Pygmies and Papuans (Illustrated Edition)

From 1910 to 1913 A. F. R. Wollaston took a part in a couple of expeditions in New Guinea, to the Snow Mountains of Netherlands New Guinea. The main aim was to climb the highest mountains there as well as to collect biological and ethnological specimens. There he succeeded in climbing to within 150 m of the summit of the Carstensz Pyramid, at 4884 m the highest peak on the island, and one not summited until 1962. He is commemorated in the names of a bat, a skink (lizard) and a frog from New Guinea. After the second expedition, Wollaston wrote a detailed account of the journey and adventures, but he was strictly careful to give only True Relations and Descriptions of Things.









A. F. R. Wollaston (1875-1930) was an English medical doctor, ornithologist, botanist, climber and explorer. Wollaston studied medicine, graduating and qualifying as a surgeon. However, he disliked the medical profession and preferred to spend his life on exploration and natural history. He travelled extensively, visiting Lapland, the Dolomites, Sudan and Japan, as well as participating in an expedition to the Ruwenzori Mountains of Uganda in 1905. In 1912 Wollaston led an expedition to New Guinea. He also took part (as doctor, ornithologist and botanist) in the 1921 British Reconnaissance Expedition to Mount Everest. Wollaston was murdered by Douglas Potts, a student, at his rooms in Cambridge.