In 1899—after the change of administration—traces of gold on the upper Ramu River (near Usino) attracted the Neu-Guinea Compagnie’s interest. A stern-wheel riverboat was obtained and further trips made. During the dry season, Rodatz and Klink worked from a base at Arumene (near Aiome), reaching the foothills of present-day Mt Aiome in the western Bismarcks, and in November 1899 Lauterbach returned for a month’s trip along the river, leaving early in 1900 (plants, Berlin and Wroclaw). Rodatz and Klink remained in the area at a base camp near Usino, later visited by Schlechter (late 1901), and subsequently they gave many years of service as district officers, Klink eventually at Morobe, from which he explored the mid-Waria Valley (around present-day Garaina). There he found the stands of Araucaria for which he is remembered (at first described as a distinct species, A. klinkii, but later—not entirely critically—united with A. huns-teinii).
The presence of Parkinson in the Bismarck Archipelago helped to attract additional scientists to that region. One who remained for almost a year (1896–1897) on Blanche Bay was F. O. Dahl, who with the assistance of Parkinson and the now-wealthy Emma Forsayth (now Kolbe) set up a small "station" at Ralum and collected extensively around the area (including the Duke of York Islands and the Baining Mountains, the latter from a new mission station, Vunamarita) both on land and sea (Berlin). Dahl’s stay would be very productive, with many published results. These included a regional florula (1898) by K. Schumann and a stream of zoological papers. Dahl’s marine collections, along with those of his contemporary, A. Willey from Cambridge, England, marked the beginning of serious study of the rich undersea biota in the Bismarck Archipelago (apart from the relatively short visit of the Challenger). Dahl was later a curator at the Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin. Willey enjoyed two long sojourns in eastern New Guinea, the first in 1895 in the Archipelago before proceeding to British New Guinea (and elsewhere), returning there in 1897 before sailing back to Europe. Willey also published extensively (sometimes with others)—notably a six-part collection entitled Zoological results... collected during the years 1895, 1896, 1897 (1898–1902).
The last noteworthy visitor under the Neu-Guinea Compagnie—arriving just before the transfer of administration—was the Swede E. O. A. Nyman. From field studies in Java he came in 1899 to New Guinea for nearly nine months (March– November). Often ill, he collected birds, plants, and lichens around Astrolabe Bay (including the low Hansemann massif near Friedrich-Wilhelmshafen), Finschhafen, the Sattelberg area (partly for health reasons), and northeastern New Britain (plants and lichens in Uppsala). Sadly, Nyman was never able to work up his collections, dying in Munich in 1900 before reaching Sweden. Some of Nyman’s collections were accounted for in Schumann and Lauterbach’s Flora, while at Uppsala in the 1940s R. Santesson described his epiphyllic lichens; but many others have never been documented, including some higher plants seen by the writer in 2003.
German Imperial Rule: The Era of Benningsen and Hahl (1899–1914)
The developments in the Ramu Valley (now Jagei Valley)—relating in part to mineral exploration—were strongly promoted by R. von Benningsen, first Imperial Governor of German New Guinea. While scientific results under Neu-Guinea Compagnie rule had been impressive, economic results were not so, and most of its capital had been expended. After long negotiations, the Neu-Guinea Compagnie was relieved of its administrative responsibilities as of 1 April 1899 and von Benningsen assumed control.
The new Governor himself was an amateur entomologist of note, specializing in Coleoptera (beetles). Von Benningsen collected as opportunities permitted in New Britain, the Duke of York Islands (called Neu-Lauenberg at this time), and elsewhere in the Bismarck Archipelago as well as in the mountains behind Stephansort especially the Kani Range and upper Minjim River (collections mostly in Dresden). As Kotze (see above) wrote in his popular (and amusing) book about his time in New Guinea, Aus Papuas Kulturmorgen (1905), Coleoptera were popular with Germans as Lepidoptera were for the British. In this respect Benningsen set a good example; many other amateurs also collected beetles which likewise found their way to the Royal Dresden Museum and its noted coleopterist, K. M. Helle.
Public health (and, in some places, depopulation) were not unnaturally serious concerns of the new government, and with the 1898 discovery of the mechanism of malaria transmission new possibilities for its control opened up. In 1899–1900 the famous microbiologist Robert Koch came from Java to the territory for seven months (from December 1899). Traveling partly with Benningsen and Biró,he visited Berlinhafen, Astrolabe Bay and its villages and settlements (including the plantations at Stephansort, now Bogajim), Finschhafen, Huon Gulf (including the Tami Islands), the Siassi Islands, parts of northwestern New Britain and the Witu Islands, the mouth of the Ramu, and finally the Gazelle Peninsula and elsewhere in the Bismarck Archipelago including the islands northeast of New Ireland. Along with his malariological and parasitological work he managed to collect some animals and plants.
Koch’s studies were followed up by Dr O. Dempwolff (with a trader, F. E. Hellwig); during 1902–1904 (Hellwig on his own in 1903) they spent considerable time in Wuvulu, Aua, and other western Admiralty Islands—places not visited by the microbiologist. One result was the only monograph on the first two of these islands (notable for their Micronesian people), Wuvulu und Aua (1908) by P. Hambruch in Hamburg (home to the former Godeffroy Museum, in the nineteenth century an active patron of Pacific biological and cultural exploration). In it is a clear demonstration of the contemporary rise of professional and popular interest in the region’s ethnography, already the subject of a major 1898 expedition from Cambridge University to the Torres Strait and also prominent in Richard Parkinson’s Dreissig Jahre of the previous year. At this time a considerable, sometimes detrimental trade in artifacts developed along with the rising traffic in bird plumes, while at the same time fewer large private collections of natural history objects were being formed. Among the last private collectors to visit German New Guinea was B. Mencke, who with the yacht Eberhard—purchased in Monaco—and two zoologists, G. Duncker and O. Heinroth, collected in 1900– 1901 in various coastal localities including the Arawe Islands (southern New Britain). Mencke’s expedition, however, came to grief in the Mussau group; Mencke was seriously wounded in a fight (dying 2 April 1901) and Heinroth, after some further work in New Ireland, departed in June. Tangible results were but few.
Benningsen—who had departed the territory in mid-1901 for leave—was in 1902 succeeded as Governor by Albert Hahl. Familiar with the Bismarck Archipelago from prior service, he concentrated more on developments (and pacification, following some notorious incidents) there. However, as circumstances permitted (particularly after the mid-1900s) he also vigorously promoted mainland exploration and scientific work, much as had Macgregor in British New Guinea (although less so in person). Like his predecessor, Hahl could also rely on goodly numbers of officers and others interested in natural history to make contributions, though the important expeditions, both on the mainland and in the Bismarcks, usually involved visiting, usually professional scientists.
Shortly before Hahl’s appointment (but while he was Vice-Governor), the territory was visited by its next major metropolitan visitor, F. R. R. (Rudolf) Schlechter. He was sent out by the Kolonial-Wirtschaftliche Komitee in Berlin to find latex-producing trees and vines useful for gutta-percha and rubber—Germany wishing to develop its "own" sources of these substances. The first of his two expeditions (1901–1902) was exploratory, the second (1906–1910) developmental. On his first tour (in the territory lasting ten months from mid-October 1901) he visited the Bismarck Archipelago (including southern New Ireland) and, on the mainland, Berlinhafen (and behind it, the Torricelli Range) as well as its offshore islands, and also crossed the Gogol-Ramu dividing range (along Benningsen’s new "road") to the Ramu gold camp, from there proceeding into the Bismarck Range as far as the present Bundi district.
Schlechter’s recommendation to the administration for a botanical garden was followed up by Hahl in 1906 upon the establishment of Rabaul; in time this became a "beauty spot" (though not really a center for botanical exploration), lasting until 1942. In 1907–1909 the now-noted scientist (who had at other times also collected in southern and central Africa) returned to New Guinea. For this more extended stay he set up a base camp on Astrolabe Bay at Bulu (near Bongu). From here Schlechter
