Forty years on the Pacific - the lure of the great ocean, a book of reference for the traveler and pleasure for the stay-at-home (1920) (14781803065-a)

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Identifier: fortyyearsonpaci00coffuoft (find matches)
Title: Forty years on the Pacific : the lure of the great ocean, a book of reference for the traveler and pleasure for the stay-at-home
Year: 1920 (1920s)
Authors: Coffee, Frank, d. 1929
Subjects: Oceania -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : Oceanic publishing company
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN



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have never been properly estimated, but itmay be accepted that the following figures are somewhat nearthe mark: area a little over 100,000 square miles; number ofislands, quite 1,500; white population, mostly German, 700,and natives, 700,000. These figures will satisfy the reader ofthe big hold on the Pacific the Germans have now lost. Thenative races are slightly mixed, but the greater number areMelanesians. The Germans did not bother much in studyingthe native races or their characteristics, and that is a workno doubt that will be undertaken by the new administrationfrom Australia. Leaving out the Marshalls, the Carolines and the Marianengroups, the rest of the German territories are remarkablymountainous in formation; indeed, many of the peaks run toover 10,000 feet. Another interesting feature of formationis the great Kaiserin Augusta River of the Kaiser WilhelmsLand, and which runs for hundreds of miles through the landinto the Dutch portion of the New Guinea territory; it is 342
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7. J. McMahon, Photo 1. TAPPING RUBBER TREES, NEW GUINEA.2. HARVESTING SISAL HEMP, WESTERN PACIFIC. GERMAN NEW GUINEA 343 many miles wide from its mouth, and vessels drawing thirteenfeet can steam up a clean channel for nearly 400 miles. Right through the known parts of the German New Gui-nea territories the soils are consistently rich, and it is a factthat every product suitable for tropic climes can be grownsafely and luxuriantly. German New Guinea offers conclu-sive evidence of the failure of the Germans in colonization,though possessed of some of the richest islands of the Pacific,and most liberally financed by the German Imperial Govern-ment in developing these islands—it has been rather the open-ing up of a few big plantations and trading companies withall the emolument for a few officials and a dozen or so ofwealthy men, than any attempt to put people on the land, andbring about a large population of white people. The war disclosed the fact that German actions in thesePacific