Netherlands East Indies Exploration
Media
Part of The Marsman Magazine
- Title
- Netherlands East Indies Exploration
- Language
- English
- Source
- The Marsman Magazine Volume II (No. 9) March 1938
- Year
- 1938
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- Boring to test the gold-bearing gravels. Panning in the 'tiver bed. Gold-bearing gravel banks near the river. MARSMAN N. E. I. A number of exploratory and prospecting expeditions were sent out in the field throughout the Dutch East Indies in the course of the past twelve months. Most of this work was done in Sumatra, Borneo and Celebes, although several properties were also examined in Java and on some of the smaller islands. Prospecting applications and licenses covering enormous tracts of land, aggregating hunJdreds of thousand hectares had to be prospected rapidly. For this purpose a number of Dutch geologist, engineers and prospectors familiar with the country, people, language, and conditions were engaged, in addition to a number of American personnel already in the field. Organization of an expedition is an exacting task and carrying it out to accomplish the objectives is always fraught With numerous difficulties. Invariably the counEXPEDITIONS try is a remote jungle, sometimes uninhabited, with no roads or na vigable rivers. Only occasionally it is possible to use small boats or prahu.s to go part way up to the objective in the field. The biggest portion of travel has to be made on foot, cutting a trail from the dense jungle and using local natives as porters. Food rations, prospecting and boring tools, explosives, medicines, firearms and a number of other indespensable items of camp equipment have to be compactly arranged into parcels of standard weight for porters and p r o t e c t e d against damage by water. Such expeditions may be of from two to six months duration. Communication with th e nearest town has to be maintained to procure additional supplies and labor, to receive and dispatch messages, and to ship samples. Pictures show one such expedition enroute into the interior of Borneo. Shallow upper reaches of the Miroeh River Motorboats and prahus being rearranged to go up the rapids Native sluicing operations ( Dayaks are very much like the Igorots of the Mountain Province of the Philippines.)