A catalogue of the ethnographic items collected by the United States Exploring Expedition to the Pacific (1838-42) led by Commodore Charles Wilkes. The Expedition visited the Tuamotu Islands, Tahiti (in French Polynesia), Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Lord Howe Island, Australia, New Zealand/Aotearoa, Gilbert Islands (Kiribati), Marshall Islands, and Hawaii. The catalogue was prepared in 1846 by Titian Ramsay Peale, an artist-naturalist with the Expedition. A typescript version, prepared by the PMB, follows the original document on the microfilm. See also the Bureau's newsletter, Pambu, October-December 1971:25, pp. 4-7 and PMB MS 89 and MS 146.

Captain Edward Primrose Tregurtha (1803-1880) was born in Cornwall, UK, and died in Launceston, Tasmania. He went to sea at an early age, and made voyages to the Far East and India. In 1831-33, as master of the whaler Caroline, he made an extensive whaling voyage out of Hobart. His itinerary included Sydney, the Bay of Islands, the Kermadecs, Rotuma, Wallis Island, the Gilberts, Solomon Islands, New Ireland, and the Coral Sea. After a visit to England, Tregurtha returned to Tasmania, whence he traded with neighbouring colonies as owner and master of the Henry. He made voyages to Adelaide in 1837 and took early settlers and sheep to Port Phillip. He later opened a business in Launceston as a general merchant and shipping agent.

The autobiography, which, in many places, appears to have been written up from journals kept at sea, gives a full account of Tregurtha's life from his birth in 1803 until the late 1830's. From then until the year 1852, it is brief and sporadic.

Richard Branscombe Chave, was born in 1849, probably in England. He was manager of the guano diggings on Starbuck Island (part of the central Line islands of Kiribati) in 1871, when the island was under lease from the British Government to Holder Bros. of London. Subsequently, Chave appears to have returned to his profession as a sailor.

In 1871, Chave, then 22, was in charge of a guano team of three Europeans and 50 Rarotongans working on Starbuck Island. When provisions began to run low, and there was no sign of a brig which was to bring replenishments, Chave and three Rarotongans set off in a large boat to try to reach Malden Island, 120 miles away, which was being worked for guano by a Melbourne company. After becoming lost and surviving a capsize, the party reached Penrhyn Island, several hundred miles in the opposite direction. Later, Chave and a Penrhyn Islander tried to sail back to Starbuck Island, but again Chave became lost and he and his companion finally drifted to an uninhabited island, which proved to be Suwarrow Atoll, where they lived for two years before being rescued. Chave's narrative gives a vivid account of his adventures up to a point where he and his companion had been on Suwarrow for about nine months. For further details, see the Bureau's newsletter Pambu, Nov. 1968:4, pp.5-9 and Jan. 1969:6, pp.6-9.

Please see PMB MS 493 for full entry.

A cash book containing a summary of John T. Arundel's activities from 17 December 1865 to 30 December 1892. During this period he was largely active in Kiribati. A notation on the first page reads: 'begun off Mornington Ids., Gulf of Carpentaria, 14/9/90' (For a fuller record of the period 1870-1892, see Arundel's diaries filmed on PMB MS 480-483). See also PMB MS 14, 498