all become rounded in typical manner of the granites by weathering and by exfoliation. Its decomposition has provided the coarse, gritty sands which give the village such an aspect of cleanness. The granite apparently extends to a point about five miles to the east, which we noted from the boat. Westward no more is to be seen. In addition on the beach at the western end of the village there is an outcrop of what may be a highly metamorphosed sedimentary series, which originally contained rounded pebbles. Those rocks show what I think are true bedding surfaces, but are shot through with quartz and other alteration minerals. Moreover the sea has been working upon them. The flat island Saibai a few miles to the south of us (in Queensland territory, incidentally) is stated to have no granite exposures. The last mentioned rocks could conceivably be the sandstone beds of Daru after exposure to and intense baking by the hot granite intrusion. In that case however there would have had to be immense thicknesses of rock above them, since the very nature of granite is a rock which cooled far beneath the earth's surface. This afternoon went up hill to try shoot a couple of birds (along the trap trail made yesterday). The mosquitos were so bad that I could hardly look about