Background
Alvin Seale was born on July 8, 1871 in Fairmount, Indiana, to a family of Quakers.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
This book was originally published prior to 1923, and represents a reproduction of an important historical work, maintaining the same format as the original work. While some publishers have opted to apply OCR (optical character recognition) technology to the process, we believe this leads to sub-optimal results (frequent typographical errors, strange characters and confusing formatting) and does not adequately preserve the historical character of the original artifact. We believe this work is culturally important in its original archival form. While we strive to adequately clean and digitally enhance the original work, there are occasionally instances where imperfections such as blurred or missing pages, poor pictures or errant marks may have been introduced due to either the quality of the original work or the scanning process itself. Despite these occasional imperfections, we have brought it back into print as part of our ongoing global book preservation commitment, providing customers with access to the best possible historical reprints. We appreciate your understanding of these occasional imperfections, and sincerely hope you enjoy seeing the book in a format as close as possible to that intended by the original publisher.
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(This adventurous memoir was written by the famous ichthyo...)
This adventurous memoir was written by the famous ichthyologist Alvin Seale. He was an extraordinary man, a real-life Indiana Jones of Ichthyology whose contributions to science go beyond his efforts towards the founding of the Steinhart Aquarium. His adventures began early in life; as an undergraduate student in 1892 he traveled from Indiana to California by bicycle (a journey of three months) to study under the prestigious David Starr Jordan at Stanford University. He took frequent sabbaticals to collect animal specimens in Alaska and to try and find Klondike gold, with his adventures taking him as far north as Point Barrow - the northernmost point in the United States. After Alaska he ventured to the South Pacific, as a field agent for the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii at the turn of the century. It is this assignment that forms the basis of Quest for the Golden Cloak. With King Kamehameha I's famed golden cloak serving as one of the museum's most prized possessions, museum officials assigned him the duty to scour the South Seas for more great garments of worked feathers - and to keep a passing eye out for vestigial cannibalism. In his adventures he came across high cliffside caves strewn with ancestral bones, went diving on a forgotten island searching for oysters with golden pearls, and even had a chance to shoot the devil himself (as part of a rare native ceremony he took part in on the Solomon Islands, where he fired his revolver at a massive effigy). Seale's quickly paced Golden Cloak was popular when it was published in 1946, four decades after the events it describes took place. It is an easy, exciting read, though of course it is relayed from the occidental point of view of its author and betrays occasional imperialistic impulses. Still, because of Seale's humble Quaker roots his journeys remain grounded in peacefulness, and he frequently writes of the admiration he felt for many of the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples he encountered.
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Alvin Seale was born on July 8, 1871 in Fairmount, Indiana, to a family of Quakers.
In 1886, the year that Seale would have graduated from Stanford in zoology,he was picked by Professor Jordan, along with fellow student Norman B. Scofield, to go to Point Barrow in Alaska. His mission was to look for salmon in the Mackenzie River.
Before returning to Stanford Seale collected sea birds along the Alaskan coast on behalf of the British Museum. He also went with his roommate to the Klondike to join the gold rush there. According to Seale, his companion “struck it rich.” Seale, however, was too busy exploring the native wildlife to waste his time searching for gold.
In his unpublished diary Seale writes that he spent “an exciting year." In 1899 Seale returned to Stanford, only to leave again to take the job of field naturalist at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Within two years he was promoted to Curator of Fishes there. He held this position until 1904, when he returned to Stanford once again.
While still curator Seale made the first zoological survey of Guam in 1900. He returned to Hawaii via Manila, Hong Kong, China, and Japan.
From the time of his return until 1903 Seale collected specimens from all over Polynesia.
He went exploring in the Society Islands, the Tuamotu Archipelago, and the Marquesas, Gambier, Austral, Cook, and Samoan islands. He also visited New Zealand, Australia, the New Hebrides and the Solomon Islands. In May, 1905 he finally received his degree from Stanford, 13 years after beginning his studies.
By this time he was already recognized as a world authority on the fishes of Polynesia, as well as an expert ichthyologist.
He knew more about Polynesia and its fish and fisheries than anyone else in the United States, publishing several important papers on the subject. On August 23, 1904 Seale wrote a letter to the famed naturalist John Muir, in Martinez, California.
The letter thanks Muir for sending to Seale Muir’s book “The Mountains of California.” Seale also wonders if Muir was happy with the “small panel of Koa wood” that he left for Muir in his steamer cabin. He also hopes that Muir and Seale will be able to “call for a few hours some day within a week or two.” He explains that he would like to speak to him about forestry.
(This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)
(This adventurous memoir was written by the famous ichthyo...)