[ { "id": 204909, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1965", "page_number": 17, "title": "RAS-1965", "content_text": "12\n\nS. G. DAVIS\n\nThe sites at Tai Wan, Hung Shing Ye and Yung Shu Wan on Lamma Island have been most fruitful and have provided the material that was excavated and studied by Father D. J. Finn, which is partly on display today. The report of finds at Tai Wan came in a most interesting way. Mr. Tom Man Long (who happily is present with us tonight) was building the service reservoir in the Botanical Gardens opposite Government House when he noticed that the sand being used for the concrete had fragments of pottery and several axe-heads. Mr. Tom, as a keen collector of Chinese art and pottery, recognized the antiquity of the pottery and reported his discovery to the Waterworks Department who in turn notified Professor Shellshear. He visited Tai Wan and immediately recognized the richness of the site. At a later date Father Finn was asked by Professor Shellshear, who was going on leave, to interest himself in the finds. Father Finn wrote, \"I was very glad of the invitation and luck seemed to confirm the vocation. A few days after that, while I was still regarding any active participation as remote, I almost crushed a piece of obviously old pottery under foot as I walked past a sand-heap on a jetty at Aberdeen. The next step was to find where the sand came from. Having found out that and having got there, I found myself at the site from which I knew Professor Shellshear and his friends had already reaped a rich harvest.”\n\nIt was a fortunate day for archaeology when Father Finn began his work on Lamma. He brought an expert knowledge to the study and rapidly revealed tremendous archaeological treasures by thorough, careful digging. The results of this work were meticulously reported in The Hong Kong Naturalist from 1933 to 1936 and still later combined in one complete volume under the editorship of my friend, Father F. Ryan, S.J.\n\nMany of the best finds from the Lamma sites are in the British Museum. They were sent there by Professor Shellshear and were examined by Mr. Soame Jenyns, the curator for the Far East section. Mr. Jenyns had been in Hong Kong as a young administrator and had studied Chinese art. Outstanding among the specimens is a bronze sword about eleven inches long and distinguished by a zoomorph design in three panels along the blade. This sword has been dated as Warring Kingdoms Period, (421-221 B.C.). A bronze-socketed celt with a distinctive design", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1965.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/s752cj653", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210732, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 83, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "66\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\nin future planting programmes:\n\nNative Country Remarks\n\nBotanical Name\n\nTristanea conferta Australia\n\nCeltis sinensis Hong Kong\n\nFrom 100 to 150 ft. high... etc. grows very rapidly and well in H.K.\n\nA fine tree which grows well and can be propagated readily from seed which is produced in abundance.\n\nMany trees were planted on the roadsides 2 years ago which have grown very rapidly. Two rows bordering the side of the Peak Road would also have done well if they had been attended to in pruning during this and last year.\n\nDespite the prevalence and destructive power of typhoons Mr. Ford was able to report in 1879:\n\n\"The general appearance of the Gardens has been decidedly in advance of previous years. The collection of Cacti continues to thrive well. On the sides of the walk next to the Fountain Terrace the trees of Grevilea robusta now form a very effective avenue. The trees were planted when they were one year old, in 1876 and they are now about thirty feet high. Near the Fernery in the Old Garden a collection of Orchids indigenous to Hong Kong has been made. Many of the more beautiful and interesting plants of this Colony have been introduced to the Gardens and I am now continuing this work.... The collection of coniferous trees in the New Garden has been partly rearranged... the Palms have quite filled the ground, and excepting very dwarf kinds, no", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210733, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 84, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "67\n\nmore can be planted. . . . The Fernery in Glenealy Ravine in the New Garden, which was made about five years since, has succeeded admirably.\n\nThe administration of the gardens also became independent of the Survey Department and emerged as the Botanical Department.\n\nMr. Ford also botanised widely in the area and started a collection of plant specimens as soon as he arrived in Hong Kong. The Herbarium was formally established in 1878 and in 1881 he started a series of botanical expeditions to southern China for the purpose of obtaining more knowledge of its then little known flora, especially the economic plants.\n\n\"The living plants introduced to cultivation by this expedition contain many things of very much interest which will be valuable acquisitions to (the) gardens.\"\n\nIn addition to his duties in the Botanic Gardens, Ford also had a much wider outlook on the flora of Hong Kong and in a letter to T. Thistleton-Dyer F.R.S. (dated 16/8/81) he illustrates his interest in the conservation of the natural flora on the hillsides:\n\n\"From the commencement of this year I have had two 'Forest Guards' at work whose special duty is to patrol the Island and prevent wanton destruction of trees and shrubs by grass cutters and other people. They are doing excellent service and I believe that we shall in consequence, get many more new plants. There are many shrubs growing on the hills which are unknown to me, and which, I believe have never been found in flower because of their having been so frequently cut down that they could not attain sufficient size to flower, but which, now that they are being preserved, will be able to flower.\"\n\nIn his report to Kew 1882 Ford estimated that about one-tenth of Hong Kong (including the New Territories, Lantao and Lamma islands) was planted. \"There might be about 25,000,000 trees", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210742, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 93, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "76\n\nD.A. GRIFFITHS AND S.P. LAU\n\npopular booklets on Hong Kong flora, fauna, and minerals.\n\nThe Hong Kong Herbarium was transferred to the Agriculture and Fisheries Department in 1972. The Check List of Hong Kong Plants was updated and formally printed and published in 1974. It was again revised and published in 1978.\n\nIn 1975 the Botanic Gardens were renamed the Zoological and Botanical Gardens, resulting from a significant expansion of the zoological work under the curatorship (in an honorary capacity) of Dr. K. Searle, in the early 1970s. The collection housed rare or endangered species of animals and birds for conservation and educational purposes. In 1983 the construction of a new large free-flight aviary and a new mammal complex were completed though the most prominent horticultural feature of the Gardens, the Fountain Terrace, had to be removed to allow for the reconstruction of the roof of the service reservoir over which it was built. Work was completed in 1987 with the provision of a larger fountain of attractive design, an expanded collection, enlarged catering facilities and a book shop.\n\nIn 1984, a typhoon again caused serious and widespread damage throughout the Gardens. The Gardens had to be closed for a week to allow for the clearance of debris to proceed. The large greenhouse was damaged beyond repair and had to be rebuilt.\n\nThough the facilities of the Gardens have improved greatly over the years, steady urban encroachment has reduced its original size of about 7 hectares to the present 5.35 hectares. It is conveniently located at the centre of the city and is a popular outdoor recreational and educational facility in Hong Kong. It attracts 3 million visitors a year, including overseas visitors, and is looked after by a staff of 66, including a park keeper, a zoo keeper and numerous gardeners.\n\nSOURCES OF REFERENCE MATERIAL\n\n1. The Bentham Correspondence\n\na) Vol. 2 and Vol. 5\n\nb) Chinese and Japan Letters ALC-HAN 1865-1900", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 }, { "id": 210791, "series_id": 26, "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine", "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊", "series_use_hku_proxy": false, "document_key": "RAS-1986", "page_number": 142, "title": "RAS-1986", "content_text": "125\n\nBetween 1917 and 1923, membership doubled owing mainly to acceptance of the Protestant faith among the Miao tribesmen (La-Tourette, 1929).\n\nIn addition to attracting businessmen, diplomats and missionaries, the unknown interior also coaxed several academics to make pilgrimages to the \"Shore of Pearls\". The most important of these for the natural sciences was undertaken by F.A. McClure, an American botanist teaching at Lingnan Agricultural College, who was commissioned to explore the land resources of Hainan, and if possible, conquer the summit of the rugged Five Finger Range: a feat which had eluded earlier European attempts (McClure, 1922). His first assault on the summit failed, but on April 20, 1922, his second push brought him through the dense undergrowth to the ceiling of the island (McClure, 1922). The important discoveries he made on these and subsequent expeditions to Hainan (1927, 1928, 1929, 1932) form the basis of a great collection of rare plants housed in Guangzhou (Fenzel, 1933), the New York Botanical Gardens, and for some specimens, the Arnold Arboretum at Harvard University (Merrill and Medcalf, 1937).\n\nA zoological expedition, led by Clifford Pope of the American Museum of Natural History, went to Hainan in 1922 (Pope, 1924), while in 1928 the French missionary and ethnographer, M. Savina, studied in detail the language of the Li clans for the first time (Savina, 1929). The German, Gottlieb Fenzel, who journeyed through the interior in 1929 made a significant contribution to the geology and geography of Hainan (Fenzel, 1933), and his fellow countryman, H. Stubel, provided further information on the ethnology of Hainan's aboriginals from his visits in 1931 and 1932 (Stubel and Li, 1933; Stubel and Meriggi, 1937). These published reports by foreign academics provide the bulk of the information on Hainan readily accessible to the western bloc.\n\nCivil War and Japanese occupation\n\nIn 1912, the Manchu dynasty came to an end with the abdication of the young Emperor, Hsuan-t’ung, and the New Republic was declared the constitutional form of state. However, efforts by the weak central government to create unity were sabotaged", "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-1986.txt", "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/jq08c7063", "rank": 0 } ]