Quest for the Golden Cloak, first published in 1946, recounts the explorations of Alvin Seale (1871-1958), a noted explorer and natural historian, with a special interest in ichthyology (the study of fish). 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 at Stanford University. He took sabbaticals to collect animal specimens in Alaska and to search for Klondike gold, with his travels 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, where he visited several hundred islands (the book provides fascinating tales of the people and scenes he experienced). 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 search the region for similar garments of worked feathers - and to keep a passing eye out for remnants of cannibalism. Seale then began a 20-year career in the Philippines, studying the archipelago's wildlife and establishing the first public aquarium in Manila. Later, he returned to America and spent much of his career as superintendent of San Francisco's Steinhart Aquarium. 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 in San Francisco.
