Dr. Th. Mortensen's expeditions 1899-1930

[Geoff Read]

The indications are there is no _published_ overall list of Mortensen 
Stations. Also, I haven't examined all the Pacific expedition reprints, but
only in the Mollusca paper (bd.77) does an author list the relevant NZ
stations. Some of Mortensen's 'Expeditions' were solo "can I come along on
your ship?" sort of adventures, so documentation might be scanty. (The 
story goes that luckily for him he was committed elsewhere and couldn't 
travel on the F.I.S. 'Endeavour' from Australia to Macquarie in 1914 - it 
sank with all hands.)

Thanks to those who pointed to various Z.M.U. Copenhagen people for 
further elucidation, and most especially to Mary Petersen for the detail 
below. 

Here is Mary's  explanation of the version ZMUC has:-

"Our set is mimeographed and filed under the different smaller expeditions.
 I asked Torben Wolff if he knew the origin of the lists, and he said that
the late Dr.phil. Fritz Jensenius Madsen, our former Curator of
Echinoderms, had had the lists done from Mortensen's handwritten diaries -
expedition journals. ... A number of years ago the 2nd Department 
([mainly] marine invertebrates) decided to collect all station lists for 
anything marine that  was collected by people from the museum and organize 
the lists so that it was possible to find the necessary information easily 
- before that it was sometimes a bit difficult.  Where station lists have 
been published, a copy of this is slipped into a plastic pocket in a 
looseleaf notebook, in other cases photocopies of the originals are used.  
Most of the lists are in English, or if in Danish, usually with 
translations of the most important terms.  Besides Mortensen's, 
expeditions covered include Galathea, Atlantide, Ingolf, Dana (I think 
part of these are in the Fish Library) and a large number of others, many 
of which to Greenland, some to Iceland and the Faroes.  The index is 
arranged so that one can look things up under locality, collector, 
expedition and year.

Mortensen's: (I think these first one are numbered 49, 50, 51 and 52)

pp. 1-5 + map of Gulf of Siam on p. 31 = The Siam-Expedition
1/1o.1899-1/6.19oo, starting with plankton samples, continuing with various
types of benthic samples. There is a ref. to "Th. Mortensen 19o2 - Kgl.
Danske Vid. Selsk. Skr. (6) 10 p. 155-157. - Map of the area: p.218"

pp. 6-8 + map of Danish West Indies on p. 31 = "Dr. Phil. Th. Mortensen's
Expedition to the Danish West Indies 19o5 - 19o6".  In the text list of
stations, Loango is spelled without the "v"

p. 9 = "...Bergen-Trondhjem Expedition 1911" (no map)

pp. 10-21 + map 34 (Mauritius at top, Sanct Helena at bottom) = "... 
Pacific-Expedition 1913 - 1916."

The rest of the 34 pages, i.e., pp. 22-30 + map on p. 33 - were in another
notebook, as No. 42:

pp. 22-30, maps 33+34  "The Java-South Africa Expedition 1929-193o (Java -
Mauritius - South Africa - St. Helena - Canary Isl.)

The last thing we have about Mortensen's expeditions is the published
station list for the Danish Expedition to the Kei Islands in 1922 (= no.
43), from Videnskabelige Meddelelser fra Dansk Naturhistorisk Forening 76:
55-99, plates I-III (= 2 maps of Kei Islands and Banda Sea + 1 map of
"Java-Sea and Sunda-Strait", with lots of stations).  Date of  publication
of station list is 1923, but this is not stated on reprint, but has been
added by hand..  After p. 90, there are glued 2 typed pages with additional
stations and one handwritten (by Fritz) page with some more notes.  I guess
that takes care of all of Mortensen's expeditions.

Material from these collections would be here [ZMUC] unless it was sent out
for working up and not returned." 


--
  Geoff Read <g.read at niwa.cri.nz>

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