These reports are mainly Patrol Reports for specific patrols throughout Papua and the Territory of New Guinea between 1922 and 1955.
It also includes a small number of more general reports such as district monthly reports, anthropological reports, etc.  Some reports contain detailed maps and occasional photographs. The majority of the patrol reports are very detailed - including a brief memorandum to the District Officer giving subject, duration, object of patrol,
personnel accompanying the patrol and, at the end, a resume of such subjects as geological features, native customs and physical
appearance, differing dialects and vocabulary, health and
sanitation, investigations of unrest or murders, and general
observations on such matters as initiation ceremonies, methods of cooking, housing, vegetables gardens and cannibalism.
 
It is evident that these reports, when received in the departmental head office in Canberra, were filed together with the covering correspondence on files in the series CRS A518.  (For example, file Q836/3).  The numbers (pagination) handwritten in red, fit into the sequence of similar numbers in the A518 file.
 
At some point the actual reports were removed from the A518 files, placed in their own covers (mostly Department of External Territories) and placed in the departmental library - some have Dewey cataloguing numbers written on them.
 
The file covers also bear evidence of a process of departmental clearance for public release which was probably done about the same time.  
The collection of reports was originally accessioned into archival custody as CP708/1, later converted to AS13/26 (an experimental archival control system) and are now controlled in the CRS system as CRS A7034.  A simple numerical control was imposed on the reports at the time of this conversion.
 
This series was originally brought into Australian Archives as CP 708/1, then subsequently converted to AS 12/26. The whole series has now been converted to CRS A7034.
Quantity in agency custody
1.00m Microf ilm copies held by CA 3196 Australian Archives ACT Regional Office