Lambom Island

Lambom Island or Lambon or Lumbom, also known as Wallis Island, and Île aux Marteaux, is an island off the south-western corner of New Ireland, Papua New Guinea, off Lambom.^[1][2] On the other side of the Cape St. George peninsula is Lanisso Bay.

Lambom (Lumbom) Island and Cape St George from a 1909 nautical chart

The island was visited by Philip Carteret in June 1767, on his round-the-world voyage in Swallow. He named it Wallis Island, after Samuel Wallis. Wallis had set out with him in Dolphin, but the two ships were separated in a storm after passing through the Strait of Magellan.^[3]

In July the following year the expedition of Louis Antoine de Bougainville arrived. He named the island Île aux Marteaux, "Hammer Island" after a species of Malleus, the hammer shell or hammer oyster found there, which was not often found in European collections.^[4]

References

1. Firth, Stewart (1 July 1983). New Guinea under the Germans. Melbourne University Press. ISBN 978-0-522-84220-3. Retrieved 31 December 2012.
2. "Lambom". Wikimapia. Retrieved 7 April 2024.
3. Wilson, Robert (1806). Voyages of Discoveries Round the World: Successively Undertaken by the Hon. Commodore Byron in 1764, Captains Wallis and Carteret in 1766, and Captain Cook in the Years 1768 to 1789 Inclusive : Comprehending Authentic and Interesting Accounts of Countries Never Before Explored, with the Longitude, Latitude, Relative Situations, Soil, Climate, Natural Productions, Customs and Manners of the Inhabitants, &c. &c. London: James Cundee. pp. 245–373.
4. Lesson, R.P. (1839). Voyage autour du monde, entrepris par ordre du gouvernement sur la corvette La Coquille, Tome III (in French). Bruxelles: Gregoir, Wouters. p. 23.

4°48′S 152°51′E