1948 Archbold Cape York Expedition Monday December 8 (1947): Left New York to make advance arrangements for the expedition in Australia and carry out a reconnaissance of the Cape York Peninsula. George Tate, chief mammalogist of our party left for Australia a week ago to carry out a separate, preliminary project financed by the American Museum. George will examine mammal collections in the Australian Museum, Sydney, and in the Queensland Museum, Brisbane. He will also travel and do a little mammal collecting in New South Wales and in parts of Queensland south of the Cape York Peninsula. Our cargo left New York on the "Vardulia" December 6, consigned to Burns, Philr & Co., Ltd., Cairns. The Vardulia will take it as far as Brisbane; from there it will be shipped to Cairns by coastal boat. Our party of four men from the Museum is to meet at Cairns about the last week in February. Geoffrey Tate, who will look after supplies and transport, and collect insects, reptiles and amphibians, and Howard M. Van Deuren, 2nd mammalogist, are due to sail from San Francisco on January 30th. Marie, Geoff and Van saw me off at Grand Central Station. My train, the Water Level Route, left for Chicago at 5 pm. Tuesday Dec. 9: Owing to a train wreck ahead of us last night, we were diverted from the regular route followed by my train, and arrived at Chicago about 10:45 am - nearly 2 hours late. Another hour had passed before I got through transferring from the Central Station, where my train from New York pulled in, to the North Western terminal, from which my train for San Francisco leaves tonight. Passengers get free transport- ation across town by arrangement of the Farwellee transport System. The job is done with limousines, but there are not nearly enough of them to do it efficiently. My baggage taken care of, I took a taxi to the Chicago Museum of Natural History (formerly the Field Museum) to call on Austin Rand. Rand was ornithologist on the three Archbold expeditions to New Guinea. For several years he has been at the National Museum, Ottawa. Recently he has been appointed Curator of Birds at Chicago. Spent most of the afternoon with Dr. Just, recently appointed head of the Botany Department. Most of the botanical staff were out of their offices. Dalgren, head curator emeritus, was away. So was Hugh Cutler, economic botanist and specialist in the history of maize, whom I met at Shiprock, New Mexico, in 1940. Cutler was then a freelance plant collector, making his way down the San Juan River in a leaky old row boat to join a party which proposed, and did, a boat journey down the Grand Canyon. This journey was done in staunch "Green River boats." Met Williams, who is specially interested in woods, and has made a fine collection on field trips in northern South America and Mexico. Just showed me through the library, herbarium, rooms where technicians make reproductions of plants for exhibition purposes, and the botany exhibition halls. Was much impressed with the size of the botanical lay out and the apparent efficie ency with which it has been organized. The herbarium collections are in steel cabinets in which there is lots of room. In phanerogams the arrangement is alphabetical through families and genera and, I believe, species. Folders of