the Uranie was lost in the Falklands (also known as Malvinas) Islands, though many collections survived (and others were added).
Freycinet was followed in 1822–1824 by the Coquille under Louis Duperrey; accompanying him were Jules Sébastien Dumont d’Urville, Prosper Garnot, and René Lesson. That team collected insects, birds, other animals, and plants in the Solomons, Port Praslin (southern New Ireland), Rawak (see above) and Doré Bay (Manokwari, in the Vogelkop Peninsula), this last spot a new frontier for science—though first surveyed in 1775 by Thomas Forrest. Lesson in particular there collected and studied birds of paradise, and was the first to learn—three centuries on from when, in 1522, skins of Paradisaea minor had reached Seville with the Vittoria—that they had legs; but his collections (and, particularly, living individuals) then helped to create the more than half-century-long fashion in Europe (and elsewhere) for their feathers—and, in turn, contribute to popular conservation awareness.
Later Dumont d’Urville led two more expeditions through the region: the first during 1826–1829 in L’Astrolabe (ex-Coquille), with Quoy, Lesson, and Gaimard as naturalists, calling at New Ireland, the present Astrolabe Bay off Madang, Doré Bay, and Waigeo as well as—for the first time after Dampier—sailing along the south coast of New Britain (naming, among other places, Cape Merkus and Jacquinot Bay, the latter after his second-in-command Charles Hector Jacquinot); and the second in 1838–1839 and 1840 as part of his voyages to the South Pole in L’Astrolabe and (under C. H. Jacquinot) La Zélée with naturalists Jacques Hombron, Honoré Jacquinot, and Elie J. F. Le Guillou—respectively specializing in zoology, botany, and entomology. Around New Guinea they called at various points: Triton Bay (where the Dutch settlement had then been recently abandoned), the Louisiades (to complete d’Entrecasteaux’s surveys), and also sailed along the southeastern coast (naming the Varirata ridge near present-day Port Moresby as the Astrolabe Range).
Other nations, however, were not inactive. In 1820 the Dutch, with the Indies restored to them (and accorded international recognition from 1824), set up under Willem I a "Natural Sciences Commission" (Natuurkundige Commissie). Over the next thirty years they were to make extensive expeditions, inland as well as coastal, in the still poorly-known archipelago—but mortality was high. Among these was, in 1828, a visit to New Guinea. In connection with a projected settlement, A. J. van Delden with the Triton and Iris led a surveying expedition along much of the southwest coast. Accompanying van Delden were Commission members Heinrich C. Macklot, Alexander Zipelius, and Salomon Müller, the last the first to document the marked zoological differences between the western and eastern parts of the Indies. They were accompanied by two artists, P. van Oort and G. van Raalten. The settlement—known as "Merkusoord" after then then-Governor of the Moluccas and one of the promoters, Pieter Merkus—was established in the lands of the Lobo at Triton Bay (not far east of present-day Kaimana) and protected by a fort, "du Bus" (after the then-Commissar-General of the Indies, Leonard du Bus de Gissignies). All these names have been used in collections and literature and here are set out for convenience. But the settlement did not last long; and of the naturalists and artists only Müller was to survive early death or (in Macklot’s case) murder. Their collections—the first significant lot from this part of New Guinea and for decades one of the few available—made their way to Leiden in the Netherlands and were variously written up by Temminck, Blume, Müller, and others.
From 1840 the British returned, but—like the Dutch—were now concerned as much with detailed coastal and hydrographic survey as with primary exploration. This continued a tradition begun with the Investigator under Flinders and skillfully developed over the middle decades of the nineteenth century (and since, with modifications). Such surveys—tedious but essential in a new and increasingly global age of commerce and settlement—did, however, continue to provide opportunities for natural history research. Indeed, it was on such a voyage that the young Charles Darwin sailed with Robert Fitzroy in 1831–1836. After 1850, however, surveys of Australasia and the western Pacific were largely conducted from Sydney rather than London.
The first of the Royal Navy vessels to sail through New Guinea waters were the Sulphur (with the Starling) under Edward Belcher (who had succeeded F. W. Beechey on what had become an "interminable voyage"). Himself strongly interested in natural history and assisted by R. B. Hinds and A. G. Barclay, respectively as naturalist-surgeon and gardener-botanist, Belcher called in to the Solomons, Port Praslin (southwestern New Ireland), Kairiru off the north coast, and Yapen, collecting some animals and plants (now at London: BMNH, Kew)—though with rather less profit than in the eastern Pacific and the Americas, the voyage’s main objectives. The Sulphur was soon followed by two more focused voyages to the south, reflecting the increasing importance of the future Australia and the passage between it and New Guinea, the treacherous Torres Strait—now becoming a key route between India, Southeast Asia, and New South Wales. The 1842–1846 voyage of the Fly and Bramble under F. P. Blackwood with, as geologist, J. Beete Jukes and a naturalist-artist, John MacGillivray, focused in particular on the Torres Strait and the northern Australian coast, but also (in 1845) examined the western Gulf of Papua and discovered the Fly and Turama rivers, sailing some ways up the Fly. Blackwood’s work was continued by the Rattlesnake under Owen Stanley in 1846–1850, with particular attention to the Louisiades, the future China Strait, and the southeastern coasts (including Yule Island); he was accompanied by Mac-Gillivray and the future evolutionist T. H. Huxley (who in particular collected cnidarians and mollusks). The emphasis on natural history in both voyages was on geology, zoology, and marine biology, with but few land plants collected (all at BMNH). Jukes and MacGillivray, respectively, wrote the narratives of these last two voyages, Owen Stanley sadly having died at Sydney before the return (under C. B. Yule) of the Rattlesnake to Britain via Cape Horn. But, in contrast to the work of the Sulphur, publication of the scientific results would be somewhat piecemeal—times were harder, and the Admiralty was more interested in those of the Southern Ocean voyage of the Erebus and Terror.
All this exploration was, however, not followed by much settlement. An attempt had been made by an English party in 1795 at Doré Bay, but until the last quarter of the nineteenth century that at Triton Bay mentioned above would be the most serious effort. But it, too, would soon be defeated by disease and a hostile environment. Missions also remained few and far between; that of the Congregatio Mariae at Woodlark Island—being the first in the east, following proclamation of the apostolic vicariate of Melanesia by Pope Pius IX. Though after some years also suffering the fate of Merkusoord, the station was during 1847–1852 a collecting locality for one of the Marist priests, Père J. Xavier H. Montrouzier—the earliest French missionary-naturalist to be active in the New Guinea region. At and around the settlement he collected insects, mollusks, and fish (Paris, partly lost), but no plants. From Woodlark he moved to New Caledonia, settling on the north-westerly Ile Art. In 1855 he published (at Lyon, France) his pioneer Essai sur la faune de l’île de Woodlark ou Moiou.
1850–1875
With the departure of the Rattlesnake, the age of the major exploring and survey expeditions for the New Guinea region was over. The way, however, had been paved for safe passage of commercial shipping, including the new mixed steam and sail ships. But official interest remained relatively low in this third quarter of the nineteenth century save for its last five years or so when potential annexations loomed. Instead, it was independent, often privately sponsored naturalists—particularly in the west, closer to the developing East Indian shipping network and its connections to Australia, Asia, and Europe—who came to dominate natural history exploration for these years. Some, such as Miklucho-Maclay as well as Beccari and d’Albertis, had official assistance in the form of passage on naval vessels. Extension of mission networks provided other opportunities, notably at Doré Bay, the Torres Strait Islands (from 1871; see below), Port Moresby (1874), and the Duke of York Islands (1875); some of the missionaries themselves made collections and sent them "home."
The first was none other than the most famous: Alfred Russel Wallace, who during his sojourn in Malesia made two visits to the New Guinea region. In 1857 he visited the Aru Islands, while in 1858 he spent a few weeks collecting at Doré Bay (primarily insects but also birds). Himself largely ill and coast-bound, from there his
