Rock-Pictures in New Guinea

Abstract

A FEW years ago I mentioned in a paper in Globus (lxiii. 94) that Mr. Th. B. Leon had reported the existence of pictures on rocks he had seen in the Ogar and Arguni groups of islands (south part of McCluer inlet), and that the officer in command of H.N.M.S. Batavia, who had been charged to make further inquiries, had not been able to find them. At that time Mr. Leon's account had not been published in the regular issue of the Batav. Genootschap. Since then, however, explorations by Mr. van Braam Morris, whilst on his voyage in New Guinea in 1883, and by some of the officers of H.N.M.S. Samarang, have resulted in the discovery of rock-pictures similar to those spoken of by Mr. Leon. The papers giving an account of these explorations (including Mr. Leon's) have been published in a recent number of the Tijdschrift voor Indische Land-, Taal-, en Volkenkunde (xxix. pp. 582–591), and an abstract of their contents may be interesting.