By George Beccaloni, March 2019
In a fairly recent article about Heinrich Bernstein, Jansen (2008), citing Veth (1879) says that he "...died on Batanta at 19 April 1865 of a liver abscess, and was buried either on Batanta or Ternate..." However, whilst reading Rosenberg's 1875 book Reistochten naar de Geelvinkbaai op Nieuw-Guinea in de jaren 1869 en 1870 I discovered the following passage (translated from the Dutch by Erica Tonnema): "There, in the park-like cemetery, a romantic site, on the feet of the proud ‘firemountain’ of Ternate [Mt Gamalama], a simple memorial, in the southeast corner of one of the nearby crossways, marks the grave of Dr. Bernstein...and it is that place, in the close proximity of his earlier residence, from the workshop, where he did so much research, in the name of science and made things ready for our homeland, that is for him the most appropriate resting place, because this was just not possible on gloomy Batanta, in the middle of the regions where he acquired his most precious results..."
References
Jansen, J. 2008. Pioneer of Asian Onithology Heinrich Bernstein. Birding Asia, 10: 103-107.
Rosenberg, C. B. H. von. 1875. Reistochten naar de Geelvinkbaai op Nieuw-Guinea in de jaren 1869 en 1870. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.
Veth, H. J. 1879. Overzicht van hetgeen, in het bijzonder door Nederland, gedaan is voor de kennis der Fauna van Nederlandsch Indie. Leiden.