scientific exploration and expeditions (gnv64)

Scientific Exploration

and Expeditions

Volume One

(c) 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All Rights Reserved.


and Expeditions

Neil A. Hamilton

From theAge of Discovery

to theTwenty-First Century

Volume One

Volume Two

A-L

M-W

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Hamilton, Neil A., 1949–Scientific exploration and expeditions: from the age of discovery to the twenty-first century / Neil Hamilton. p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 978-0-7656-8076-1 (hardcover: alk. paper)1. Scientific expeditions—History. I. Title.

Q115.H167 2011508—dc22 010012118 Cover Images: Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images (background map); left to right: David Boyer/National Geographic/Getty Images; NASA/Getty Images; Granger Collection, New York; Thomas J. Abercrombie/National Geographic/Getty Images; Robert Lackenbach/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images; Granger Collection, New York (astrolabe).

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List of Sidebars .............................................. viiTopic Finder ................................................... ixIntroduction .....................................................xi

African Association ......................................3Amazon River and Basin .............................5Amundsen, Roald ........................................8Andrews, Roy Chapman ...........................16Antarctica ....................................................21Arctic ............................................................26

Ballard, Robert ...........................................31Banks, Joseph ..............................................38Bates, Henry Walter ..................................44Beagle, Voyage of the ...................................47Bell, Gertrude .............................................51Bingham, Hiram ........................................55Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de ................58Bruce, James ................................................61Burton, Richard Francis ............................64Byrd, Richard E. .........................................69

Carter, Howard ..........................................75Cheesman, Lucy Evelyn ............................78Como Bluff, Wyoming ...............................80Cook, James ................................................82Cope, Edward Drinker ..............................90Cousteau, Jacques-Yves ..............................92

Darwin, Charles .........................................96Discovery, Age of ...................................... 105Dunbar-Hunter Expedition ................... 113

Earle, Sylvia .............................................. 117Everest Expeditions ................................. 120Explorers Club ......................................... 123

Flinders, Matthew ................................... 124

Gobi Desert .............................................. 129

Hakluyt Society ....................................... 131Hanbury-Tenison, Robin,

and Marika Hanbury-Tenison ........ 133Hedin, Sven ............................................. 135Henson, Matthew ................................... 140Heyerdahl, Thor ..................................... 142Horner, John R. ....................................... 150Humboldt, Alexander von ..................... 152

International Geophysical Year .............. 158International Polar Year .......................... 160


Jones, Albert José .................................... 162

Kingdon-Ward, Frank ............................ 163Kingsley, Mary .......................................... 165

Leakey Family ........................................... 170Lewis and Clark Expedition ................... 175Livingstone, David, and

Henry Morton Stanley .................... 184

Mackenzie, Alexander ............................ 193Malinowski, Bronislaw ........................... 195Maps and Mapmaking ............................ 199Marsh, Othniel Charles ......................... 205Mexia, Ynes .............................................. 207Mouhot, Henri ........................................ 209

Nansen, Fridtjof ...................................... 211National Geographic Society ................. 216Nordenskjöld, Adolf Erik ...................... 219

Oceanography, History of ....................... 222Ostrom, John H. ..................................... 229

Pacific Exploration ................................... 231Park, Mungo ............................................ 238

Peary, Robert E. ....................................... 242Powell Expeditions .................................. 245

Royal Geographical Society .................... 250Russian Exploration ................................ 252

Schliemann, Heinrich ............................. 259Schultes, Richard ..................................... 265Schweinfurth, Georg August .................. 267Scoresby, William .................................... 269Scott, Robert Falcon ................................ 272Shackleton, Ernest ................................... 278Society of Woman Geographers ............ 285Space Exploration, Manned .................... 287Space Exploration, Unmanned ............... 301Speke, John Hanning ............................... 317Stark, Freya ............................................... 321

Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall ................... 324

Van der Post, Laurens ............................. 326

Wallace, Alfred Russel ............................. 331Washburn, Bradford ................................ 336Waterton, Charles .................................... 340Watkins, Gino .......................................... 342Wilkes Expedition ................................... 345

Glossary ....................................................... 351Bibliography ................................................ 356Index ..............................................................I-1


Amundsen, Roald: Dogsleds .....................................................................................................11 The Wandering North Magnetic Pole ....................................................14Andrews, Roy Chapman: Fossil Extraction ...............................................20Antarctica: McMurdo Station ......................................................................24Artic: Artic Drifting Stations .......................................................................30Ballard, Robert: Deep-Sea Vents .........................................................................................33 Alvin ...........................................................................................................37Banks, Joseph: Carl Linnaeus and Modern Taxonomy .............................40Bates, Henry Walter: Mimicry ....................................................................46Bell, Gertrude: Archaeological Digs ............................................................54Burton, Richard Francis: Chronometers....................................................67Byrd, Richard E.: The Tin Goose ................................................................73Carter, Howard: The Curse of King Tut ....................................................76Cook, James: The Endeavour ............................................................................................. 86 The Transit of Venus ................................................................................88Cousteau, Jacques-Yves: The Calypso ........................................................... 94Darwin, Charles: Darwin’s Finches Keep Evolving ...........................................................100 The Descent of Man .................................................................................103Discovery, Age of: Life Aboard the Niña, Pinta, and Santa María .....................................109 The Mariner’s Astrolabe .........................................................................111Dunbar-Hunter Expedition: Hot Springs ..............................................115Earle, Sylvia: The JIM Suit .........................................................................119Flinders, Matthew: Nicolas Baudin ..........................................................126Hedin, Sven: The Silk Road .......................................................................137Heyerdahl, Thor: Building the Kon-Tiki ...............................................................................145 Pacific Ocean Currents ...........................................................................149Horner, John R.: The Question of Dinosaur Growth .............................151Humboldt, Alexander von: Humboldt’s Instruments ............................156Kingsley, Mary: On African Intelligence ..................................................168Leakey Family: Olduvai Gorge ..................................................................173Lewis and Clark Expedition: Scientific Discoveries ..............................................................................180 Charles Willson Peale’s Museum ..........................................................182


Livingston, David, and Henry Morton Stanley: Stanley’s African Observations .............................................................190Malinowski, Bronislaw: The Participant Observer .......................................................................197Nansen, Fridtjof: Nansen’s Instruments ...................................................214Oceanography, History of: The Hardy Continuous Plankton Recorder ........................................227 Digging Into the Ocean Floor ...............................................................228Pacific Exploration: The Pacific Floor .....................................................................................235 The Trieste ..................................................................................................236Park, Mungo: Mungo Park’s Escape and His Discovery of the Niger ..............................................................................................240Peary, Robert E.: Peary Versus Cook ........................................................244Powell Expedition: The Grand Canyon as Geological Park ...................248Russian Exploration: Russian Explorers in Alaska ..................................................................255 The Sea Bear Confronted ......................................................................256Schliemann, Heinrich: Is Agamemnon’s Mask a Hoax? .........................263Scott, Robert Falcon: The Terra Nova .......................................................275Shackleton, Ernest: The Building of the Endurance ................................282Space Exploration, Manned: The Lunar Lander and Experiments Package ......................................293 Experiments on the International Space Station ................................300Space Exploration, Unmanned: Sputnik 1 ...................................................................................................303 Sojourner ...................................................................................................314Speke, John Hanning: Speke’s Scientific Findings ..................................320Van der Post, Laurens: Removal of the Bushmen ...................................327Wallace, Alfred Russel: Alfred Russel Wallace and the Geographical Distribution of Animals .........................................................................334Washburn, Bradford: Washburn’s Camera in Space ...............................338


Beagle, Voyage of the Discovery, Age of Dunbar-Hunter Expedition Lewis and Clark Expedition Pacific ExplorationPowell ExpeditionsRussian ExplorationSpace Exploration, MannedSpace Exploration, UnmannedWilkes Expedition

Amundsen, RoaldAndrews, Roy ChapmanBallard, RobertBanks, JosephBates, Henry WalterBell, GertrudeBingham, HiramBougainville, Louis-Antoine deBruce, JamesBurton, Richard FrancisByrd, Richard E.Carter, HowardCheesman, Lucy EvelynCook, JamesCope, Edward DrinkerCousteau, Jacques-YvesDarwin, CharlesEarle, SylviaFlinders, MatthewHanbury-Tenison, Robin, and

Marika Hanbury-TenisonHedin, SvenHenson, MatthewHeyerdahl, Thor

Horner, John R.Humboldt, Alexander vonJones, Albert JoséKingdon-Ward, FrankKingsley, MaryLeakey FamilyLivingstone, David, and

Henry Morton StanleyMackenzie, AlexanderMalinowski, BronislawMarsh, Othniel CharlesMexia, YnesMouhot, HenriNansen, FridtjofNordenskjöld, Adolf ErikOstrom, John H.Park, MungoPeary, Robert E.Schliemann, HeinrichSchultes, RichardSchweinfurth, Georg AugustScoresby, WilliamScott, Robert FalconShackleton, ErnestSpeke, John HanningStark, FreyaThomas, Elizabeth MarshallVan der Post, LaurensWallace, Alfred RusselWashburn, BradfordWaterton, CharlesWatkins, Gino

Maps and MapmakingOceanography, History ofSpace Exploration, MannedSpace Exploration, Unmanned


Amazon River and BasinAntarcticaArcticComo Bluff, WyomingEverest ExpeditionsGobi DesertPacific ExplorationRussian Exploration

African AssociationExplorers ClubHakluyt SocietyInternational Geophysical YearInternational Polar YearNational Geographic SocietyRoyal Geographical SocietySociety of Woman Geographers


At the start of his historic voyage west across the Atlantic Ocean, Christopher Columbus made the following entry in his journal:

This present year of 1492, after Your Highnesses had brought to an end the war with the Moors who ruled in Europe and had concluded the war in the very great city of Granada . . . and later . . . because of the report that I have given to Your Highnesses about the lands of India . . . you thought of sending me, Christobal Colon, to the said regions of India to see the said princes and the peoples and the lands, and the characteristics of the lands and of every-thing and to see how their conversion to our Holy Faith might be undertak-en. And you commanded that I should not go to the East by land, by which it was customary to go, but by the route to the West, by which route we do not know for certain that anyone has previously passed.

Looking back on the momentous decision by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain to send him in search of the East Indies, Columbus recounts much about the state of the world and the reasons for his voyage. Not least among the motivations for Columbus and the Spanish Crown, aside from the possibility of economic and territorial gain, was to protect Catholicism against the Moors—who had a stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula dating back to the early eighth century—and against the spread of Islam. If Catholicism could be carried to the East Indies, it might estab-lish a beachhead against Muslim expansion. And if Catholics in the East could unite with Catholics in Europe, the Muslims might be surrounded and defeated.

In this respect, Columbus was a historical figure firmly rooted in the prescientific era, motivated by the religiosity and sectarian interests that had predominated for centuries. Yet in setting out on his historic voyage, the forty-year-old navigator from Genoa—who had an abiding interest in maps and claimed to have made his first ocean voyage at age ten—also exhibited a modern scientific curiosity in his desire to explore uncharted waters and sail headlong into the unknown. In doing so, he relied, in part, on the experiences and records of the Portuguese, who, under Prince Henry the Navigator in the early fifteenth century, had begun to sail south toward the coast of Africa, as well as on centuries of cartographic, navigational, and mathematical development—unsophisticated and imprecise as it often was—in both the Christian West and the Muslim East.

Historians continue to debate the extent to which the efforts by Columbus, the Portuguese, and other early explorers represented a truly scientific approach. According to one view, the early overseas expeditions


were “guided in part by the new spirit of empirical science . . . that impelled men if, for instance, they heard about the existence of unicorns, to go out and try to find some.” According to the renowned historian of exploration, J.H. Parry, however, the answer remains elusive. As Parry wrote in The Age of Reconnaissance, 1450–1650 (1963), “How far explorers and promoters of exploration were directly and consciously motivated by scientific curi-osity, is impossible to say on the scanty evidence which remains.”

At the very least, Columbus and his Portuguese predecessors repre-sented enough of a break from—and challenge to—the superstitions of the Middle Ages that their explorations rightly can be categorized as part of the beginning of the scientific revolution. More important, their expeditions unleashed a flood of scientific endeavors—by researchers, navigators, map-makers, instrument makers, engineers, and theoreticians—to discover new lands, new oceans, new societies, new flora and fauna, and new ideas.

It is with these explorers, then, that this encyclopedia begins—chrono-logically at least. The work is organized alphabetically, with each letter con-taining an assortment of articles on scientists and explorers, expeditions, geographic locations, fields of study, and notable institutions.

Every entry begins with a thumbnail chronology that summarizes the major events of an individual’s life, a scientific expedition, an area of en-deavor, or an organization. Many entries contain short sidebars that pre-sent interesting background information on scientific principles, vessels and instruments, procedures and technologies, the natural environment, society and culture, and unresolved questions. And every article concludes with a list of recommended sources for further research and background reading.

This book is about the people and technologies that have marched hand in hand into geographic and empirical frontiers. It is not intended to be com-prehensive in its coverage of explorers and exploration in general. Rather, it is meant to provide an embarkation point for a wide-ranging investigation into the history of scientific exploration from the Age of Discovery to the twenty-first century.

Toward that end, the encyclopedia presents information on scientific explorers and expeditions from a variety of fields in all seven continents. Polar explorers include Roald Amundsen, Richard E. Byrd, Matthew Henson, Fridjtof Nansen, Robert E. Peary, Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton. Paleontologists are represented by Roy Chapman Andrews, Edward Drinker Cope, John R. Horner, Othniel Charles Marsh, and John H. Ostrom. African explorers include James Bruce, Richard Francis Burton, Mary Kingsley, David Livingstone, Mungo Park, John Hanning Speke, and Henry Morton Stanley. Among the archaeologists and anthropologists are Gertrude Bell, Howard Carter, the Leakey family, and Heinrich Schliemann.


The great natural scientists Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace are discussed in detail, as are the natural scientific expeditions in North America of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, William Dunbar and George Hunter, and John Wesley Powell. So, too, are the eighteenth-cen-tury Pacific explorers James Cook and Matthew Flinders and the modern oceanographers Robert Ballard and Jacques-Yves Cousteau. Not to be ex-cluded are explorers—both in the field and in the laboratory—in the areas of conservation, entomology and botany, geology, and photography, from the inestimable naturalists Alexander von Humboldt and Joseph Banks to the ethnobotanist Richard Schultes and the mountaineering photographer Bradford Washburn.

Subjects meriting longer survey entries include the Age of Discovery, maps and mapmaking, the history of oceanography, Russian exploration, and space exploration—the latter covered in separate articles on manned and unmanned missions.

Other entries are devoted to important geographic locations—such as the Amazon River and Basin, Antarctica, the Arctic, Mount Everest, and the Gobi Desert—and to influential institutions and organizations—such as the African Association, Hakluyt Society, National Geographic Society, and Royal Geographical Society.

On Sunday, November 4, 1492, a few short weeks after his arrival in what would come to be called the New World, Christopher Columbus made the following journal entry (referring to himself, as he sometimes did, in the third person):

The Admiral showed cinnamon and pepper to a few of the Indians of that place . . . and he says that they recognized it; and they said by signs that nearby to the southeast there was a lot of it. He showed the gold and pearls, and certain old men answered that in a place that they called Bohio there was a vast amount. . . . Moreover, he understood that there were big ships and much trade and that all of this was to the southeast. . . . The Admiral decided to return to the ship to wait for the two men whom he had sent and to decide whether to leave and seek those lands.

The lands he sought, of course, were part of the West Indies rather than the East Indies—a miscalculation of thousands of miles. Yet in attempting his voyage—for whatever combination of religious, economic, and scien-tific reasons—Columbus had taken a major step in launching the great Age of Discovery, opening the way to far-flung expeditions of the Earth and outer space, and setting forth into the new world of scientific research and understanding.

Neil Alexander Hamilton



and Expeditions

Volume One


1788: Naturalist Joseph Banks and several other prominent Englishmen form the African Association to explore West Africa

1790: The association issues its first report1795: Scottish explorer Mungo Park navigates the Niger River for the association1831: The association merges with the Royal Geographical Society

AFRICAN ASSOCIATION

The African Association was a private British exploration group that spon-sored expeditions into the African interior in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in the hope of advancing scientific and geographic knowledge, as well as Britain’s economic and political interests.

In eighteenth-century London, dining clubs emerged at which the wealthy socialized and discussed a wide range of issues. One such group, the Saturday Club, included Joseph Banks, the famed British naturalist who had sailed with Captain James Cook on voyages to the Pacific Ocean in the late 1760s. On June 9, 1788, Banks and eleven other men in the club met at St. Alban’s Tavern, where they founded the Association for Promoting the Discovery of the Interior Parts of Africa, more commonly called by its members the African Association.

The association was created at a time when Europeans were showing a greater interest in Africa, but the British government, which was finan-cially strapped, had no plans to finance expeditions to that vast continent. Europeans already had some familiarity with the interior of Africa. The French had established trading posts 600 miles (960 kilometers) inland on the Senegal River in the early 1700s, English traders had sailed a good distance up the Gambia River, and the Portuguese had explored the lower reaches of the Congo River.

Maps of the African interior, however, displayed large blank spots where Europeans had yet to venture. Geographic obstacles were partly responsible for keeping Europeans from penetrating deep into the continent. The trans-atlantic slave trade required no inland travel by Europeans, as African tribes generally brought slaves to the coast to be loaded onto ships. In addition, for many years, there were no other known commodities sufficiently attractive to draw foreigners inland.

In time, however, Europeans sought to know more about the African interior so that they could expand their trade with the native peoples. By the mid-1700s, Britain and France were competing for greater influence in western Africa. Concurrently, the Enlightenment stimulated curiosity


about distant lands, as did the far-flung expeditions of James Cook, James Bruce, and others. Added to these developments, Europeans who worked to end slavery wanted to learn more about the African societies that were involved in the practice.

From the outset, the African Association displayed a sense of European superiority toward Africa. Its first report, issued in 1790, declared that the association sought to bring the benefits of science and mechanics to “nations hitherto consigned to hopeless barbarism.” The association was headed by a secretary; the first was Hugh Beaufoy, an antislavery Quaker. Second to the secretary in standing was the treasurer; Joseph Banks was the first to serve in that position.

The primary interests of the association were to find new items of trade; expand scientific knowledge, especially botanical; and map geographical features. Among the questions on the minds of members were where the Niger River began and ended, whether there existed any great empires in central Africa, and where there might be gold. The founders of the associa-tion stated,

Resolved that as no species of information is more ardently desired, or more generally useful, than that which improves the science of Geography; and as the . . . continent of Africa . . . is still in great measure unexplored, the mem-bers of this Club do form themselves into an Association for promoting the discovery of the inland parts of that quarter of the world.

As the group wanted to do more than promote trade or satisfy the mem-bers’ curiosity, it supported the British drive to acquire new colonies in Africa. For example, in 1793, the association pushed for Great Britain to control the trade between the Barbary states (the North African states of Tripolitania, now part of Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) and Central Africa. Six years later, Banks advocated the British sending an army into the land around the Gambia and crushing any African forces that might oppose it.

The association sponsored several expeditions into the African interior. Some of these expeditions failed and resulted in the deaths of their leaders, while others achieved their goals. In 1795, the Scotsman Mungo Park navi-gated the Niger River. In 1797, Friedrich Hornemann left Cairo in an at-tempt to find Timbuktu (a legendary, ancient city, now called Tombouctou, in Mali), but he disappeared and was never heard from again. Later explor-ers learned that he had contracted dysentery and died after reaching the Niger River.

As a result of the club’s efforts, much more was known about African geography by the early 1800s. In addition, Park’s book Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa: Performed in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797, which was published in 1816, stimulated interest in the association.


See also: Banks, Joseph; Park, Mungo; Royal Geographical Society.

The African Association existed for forty-three years. Over this time, it counted a total of 212 subscribing members, with its largest member-ship for any single year, 109, occurring in 1791. Among its members were the Duke of Grafton and the Earl of Bute, and at least one woman, the Countess of Aylesbury.

In the 1820s, the British government began sponsoring expeditions to Africa, which reduced the need for the association to do so. In 1831, the African Association merged with the Royal Geographical Society, which had been founded the previous year. The association had expanded the geographic and scientific knowledge of Africa, served as the forerunner to later private organizations dedicated to the study of geography, encouraged the British government to explore the continent, and paved the way for in-creased British trade and imperialist expansion.

Further ReadingHallett, Robin, ed. Records of the African Association, 1788–1831. London:

Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1964.Sattin, Anthony. The Gates of Africa: Death, Discovery, and the Search for

Timbuktu. New York: St. Martin’s, 2003.

AMAZON RIVER AND BASIN

The Amazon watershed in equatorial Brazil includes the largest tropical plain in the world. The river itself stretches for 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers) from source to mouth, making it second only to the Nile River in length.

The Amazon River ranges from 1 mile wide to 30 miles wide (from 1.6 to 48 kilometers) during floods. The estuary of the Amazon (where

1541: Francisco de Orellana of Spain is the first European to discover the Amazon River at its confluence with the Napo River

1637–1638: Pedro Teixeira of Portugal journeys along the Amazon River system and reaches Quito in Ecuador

1800: With Frenchman Aimé Bonpland, the Prussian naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt makes the first modern scientific exploration of the Amazon basin

1817–1820: German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix and botanist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius explore the Amazon in Brazil

1914: Former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt leads a scientific expedition into the Amazon basin

1971: American author-photographer Loren McIntyre locates the source of the Amazon River in the southern highlands of Peru

2000: Polish-American explorer Andrew Pietowski uses the Global Positioning System to more accurately pinpoint the source of the Amazon


Scientific and map-ping expeditions to the Amazon basin continued into the early twentieth century, but it took later technological innovations—aerial photography and the satellite-based Global Positioning System—to confirm the source of the river. (Library of Congress)

it empties into the Atlantic Ocean) is so wide, measured at more than 150 miles (240 kilometers), that the first Europeans to explore the South American coast had no idea they had come across a river. In fact, the river’s vastness caused the early Portuguese explorers to name it O Rio Mar, the River Sea. At times, ocean-sized, 16-foot-high (5-meter-high) waves pound against the banks of the river’s lower reaches. The size of the river, dense tropical growth, and treacherous conditions combine to make the Amazon difficult to investigate yet enticing to generations of scientific explorers.

The first European to discover the Amazon River (the region had long been inhabited by indigenous peoples) was the Spanish conquista-dor Francisco de Orellana, who, in 1541, left Quito, Ecuador, in search of gold. Orellana and his party headed east and crossed the Andes Mountains. Decimated by illness, the party eventually descended to the Napo River, which rises in Ecuador and flows through northeastern Peru, where it emp-ties into the Amazon River. Upon reaching the Napo, they built a boat, ar - riv ing at the river’s junction with the Amazon River in February 1542.

In August, they descended the Amazon and reached the Atlantic Ocean.

The first journey upriver by a European began in 1637, when the Portuguese Pedro Teixeira left Belém, Brazil, near the mouth of the Amazon. His massive party, which consisted of some 2,000 people in more than thirty canoes, reached Quito early the following year. Teixeira undertook a return trip from Quito to Belém through the Amazon basin in 1638–1639 with the Jesuit father Cristóbal de Acuña, who wrote extensive ob-servations about the forests, fish, wildlife, and native people they encountered.

Much as they did in other parts of the Western Hemisphere, the indigenous people of the Amazon basin suffered grievously from dis-eases—such as smallpox—brought by the Europeans. Perhaps 90 per-cent of the native population died due to epidemics during the early


years of European exploration. Many long-standing indigenous settlements in the Amazon basin (Amazonia) were decimated.

The first modern scientific expedition in the Amazon region was led by Alexander von Humboldt, a Prussian naturalist, in 1800. With French bot-anist Aimé Bonpland, Humboldt explored the Orinoco River in Venezuela and, later, the region in Peru where the Amazon River begins. Together, they proved that the Orinoco River system connects with the Amazon River system.

Johann Baptist von Spix, a German naturalist, and Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius, a German botanist, traveled to the Brazilian Amazon in 1817–1820 at the behest of the king of Bavaria. They collected specimens of 6,500 plants, 2,700 insects, 350 birds, 150 amphibians, 116 fish, and eighty-five mammals. Englishman Henry Walter Bates spent eleven years, from 1848 to 1859, in the interior of Amazonia, where he compiled the single largest collection of insects ever made by one individual in the region.

Numerous other expeditions have conducted scientific research in the region, including one led by former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in 1914 and others; the trip was sponsored by the U.S. National Geographic Society and the Brazilian government. Accompanying the expedition was George Cherrie, an American naturalist who had spent thirty years explor-ing the region. Roosevelt was one of the few other American explorers to that time to venture into the Amazon basin.

Cândido Mariano da Silva Rondon, a renowned Brazilian explorer, joined Roosevelt in leading the expedition. Rondon recently had discov-ered what he called the Rio da Duvida, or River of Doubt (which begins in northwestern Brazil and flows 400 miles, or 640 kilometers, to the Aripuanã River), while planning for the building of a railroad, but he had no idea where the river went. The Roosevelt expedition aimed to explore and map the river.

The party experienced numerous hardships along a river punctuated by dangerous rapids. Illness and the loss of canoes and supplies hampered the explorers, and Roosevelt nearly died from malaria. He wrote in May 1914,

We have had a hard and somewhat dangerous but very successful trip. No less than six weeks were spent . . . forcing our way down through what seemed a literally endless succession of rapids and cataracts. For forty-eight days we saw no human being. In passing these rapids we lost five of the seven canoes. . . . One of our best men lost his life in the rapids. Under the strain one of the men went completely mad . . . and when punished by the sergeant he . . . murdered the sergeant and fled into the wilderness.

Still, they traveled more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) on the river, collected more than 3,000 specimens, and mapped the entire


River of Doubt—being the first to do so. “Colonel Roosevelt is not a fool scientist,” said Cyrus C. Adams, editor of the Bulletin of the American Geographical Society, in 1914. “No one can doubt that he is a careful stu-dent and cautious contributor to science, and especially that he is a most careful geographer.”

In 1971, author-photographer Loren McIntyre, working in coopera-tion with the National Geographic Society, used aerial photos to locate the source of the Amazon River. He traversed Peru’s Apurímac River, an Amazon tributary, and then hiked through the southern highlands of Peru to reach the Continental Divide. From a ridge on a mountain named Nevado Mismi, McIntyre sited a small pond, at 17,220 feet (5,250 meters) above sea level and identified it as the source.

Yet the finding came into dispute. As a result, in 2000, a National Geographic team led by Andrew Pietowski, a Polish immigrant living in Carmel, New York, used the Global Positioning System (GPS) to pinpoint the source. Pietowski’s team consisted of twenty-two explorers from the United States, Peru, Canada, Spain, and Poland. They confirmed McIntyre’s finding of Nevado Mismi as the source of the Amazon River.

Further ReadingMedina, Toribia José, ed. The Discovery of the Amazon. New York: Dover,

1988.Palmatary, Helen Constance. The River of the Amazons: Its Discovery and Early

Exploration, 1500–1743. New York: Carlton, 1965.

AMUNDSEN, ROALD 18721928

A Norwegian explorer who was the first to traverse the Northwest Passage (a sea route from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Arctic Ocean) and the first to reach the South Pole, Roald Amundsen also found the location

See also: Humboldt, Alexander von.

1872: Born on July 16 in Borge, Norway1897: Joins the Belgian Antarctica Expedition as second mate1904: Fixes the position of the North Magnetic Pole1905–1906: Becomes the first explorer to traverse the Northwest Passage

in a single voyage in a single ship1911: Becomes the first explorer to reach the South Pole1918–1920: Journeys along the northern coasts of Europe and Asia to

Nome, Alaska1926: With Italian Umberto Nobile and three other explorers, flies over

the North Pole in a dirigible1928: Lost during a mission to search for Nobile in the Arctic


of the North Magnetic Pole and paved the way for further scientific discov-eries in Antarctica.

Roald Engelbregt Grauning Amundsen was born on July 16, 1872, in Borge, Norway, to a family of ship owners and captains. His father was Jens Amundsen, and his mother was Gustava Sahlquist, and he was raised in Oslo.

Roald’s mother wanted him to become a doctor, but he was not at-tracted to the profession. In fact, to hear Amundsen tell it, by age fifteen, he had determined to become an explorer as a result of having read the works of John Franklin. A Briton, Franklin had died while searching for the Northwest Passage in the 1840s. Amundsen said that he read Franklin’s works with a “fervid fascination.” Amundsen wrote in his autobiography, My Life as an Explorer (1927),

Strangely enough, the thing in Sir John’s narrative that appealed to me most strongly was the sufferings he and his men endured. A strange ambition burned within me to endure those same sufferings.

As a boy, Amundsen began to prepare himself for his chosen career, developing a strong physique from skiing and hiking in his mountainous homeland. He wrote,

At every opportunity of freedom from school, I went out in the open, ex-ploring the hills and mountains which rise in every direction around Oslo, increasing my skill in traversing ice and snow and hardening my muscles for the coming great adventure.

Yet another formative influence on Amundsen was the first crossing of Greenland by the Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen in 1888. Nansen had shown that with the right technique and technology, polar explora-tion could be successful. Nansen’s use of skis, moreover, fit perfectly with Amundsen’s own talent. Dreaming of becoming a hero such as Nansen, Amundsen continued to hone his skiing abilities while also learning how to handle sled dogs, manage a crew, and properly supply an expedition.

Following the death of his father in 1886 and his mother in 1893, Amundsen abandoned all thoughts of becoming a doctor, entered the military, and took to the sea. In 1897, he joined the Belgian Antarctica Expedition as second mate. He and the other men aboard the Belgica were the first Europeans to winter in Antarctica, after their ship became locked in by sea ice near the Antarctica Peninsula. The experience strengthened Amundsen’s already keen interest in Antarctica, but it also revealed to him the perils of such an environment, including illnesses such as scurvy and dementia caused by the long periods of feeling closed in.


Northwest Passage

Amundsen turned his attention northward and determined to become the first person to sail the Northwest Passage from beginning to end in one trip. He would do so, he said, in “the service of science.” In 1901, he bought a small fishing vessel, the 47-ton Gjoa, in Norway. Then, he went about raising funds for the expedition and collecting supplies. Despite his efforts, money was a constant problem. When creditors threatened to repossess his ship, he quickly gathered his crew of seven men, and under the cover of darkness and heavy rain, they sailed from Norway on June 16, 1903.

The Northwest Passage had been the object of explorers since the first Europeans had arrived in the Americas hundreds of years earlier. Amundsen called it “that baffling mystery to all the navigators of the past.” He would spend three years, from 1903 to 1906, on his arduous journey.

He had selected the Gjoa with the idea that a small ship could bet-ter navigate the dangerous icy waters than could a large one. The Gjoa was only 72 feet (22 meters) long and 11 feet (3.4 meters) wide, with a shallow

Roald Amundsen and his party planted the Norwegian flag at the geographic South Pole on December 14, 1911. They spent the next three days making observations and conducting studies. (Bob Thomas/ Popperfoto/Getty Images)


draught. It had one mast and one mainsail, along with an auxiliary motor. Amundsen crammed the ship with supplies; even the deck was loaded with crates.

At Greenland, Amundsen picked up huskies to pull his dogsleds. In August 1903, he and his men stopped at Beechy Island (at the western end of Devon Island between the Beaufort Sea and Baffin Bay in the Canadian Arctic). Then, they headed south into Peel Sound (also in the Canadian Arctic, between Prince of Wales Island and Somerset Island), where they battled a fire in the engine room, crashed into a rock, and endured a violent gale.

In September, they set anchor at a small harbor off King William Island (part of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago in what is today Nunavut). They called the harbor Gjoa Haven, and it became their refuge for the coming winter.

To fix the position of the North Magnetic Pole, Amundsen traveled from the harbor to Boothia Peninsula (northeast of King William Island, across James Ross Strait); the round trip took seven weeks and the chal-lenging conditions required the use of dogsleds. In spring 1904, through an interpolative method involving four readings, he fixed the position of the


magnetic pole on the peninsula at a site slightly farther north than the ear-lier fix in 1831, by James Clark Ross, a British explorer. (Shortly thereafter, scientists debated the accuracy of Amundsen’s readings and concluded they were deficient. Today the North Magnetic Pole, which moves rather than remaining stationary, is located well north of the Boothia Peninsula, in the Arctic Ocean.)

Ultimately, Amundsen and his crew spent two years at Gjoa Haven, where they set up a magnetic observatory containing photographic record-ers to conduct more studies of the magnetic pole. From 1903 to 1905, Amundsen interacted extensively with the local Inuit, the people called Netsilik. Amundsen claimed that he and his men “showed them the mar-vels of our equipment, and treated them with the greatest consideration.” However, his writings of them reveal at least an initial condescending European attitude:

This was truly a thrilling moment in the lives of these poor savages. No one of them had ever seen a white man before, yet white men were a part of the legendary tradition of their tribe. Seventy-two years earlier, their grand-fathers had met Sir James Clark Ross on almost this very ground.

During the time that the Gjoa was anchored off King William Island, some 200 men, women, and children erected fifty “Eskimo huts” near the ship. In his contact with the Netsilik, Amundsen collected samples of cloth-ing, cooking implements, and other items that he intended for a museum exhibit. He took a keen interest in Netsilik cultural practices and praised some of them, including the skill of the women at making clothes from cari-bou skins. In all, he made important ethnographic studies of the Netsilik, while learning from them how to build snow houses and treat frostbite—skills he later needed for an expedition to the South Pole.

Amundsen and his men departed Gjoa Haven in August 1905. For the next three weeks, the shallow channels hampered their progress and nearly forced them aground. Finally, on August 26, they sighted the Charles Hansson, a whaling ship from San Francisco. This sighting meant that they would soon enter deeper waters and had nearly completed their journey through the Northwest Passage. “We had succeeded!” Amundsen later wrote. “What a glorious sight that was—the distant outlines of a whaling vessel in the west!”

Still, ice forced the crew of the Gjoa to spend the winter at King Point (near Herschel Island off the coast of the Yukon Territory in Canada), and they did not conclude their trip until they reached Nome, Alaska, in August 1906. Earlier, Amundsen had traveled more than 500 miles (800 kilome-ters) overland by skis and snowshoes to Eagle City, Alaska, where he wired news of his accomplishment. The completion of the journey made him the


first person to traverse the entire Northwest Passage in a single voyage in a single ship.

The South Pole

Amundsen also had wanted to be the first person to reach the North Pole, but when he learned that the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary already had accomplished the feat (Cook in 1908, Peary in 1909, although Cook’s feat largely has been discredited), he set his sights on the South Pole.

He made this decision in secret, for he feared he would be beaten by a competitor, perhaps the British explorer Robert Scott, in the race to Antarctica. In fact, when Amundsen’s ship, Fram, sailed from Morocco, even his crew thought that Amundsen had set the North Pole as his des-tination. He did not tell them otherwise until the ship was well into the Atlantic Ocean that the South Pole would be their goal.

Amundsen recruited eighteen men for the mission to Antarctica. He ap-pointed Thorvald Nilsen as captain of the Fram and made himself second-in-command. He also brought with him sled dogs from North Greenland, known for their hardiness. While he intended to engage in scientific re-search during the expedition, his most important objective was getting to the South Pole.

The Fram reached Antarctica in January 1911, and Amundsen estab-lished his base camp, which he called Franheim, on the eastern edge of the Ross Ice Shelf at an inlet named the Bay of Whales. He chose the loca-tion because, as he later recalled, from the Ross Ice Shelf, “We could . . . go farther south in the ship than at any other point—a whole degree farther south than Scott could hope to get in McMurdo Sound, where he was to have his station.” The site also was abundant in seals and penguins that could be killed for food.

On October 19, 1911, Amundsen and his party, consisting of four other men (Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, and Oscar Wisting) and four sleds pulled by fifty-two dogs, began their trek to the South Pole, some 870 miles away (1,400 kilometers). This was their second attempt, as they had been forced to abort an earlier attempt in September.

The explorers had to dodge crevasses that, hidden beneath the ice, could swallow up men, sleds, and whole dog teams. At one point, Amundsen and his men had to fight hard to keep a sled from meeting such a fate. For nourishment, the men consumed food they earlier had placed in caches along the first stages of the route. As they journeyed farther, they shot and ate several of the dogs.

The party battled blizzards whipped by winds of 35 miles (56 kilome-ters) per hour and struggled to find their way through thick fog. Yet, in all, the weather favored them, and on December 8, Amundsen and his men passed the point where, in 1908, British explorer Ernest Shackleton had been forced


to turn back. This put them 95 miles (150 kilometers) from the pole. By then, the men were suffering from frostbite; however, they were worried that Scott might yet beat them, so they pushed ahead at full speed.

At 3 p.m. on Friday, December 14, 1911, the sleds were halted. The men had reached the South Pole. With their battered hands, they planted the Norwegian flag at the spot. Amundsen named the surrounding plain King Haakon VII’s Plateau. That evening, the men celebrated with a meal of seal meat. Amundsen wrote in his diary: “So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole. God be thanked!”

Over the next three days, the party completed observations to confirm that they had reached the South Pole. Before leaving, they erected a tent and left a message inside of it to inform Scott of their accomplishment.

Their return trip to the Fram took thirty-nine days; they reached the ship on January 25, 1912. There followed a journey of several weeks to Tasmania, Australia. On March 7, 1912, Amundsen cabled his brother from Hobart, Tasmania, with the news that he had reached the South Pole.

Amundsen’s adept use of dogs and skis, his single-minded determina-tion to reach the pole, and his ability to supply his party with food and other necessities, all contributed to his success. He said as much when he later wrote,

º 'º '


I may say that this is the greatest factor—the way in which the expedition is equipped—the way in which every difficulty is foreseen, and precautions taken for meeting or avoiding it. Victory awaits him who has everything in order.

Northeast Passage and North Pole

In 1918, Amundsen began a trip through the Northeast Passage. (Also known as the Northern Route, it comprises the Arctic Ocean along the northern coast of Eurasia). He planned to have his ship, the Maud, drift along the currents that bear the ice floes of the Arctic Ocean and then cross the North Pole, but he failed to reach the pole. Instead he sailed along the northern coast of Europe and Asia and, in 1920, reached Nome, Alaska. He was the first person to sail along the entire northern coast of Europe and Asia since Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld, a Swedish explorer, had done so in the 1870s.

Despite Amundsen’s failure to reach the North Pole, important scien-tific work was accomplished during the journey by his colleague, Harald Sverdrup, who studied ocean currents and posited that the effects of the Earth’s rotation could best be observed in the currents of the polar regions. Sverdrup’s work aboard the Maud, including work he did after the trip of 1918–1920, enabled him and other scientists to better understand the physical oceanography of currents. He also researched meteorology, mag-netics, and tidal dynamics.

In May 1926, Amundsen joined with the Italian explorer and engi-neer Umberto Nobile and the explorers Lincoln Ellsworth (an American), Hjalmar Riiser-Larsen (a Norwegian), and Oscar Wisting (also a Norwegian), to fly across the North Pole in the dirigible Norge (“Norway”). Nobile had designed and built the airship, and the men flew it from the island of Spitsbergen, Norway, to Teller, Alaska, near Nome, in a little more than seventy hours. Their journey included passage over unexplored regions of the Arctic Ocean north of Alaska. (The American explorer Richard Byrd claimed to have flown over the North Pole forty-eight hours before Amundsen, in an airplane, but there still is some debate over whether he in fact did this.)

Amundsen and Nobile argued over which of them should get most of the credit for the flight. Despite this disagreement, when Nobile was lost during a polar flight in 1928, Amundsen volunteered to help find him. Searchers found Nobile, but, in the effort, Amundsen disappeared.

Amundsen was last heard from on June 28, 1928, after taking off in a plane from Norway. A pontoon from the plane was found on August 31, but Amundsen’s body was never recovered. He had fulfilled his “service [to] science,” and in the end, service to a friend.


See also: Antarctica; Scott, Robert Falcon.

Further ReadingHuntford, Roland, ed. The Amundsen Photographs. New York: Atlantic

Monthly Press, 1987.———. The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole.

New York: Modern Library, 1999.Langley, Andrew, and Kevin Barnes. The Great Polar Adventure: The Journeys

of Roald Amundsen. New York: Chelsea House, 1994.Vaeth, J. Gordon. To the Ends of the Earth: The Explorations of Roald Amundsen.

New York: Harper and Row, 1962.

ANDREWS, ROY CHAPMAN 18841960

An American naturalist whose pursuit of whales in the Pacific Ocean and fossils in China rewrote the history of the Earth’s development, Roy Chapman Andrews is, according to some accounts, the model for the fic-tional movie character Indiana Jones. Yet Andrews neither pursued the Holy Grail, nor did he advocate risky undertakings. To him, science and careful preparation came first.

Andrews was born on January 26, 1884, in Beloit, Wisconsin, to Charles Ezra Andrews, a wholesale druggist, and Cora May Chapman. He enjoyed bird watching and decided early on to become an explorer and work in a natural history museum. Self-taught in taxidermy (the preparing and stuffing of dead animal skins so that they appear lifelike), he studied physiology and anatomy at Beloit College while working as a taxidermist at the Logan Museum of Anthropology.

In 1905, when Andrews was in his junior year of college, he experi-enced a traumatic event. During an outing with a friend, the canoe in which they were riding capsized. Andrews’s friend drowned, while Andrews nearly perished. As he struggled to come to terms with his friend’s death and his own near death, Andrews concluded that, since life was so short and

1884: Born on January 26 in Beloit, Wisconsin1908: Writes scientific paper on right whales1909–1912: Leads expeditions to study cetaceans in Japan, China, the

Philippines, Borneo, Celebes Island, and Korea1922: Organizes his first Central Asiatic Expedition1923: With George Olsen, discovers dinosaur eggs in the Gobi Desert

of China1930: Leads his last Central Asiatic Expedition to eastern Inner Mongolia1935: Becomes director of the American Museum of Natural History in

New York City1960: Dies in Carmel, California, on March 11


precarious, he must do everything reasonably possible to pursue his desire for museum work.

In 1906, Andrews received his bachelor’s degree from Beloit. Then, with $30 in his pocket, he journeyed to New York City, where he sought a position at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). Anxious to be hired, he offered to do anything, even scrub floors. The museum’s di-rector, Hermon C. Bumpus, impressed by the young man, made him an assistant to James L. Clark in the Department of Taxidermy. Andrews later recalled his first day on the job:

I shut my eyes and made a little prayer, then walked to the entrance on Seventy-Seventh Street, and, for the first time, went through the doors of the American Museum as an employee.

Cetaceans

Andrews helped build models of cetaceans (aquatic mammals such as whales, porpoises, and dolphins), including a model of a blue whale. In 1908, he wrote a scientific paper on the anatomy of a right whale based on his study of the skeleton of one from the North Atlantic.

Shortly thereafter, Andrews volunteered to travel for the museum, without pay, to British Columbia and study whales there. At shore-whaling stations, where whales were butchered by commercial hunters, Andrews measured the animals, took photographs, and studied their internal organs and skeletons. In all, he studied more than 100 whales.

Over the next few years, Andrews led several expeditions to continue his study of cetaceans: to Japan, China, the Philippines, Borneo, and Celebes Island in 1909 and 1910, and to Korea in 1911 and 1912. For his master’s degree in mammalogy from Columbia University (which he received in 1913), he wrote a thesis based on a stunning discovery.

While in Korea, he had noticed that the flukes and markings of a spe-cies known as the Korean devilfish were the same as those of the California gray whale, a species that was believed to be extinct. Andrews discovered that the two mammals were one and the same, but had been misidentified as distinct species. His finding established his reputation as an authority on Pacific cetaceans.

Central Asiatic Expeditions

Accompanied by his wife, photographer Yvette Borup (whom he married in 1914 and with whom he had two children), Andrews led expeditions to Burma and to Yunnan province in China in 1916 and 1917. While traveling along the edge of the Gobi Desert in 1919, he noticed evidence of fossils.


Based on this observation, Andrews envisioned putting together an ex-pedition to study Mongolia’s geology, paleontology, archeology, zoology, and botany. He wanted to test a theory offered by the scientist Henry Fairfield Osborn, who was president of the AMNH, that central Asia was the origin of mammalian life, including human ancestors. Newspapers sensationalized Andrews’s announcement of the upcoming expedition, calling it a search for the “missing link.”

Andrews believed in thoroughly preparing for the expedition, as he ab-horred taking chances or did not believe in engaging in adventure for the sake of adventure. Clearly, though, adventure was a part of the trip, whether it was in the excitement of finding fossils or the danger in capturing thieves who tried to rob the expedition’s camps.

In his planning, Andrews put together an innovative strategy of using automobiles in the desert. The autos allowed for the transport of equip-ment and supplies on a scale that meant a tremendous amount of work could be accomplished in a short time. Although the cars and trucks did get stuck from time to time in deep sand and mud, he later said,

The automobile was the answer to the transportation problem. With motors we could go into the desert as soon as the heavy snows had disappeared, pen-etrate the farthest reaches of Mongolia, and return before cold and snow set in.

Moreover, Andrews brought together an impressive team of geologists, archeologists, and paleontologists. All in all, it ended up being an expensive undertaking and required him to raise money. The financier J.P. Morgan donated $50,000 to the expedition, as did John D. Rockefeller, Jr.

Andrews’s first Central Asiatic Expedition began in 1922 and departed from the Mongolian city of Kalgan in the spring. Seventy-five camels loaded with supplies were led by a Mongol named Merin. The scientists traveled in Dodge cars and Fulton trucks. During the initial foray, paleontologist Walter Granger uncovered dinosaur bones in the Gobi—the first such find there. Granger patiently excavated the site, carefully removing sand from the fossils and cleaning the teeth and bones. Andrews admitted he had little pa-tience for such work. “I was inclined to employ [a] pickax,” he commented.

The explorers also found dinosaur nests with eggs. The discovery of the eggs, uncovered at Flaming Cliffs (in the Gobi Desert), stunned even the scientists. Initially they could not believe what they had uncovered and thought that the reddish-brown items, 9 inches (23 centimeters) long, might be some kind of geological deposit. But Andrews later said, “it was evident that dinosaurs did lay eggs and that we had discovered the first specimens known to science.”

Andrews speculated that the dinosaurs had found Flaming Hill to be an attractive breeding place because the sand was just the right consistency to al-


American naturalist and adventurer Roy Chapman Andrews examines 10-million-year-old dinosaur eggs, which he discovered in the Gobi Desert of Central Asia in 1923. (Topical Press Agency/Stringer/Hulton Archive/ Getty Images)

low heat and air to pass through the eggs after they had been covered and left to hatch. Paleontologist George Olsen, who was on the expedition, thought that the eggs might have been laid by the beaked herbivore Protoceratops, al-though he cautioned that he could be wrong. It is now believed that the eggs were laid by Oviraptors, dinosaurs belonging to the group called theropods and known for their birdlike skeletal features and feathers.

While Andrews was wrong about theirs being the “first specimens” (the first dinosaur eggs were found in France in 1859), it was a monumental find. Nevertheless, Andrews considered the most important discovery of the ex-pedition to be seven tiny skulls of the shrewlike Zalambdalestes. They, too, were uncovered at Flaming Cliffs and showed that mammals had shared the Earth with dinosaurs.

Newspapers around the world gave extensive coverage to the expedi-tion’s finds, particularly the dinosaur eggs. In 1924, more than 4,000 people turned out to hear Andrews present his first lecture in New York City, at the AMNH. Crowds packed the hall of the museum to see the eggs. Andrews became famous as feature stories about him appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, Harper’s, Cosmopolitan, and many other publications. To many, he seemed to be an adventurer, yet he also was an erudite scientist able to regale au-diences with his tales of discovery.

Andrews used the publicity sur-rounding him and his accomplishments to raise money for additional central Asian expeditions. He even staged a “Great Dinosaur Egg Auction.” Unfortu-nately, the auction antagonized the Chinese and the Mongols, crucial supporters of his missions, because they thought he was making money by exploiting their lands.

The second Central Asiatic Expe- dition, in 1923, also traveled to Mongolia. In 1925, came the third and largest ex-pedition, consisting of forty men, who explored Outer Mongolia. War in China in 1926 and 1927 precluded any expedi-tions in those years, but Andrews and his scientists returned in 1928; in 1930, the last of his expeditions explored eastern Inner Mongolia. The expeditions ended when revolutionary turmoil in China and financial constraints due to the Great


Depression made them no longer feasible. By then, more than 10,000 speci-mens had been collected.

American Museum of Natural History

When Andrews returned home in 1931, he became vice director of the AMNH. Four years later, he became director, although he felt himself ill suited for the position and disliked administrative work. Also in 1935, Andrews, who had divorced in 1931, married Wilhelmina Anderson Christmas.

As museum director, Andrews despaired over the dwindling funds available to sponsor explorations. At the same time, critics accused him of being ineffective and more attuned to adventure than to the mundane poli-cies necessary to running a museum. In 1941, he retired from the museum.

Over the years, Andrews had written several books, including Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera (1916), Camps and Trails in China (1918), and the best-selling On the Trail of Ancient Man (1926). In retirement, he wrote popular books about his life and explorations, including Under a Lucky Star (1943) and An Explorer Comes Home (1947). He also wrote books for young people, such as Meet Your Ancestors (1945) and the novel Quest of the Snow Leopard (1955).

Andrews retired to Carmel, California, in 1942. He died there on March 11, 1960, of a heart attack at Peninsula Community Hospital.


Although Andrews failed to find the bones of an early primitive human being or prove Osborn’s theory about central Asia being the originating point for mammalian life, his central Asiatic expeditions proved extraor-dinarily valuable to paleontologists and paved the way for numerous other explorations of the Gobi. Since the 1940s, American, Canadian, Chinese, Mongolian, Polish, Russian, and Swedish scientists have explored the des-ert. Still to be definitively answered is the question of why the Gobi con-tains so many dinosaur skeletons in such a well-preserved state.

Further ReadingArcher, Jules. Science Explorer: Roy Chapman Andrews. New York: J. Messner,

1968.Gallenkemp, Charles. Dragon Hunter: Roy Chapman Andrews and the Central

Asiatic Expeditions. New York: Viking, 2001.Pond, Alonzo W. Andrews: Gobi Explorer. New York: Grosset and Dunlap,

1972.Roy Chapman Andrews Society. http://www.roychapmanandrewssociety.org.

ANTARCTICA

Windswept, frigid, and forbidding, with a mean temperature of 71 degrees be-low zero Fahrenheit (-57 degrees Celsius) and an ice sheet that averages nearly 7,100 feet (2,200 meters) in depth, Antarctica was the last continent to be explored by human beings. It has become important to scientific exploration, providing insights into the Earth’s climate and geological history.

As late as 1819, no human being had ever set eyes on Antarctica. Yet stories about it abounded in the Western world. Medieval maps showed a continent called Terra Australis where Antarctica is. In the 1600s and 1700s, Europeans explored several islands near the continent, including the South Sandwich Islands, South Georgia, and the Kerguelen Islands.

See also: Gobi Desert.

1773: English explorer James Cook crosses the Antarctic Circle1821: James Davis of the United States makes the first known landing on Antarctica1895: Norwegian whaler Henryk John Bull makes the first recorded landing on

Antarctica outside the Antarctic Peninsula1911: Roald Amundsen of Norway becomes the first to reach the South Pole1929: Richard E. Byrd of the United States flies from the Ross Ice Shelf to the South

Pole1957: The International Geophysical Year begins with substantial scientific work in

Antarctica2004: Observations indicate that global warming has contributed to the accelerated

melting of Antarctica’s glaciers


In 1773, the British navigator James Cook, dodging icebergs while sailing on the Resolution, crossed the southern latitude 71º 10', the farthest south anyone had traveled. He thus became the first to cross the Antarctic Circle, but he did not sight the continent.

Expeditions

Russian naval expeditions in 1819 and shortly thereafter, along with sealers from several different nations, continued to probe around the mysterious continent. In 1821, Captain John Davis of the United States made the first known landing on Antarctica, going ashore at Hughes Bay at the Antarctic Peninsula, which juts into the Atlantic Ocean near Argentina and Chile. Over the five years from 1838 to 1843, several other explorers arrived in the area, with James Wilkes of the United States skirting the coast and confirming that Antarctica was indeed a separate continent.

In 1895, the Norwegian whaler Henryk John Bull made the first re-corded landing on the continent outside the Antarctic Peninsula, when he debarked at Cape Adare near the Ross Sea. That same year, the Sixth

International Geographical Conference in London urged further exploration of the continent, and, in 1899, a British expedition led by Carsten Borchgrevnik became the first group of Europeans to spend a winter on the ice mass. (In 1897, the Belgica, a ship of the Belgian Antarctic Expedition, had become locked in sea ice near the Antarctic Peninsula, and thus was the first to spend a winter at Antarctica, but in the water and not on the ice mass itself.)

Between 1901 and 1904, the British National Antarctic Expedition under Robert Falcon Scott spent two winters in McMurdo Sound in the Ross Sea. Members of the expedition tried but failed to reach the South Pole. There followed several more efforts aimed at reaching the pole. In 1908, Ernest Shackleton led a British expedition across the Queen Maud Mountains and came within about 110 miles (175 kilometers) of the pole. In doing so, he pio neered a

British naval officer Robert Falcon Scott and his party reached Antarc-tica on the ice ship Terra Nova in early 1911. Beaten to the South Pole by the Roald Amundsen expedition later that year, Scott and four others died on the journey back to base camp. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


route across the Ross Ice Shelf that other explorers would follow. He also brought back samples of coal that proved Antarctica was once semitropical.

The South Pole finally was reached in December 1911, when an expe-dition led by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen pushed 700 miles (1,125 kilometers) across the Ross Ice Shelf, fighting fierce storms and the debilitating effects of thin air at the 10,500-foot (3,200-meter) elevation of the ice plateau. Amundsen beat out Scott, who returned to Antarctica and reached the South Pole in January 1912, five weeks after Amundsen. Scott and his men died before completing their return trip.

In describing Amundsen’s feat, National Geographic magazine reported,

[Amundsen] has defined the eastern and southern boundaries of the Great Ice Barrier. . . . This enormous glacial ice plain is one of the wonders of the world. It is a solid mass of ice . . . approximately 800 to 1,600 feet [240 to 490 meters] thick, and covering an area of about 100,000 square miles [160,000 square kilometers], or considerably larger than New York, Massa-chusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont combined.

Explorers penetrated Antarctica by air, too. In 1928, George Hubert Wilkins of Australia flew along the Antarctic Peninsula. The following year, Richard E. Byrd of the United States flew from the Ross Ice Shelf to the South Pole. He made additional flights from 1933 to 1935 to conduct a photographic survey. In 1935, another American, Lincoln Ellsworth, be-came the first to cross Antarctica by air.

The International Geophysical Year

Beginning in 1939, expeditions to Antarctica focused more on scientific projects. Richard Byrd established stations staffed with scientists; so, too, did the Argentines, Australians, British, Chileans, and French. (Science had its military applications, too. With the advent of the cold war in the 1940s, the American military monitored human experience in frigid conditions as a way to prepare for possible battle with the Soviet Union.)

A pivotal moment in scientific research occurred when, in 1952, the International Council of Scientific Unions proposed a series of global geophysical activities for January 1957 through December 1958, dubbed International Geophysical Year (IGY). Sixty-seven countries were involved in studying global geophysical phenomena.

Although the activities included projects in the equatorial region and the Arctic, Antarctica was the center of attention. A series of stations was established there to make continuous measurements, leading to advances in the study of meteorology, and, for the first time, scientists measured the thickness of Antarctica’s ice mass. In support of the IGY, the U.S. Navy


established five coastal stations and three interior stations on Antarctica, and explored vast regions of Wilkes Land. In March 1958, a team led by Dr. Vivian E. Fuchs completed the first land crossing of Antarctica, traveling about 2,150 miles (3,460 kilometers) in ninety-eight days.

To keep Antarctica from becoming militarized, twelve nations, includ-ing Britain, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States, signed a treaty in 1959 in which they recognized “that it is in the interest of all mankind that Antarctica shall continue forever to be used exclusively for peaceful

Scientists lower a current meter into the frigid water of McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, to study ice movements. The McMurdo Station research center was established by the United States in 1956 to collect data on the continent’s ecosystem. (David Boyer/National Geographic/Getty Images)


purposes and shall not become the scene or object of international discord.” The treaty prohibited military bases and fortifications, weapons testing, and the like. It encouraged scientific programs and the exchange of scientific personnel and observations, but it failed to resolve the territorial claims made by several nations. The treaty was renewed in 1991, with a protocol banning mineral and oil exploration for fifty years and providing for wildlife protection.

Today, numerous scientific stations operate in Antarctica under the sponsorship of more than fifteen countries. They range in size from fewer than twelve people to the hundreds accommodated in summer by McMurdo Station (operated by the United States). Many scientists work indoors, while others do fieldwork and labor in difficult outdoor conditions. They study the plates of the Earth’s crust, fossils, and meteorites.

One important discovery occurred in 1985, when British scientists dis-covered the ozone hole. The ozone layer, a bed of ozone molecules in the Earth’s stratosphere, greatly reduces the amount of certain ultraviolet rays (UVBs) that reaches the planet’s surface. Without this protection, UVB rays can harm human beings by increasing the risk of skin cancer and cata-racts and by damaging immune systems. UVB exposure also can harm ter-restrial plant life, single-cell organisms, and aquatic ecosystems.

The ozone hole—actually a reduction in the concentrations of ozone—was caused in part by chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a family of man-made chemical compounds developed for use in aerosol propellents and refrig-eration. In 1987, several nations signed the Montreal Protocol, in which they pledged to stop making and using CFCs. By 2008, the protocol had been signed by 193 nations, more than had signed an environmental treaty ever before. Since the original signing of the protocol, CFC production has dropped nearly 97 percent. Yet in 2006, the ozone hole expanded to a re-cord 11,400,000 square miles (29,500,000 square kilometers).

In 2004 and later, observations indicated that global warming had contributed to the accelerated melting of Antarctica’s glaciers. For example, American and Argentine scientists have discovered how rising temperatures have caused an increase in the speed at which glaciers are moving, meaning that these ice masses are being pushed into the ocean more quickly, where they will melt.

Further ReadingMartin, Stephen. A History of Antarctica. Sydney, Australia: State Library of

New South Wales Press, 1996.Reader’s Digest. Antarctica: The Extraordinary History of Man’s Conquest of the

Frozen Continent. New York: Reader’s Digest, 1990.Roberts, Leslie Carol. The Entire Earth and Sky: Views on Antarctica. Lincoln:

University of Nebraska Press, 2008.

See also: Amundsen, Roald; Byrd, Richard E.; Cook, James; International Geophysical Year.


ARCTIC

The Arctic comprises all of the lands and waters north of the Arctic Circle. Beginning in the fifteenth century, Europeans explored the region in what is today northern Canada in search of the Northwest Passage, a sea route be-tween the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The entire Arctic has been the scene of extensive scientific research—both that which coincided with the search for the passage and that which came later.

Although Arctic temperatures are variable, winters generally are long and cold and summers are short and cool. The lowest temperatures of -90 degrees Fahrenheit (-68 degrees Celsius) are reached in Greenland and northern Siberia. But maximum temperatures of about 23 to 36 degrees Fahrenheit (-5 to +2 degrees Celsius) are common on the ice sheet, such as in Greenland, and highs of 70 to 100 degrees Fahrenheit (21 to 37 degrees Celsius) are common on land areas. During the summers, there is continu-ous sunlight; during the winters, continuous darkness.

The region generally is defined as lying north of the Arctic Circle (66º

33' N), which places it north of the tree line (the point beyond which trees do not grow). North of 75º latitude, ice is permanent, and icebergs flow (or “calve”) into the ocean from western Greenland and northeastern Canada.

Long before Europeans arrived in the Arctic, the Inuit explored the re-gion. Evidence also indicates that in ancient times a Greek navigator reached Iceland. And long before the scientific revolution emerged in Europe in the fifteenth century, Norsemen came here.

Search for the Northwest Passage

Much of the Arctic exploration by Europeans after 1492 was in search of the Northwest Passage, the hoped-for course that would allow easier and

1610: English explorer Henry Hudson explores Hudson Bay and searches for the Northwest Passage

1733–1743: Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering leads the Great Northern Expedition and maps Russia’s Arctic coastline

1790–1791: A Russian expedition sailing on the Slava Rossii charts the coastline of Russian America

1909: Americans Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson reach the North Pole

1937: A Soviet team led by Ivan Papanin winters at the North Pole on the world’s first drifting ice station

1957: The U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus travels beneath the North Pole


quicker travel between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, a string of failed efforts characterized the search.

In 1576, the Englishman Martin Frobisher sailed to Frobisher Bay, an inlet of the Labrador Sea at the southeastern corner of Baffin Island (which is located between Canada and Greenland). He thought the bay would lead to the Pacific but was proved wrong. Ten years later, John Davis, a fellow Englishman, sailed even farther north and reached the Davis Strait, between Baffin Island and Greenland.

In 1610, Henry Hudson, sailing for the English, explored the massive Hudson Bay (in Canada’s Arctic region), thinking it would provide an out-let to the Pacific. But his crew, tired of the search, mutinied and set Hudson, his son, and several other men adrift on a small boat in June 1611. They were never seen again.

In 1616, the English navigators William Baffin and Robert Bylot jour-neyed as far north as Ellesmere Island and nearby Greenland. In the 1700s, several British expeditions tried to find an entrance to the Northwest Passage from the Pacific. Most notably, from 1776 to 1779 Captain James Cook sailed along the west coasts of Canada and Alaska.

Amid the search for the Northwest Passage, naval parties from Russia traversed the Arctic. From 1733 to 1743, Vitus Jonassen Bering, a Dane who had joined the Russian navy, led the Great Northern Expedition, organized in accordance with Czar Peter I’s order to bring “glory” to Russia “through the arts and sciences.” Bering explored from Arkhangelsk, along the White Sea, to Bolshoy Baranov Cape, along the East Siberian Sea. In 1741, he and Aleksi Illich Chirikov reached America, where they discovered for Russia the Aleutian and Komandorski islands. The expedition mapped much of Russia’s Arctic coastline. That same year, Semyon Chelyuskin reached Eurasia’s north-ernmost point, Cape Chelyuskin, a portion of tundra extending north from the Taymyr Peninsula.

In 1790–1791, an expedition sailing on the Slava Rossii (Glory for Russia) charted the coastline of Russian America from Prince William Sound ( just east of present-day Anchorage) to Cape Prince of Wales (di-rectly east of Russian Siberia), including Diomede Island and St. Lawrence Island. Their findings were used to help compile the Atlas of the Northern Part of the East Ocean, which was published in 1826.

Several Russian expeditions from about 1820 to 1840 surveyed the Bering Sea and Bering Strait, among other areas, which led to the publica-tion in 1852 of the Atlas of America’s Northwestern Coast from the Bering Strait to Corrientes Cape and the Aleutian Islands, an important contribu-tion to nineteenth-century geographic studies. Also in the 1820s, a Russian army lieutenant, Pyotr Anzhu, traveled by dogsled, horse, and kayak to map the New Siberian Islands, along with parts of the Siberian coast.


John Ross of Britain located the North Magnetic Pole in 1831, and he found Boothia Peninsula (a large peninsula in the northern Canadian Arctic) and King William Island (in Canada’s Kitikmeot Region). In 1845, John Franklin and his team vanished while searching for the Northwest Passage.

In the early 1850s, an expedition led by the Irish naval officer Robert McClure traversed most of the Northwest Passage by entering from the Pacific, but the explorers were forced to abandon ship before they could complete their journey. They returned in 1854 to finish the transit on an-other ship. Not until 1905 did Roald Amundsen, a Norwegian, complete the first journey through the Northwest Passage on a single voyage aboard a single ship, the Gjoa.

In the meantime, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld navigated the Northeast Passage in 1879, a feat duplicated by Amundsen in 1918–1920, when he sailed along the northern coasts of Europe, Asia, and Alaska.

In 1900, the American explorer Robert E. Peary reached the northern point of Greenland and named it Cape Morris Jesup. His expedition proved that Greenland was an island, not a continent, and added to ethnographic studies of the Inuit and scientific studies of glaciers.

Seeking the North Pole

Many explorers tried to reach the North Pole. One, the Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen, failed in his effort from 1893 to 1896, but added considerably to European knowledge about the Arctic Ocean. On April 6, 1909, the Americans Robert E. Peary and Matthew Henson became the first explor-ers to reach the North Pole. Their small party, consisting of Peary, Henson, and four Inuits, did so by dogsled. (Historians and scientists debate Peary’s claim; some say he missed the pole by a short distance.)

Members of the Russian-sponsored Hydrographic Expedition of the Arctic Ocean sailed in icebreakers to traverse the Northeast Passage in 1914–1915 and found the archipelago Severnaya Zemlya. The Americans Richard E. Byrd and Floyd Bennett claimed to have reached the North Pole in an airplane in 1926 (historians debate whether the two men reached the precise point of the pole). This was followed days later by an expedition in a dirigible led by Amundsen and his Italian colleague, Umberto Nobile.

In 1937, a research group from the Soviet Union, led by Ivan Papanin, wintered for 274 days near the North Pole. As the explorers drifted on an ice floe—their North Pole-1 was the first scientific drifting ice station in the world—they conducted hydrological, meteorological, and magnetic obser-vations. The expedition took water samples, measured water temperatures, gathered bottom soil samples, and measured ocean depth. Their findings revealed that neither large landmasses nor small islands abut the North Pole; that warm Atlantic water reaches it; and that cyclones, rain, and fog


occur there. Beginning in the early 1950s, the United States also operated drifting ice stations.

In 1955, during the cold war, the United States and Canada began build-ing a radar network, the Distant Early Warning Line, or DEW Line, from Alaska to Greenland. The DEW Line was to pro-vide protection from a surprise attack by the Soviet Union. The network was up-dated and moved some over the years; in 1993, it was renamed the North Warning System.

In accordance with the International Geophysical Year, 1957–1958, several countries established 300 research stations in the Arctic. In 1958, the U.S. nuclear submarine Nautilus, with a crew of 116 and commanded by William R. Anderson, be-came the first sub to cross the North Pole, although it did not surface there. It traveled from Alaska to Greenland, a total of 1,839 nautical miles (3,405 kilometers), under-neath an ice pack for four days. One crew member, Lieutenant William G. Lalor, Jr., later said: “As we watched in awe, our gyrocompasses swung, finally to point back where we had been. . . . I asked how close we had come to the exact Pole.” He was told that they “pierced it.”

A year later, in 1959, another nuclear sub, the USS Skate, surfaced at ten different locations in the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole. In 1977, the Soviet nuclear icebreaker Arktika became the first surface ship to reach the North Pole.

In 1995, the Canadian Richard Weber and the Russian Mikhail Malakhov reached the North Pole by traveling entirely on skis. Their 940-mile trip (1,500 kilometers) took 121 days to complete and entailed travel-ing to and from Ward Hunt Island.

The Arctic in the Twenty-First Century

Recent scientific studies conducted in the Arctic region and photographs taken from space show the Arctic is changing, largely as a result of global warming. High summer temperatures from 1995 to 2005 have resulted in a substantial loss of the Greenland ice pack. In 2006, the average annual sur-

The September 9, 1909, issue of The New York Times carried Robert E. Peary’s firsthand narrative of his conquest of the North Pole the pre-vious April, which disputed Frederick Cook’s claim of hav-ing reached the pole a full year earlier. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


Scientists at the North Pole-32 meteorological research station—one in a long series of Russian scientific facili-ties located on Arctic ice floes—had to be evacuated in 2004 due to melting ice. (AFP/Stringer/Getty Images)


See also: Henson, Matthew; Peary, Robert E.

face temperature for land areas north of 60º latitude were higher than the mean average for the twentieth century; in 2007 the summer sea ice reached a new minimum in area. Other developments have sent mixed signals as to the extent of warming in the Arctic. Undoubtedly, scientific study of the region will continue to provide important clues about global warming and climate change in general.

In the meantime, the Arctic is serving as a scientific incubator of sorts. In Spitsbergen, near the town of Longyearbyen, the Global Seed Vault has been bored into the middle of a mountain as part of a project directed by the Norwegian government, the Global Crop Diversity Trust (an interna-tional organization), and the Nordic Genetic Research Center (a coopera-tive effort of the Nordic countries). Since 2006, scientists have placed inside the cavelike structure thousands of seeds from around the world. The vault, whose internal temperature is monitored by a digital system, has been made to withstand bomb blasts and earthquakes, and it is protected by tight secu-rity. The Global Seed Vault is part of a program to protect the seeds of plant species that face extinction.

Further ReadingBerton, Pierre. The Arctic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the

North Pole, 1818–1909. New York: Lyons, 2000.Fleming, Fergus. Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole. New

York: Grove, 2001.Williams, Glyndwr. Voyages of Delusion: The Quest for the Northwest Passage.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003.

BALLARD, ROBERT 1942

An oceanographer and marine archeologist whose discoveries shattered assumptions about life in the deep ocean and expanded historical knowl-

1942: Born on June 30 in Wichita, Kansas1971: Begins collecting ocean rocks that support the theory of continental drift1973: Using the submersible Alvin, studies lava floes in the Atlantic Ocean1977: Discovers life near hydrothermal vents in the deep ocean1984: Investigates the site of the downed U.S. nuclear submarine Thresher1985: At a depth of more than 12,000 feet (3,650 meters) in the Atlantic, with Jean-

Louis Michel discovers the wreckage of the RMS Titanic2001: Identifies ancient shorelines, drowned river valleys, and buildings in the Black Sea


edge, Robert Duane Ballard earned worldwide fame for his discovery of the wreckage of the passenger liner RMS Titanic.

Born on June 30, 1942, in Wichita, Kansas, to Chester Ballard and Harriet May, he grew up in California. His father worked in aerospace design, and his job caused the family to move several times. In 1953, the family settled in Downey, California, where Robert played sports and took up scuba diving. He also excelled academically and loved to read stories of exploration and adventure.

His favorite books included Walter Lord’s A Night to Remember (1955), about the sinking of the passenger ship Titanic, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869), the Jules Verne classic. “Submarines fasci-nated me,” Ballard later wrote. “After I read [Verne] I was gripped by the challenge of actually exploring the hidden ocean depths.” It was then that he started thinking about how he could make a career in diving.

In 1960, Ballard entered the University of California at Santa Barbara, where he majored in chemistry and geology. After he received his B.A. degree in 1965, he was accepted into the oceanographic program at the University of Hawaii. While studying for his master’s degree, he worked at the nearby Oceanic Institute, where he helped train dolphins who performed for the public.

Ballard received his M.A. in geophysics in 1966. That year he also mar-ried Marjorie Hargas. He then decided to study for his doctoral degree at the University of Southern California. This was the time of the Vietnam War, however, and Ballard, who was in the military reserves (first the army and later the navy reserve) was called to duty. The U.S. Navy then assigned him to serve as a liaison between the Office of Naval Research and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, on Cape Cod in Massachusetts.

Continental Drift and Deepwater Life

Ballard left the U.S. Navy in 1970. While continuing to work at Woods Hole, he enrolled in the doctoral program at the University of Rhode Island. For his Ph.D., Ballard researched plate tectonics—the drift of the continents. He focused his studies on the Appalachian Mountains and, in 1971 and 1972, used the submersible Alvin to collect rocks from the floor of the Gulf of Maine. He wanted to see if the rocks were identical to those on land, for this would indicate that the theory of continental drift as postu-lated by others was indeed correct. His samples contributed to the evidence backing the theory.

To further the study, Ballard and a team of American scientists joined with a team of French scientists in 1973 and 1974 to investigate the rift valley of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which is located several hundred miles southwest of the Azores. Alvin was again employed in what was called


Project FAMOUS. Ballard and the other scientists studied lava flows rising from the ocean floor. They concluded that the lava being squeezed from the Earth’s interior moved the continents. They also confirmed that the African plate was pulling back at the rate of 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) per year.

During this expedition, Ballard experienced the first of several close calls under the ocean that nearly cost him his life. While he was aboard the French bathyscaphe Archimedes (used in addition to Alvin for the project), an electrical fire erupted. Ballard struggled to breathe emergency oxygen in order to survive, while the Archimedes made a rapid ascent.

In 1974, Ballard earned his doctorate from the University of Rhode Island in geological oceanography. Three years later, he joined a study of the Galápagos Rift off the Pacific Coast of South America. For him, and for marine science, it turned out to be a monumental expedition. Using the ANGUS underwater camera, which took still photograghs, Ballard and his colleagues searched for hot springs, or hydrothermal deep-sea vents, in the darkness of the deep ocean.

At these deep-sea vents, where the water temperature was much warm-er than that only a few yards away, they discovered clams and mussels lying on lava; they saw orange puffballs, anemones, and starfish. It was a beautiful and amazing sight. “We realized we had stumbled onto a major scientific discovery,” Ballard later said. And when asked what was the greatest find in his career, he said, “Well, it wasn’t the Titanic. . . . My greatest discovery was . . . of exotic creatures living underwater in hot springs.” On this expedition,

º


the scientists shattered the assumption that little life existed in the deep ocean.

But how could the animals survive, let alone thrive? They were far from the sunlight necessary to produce food through photosynthesis, which was thought necessary to support life. Instead, these creatures used chemosynthesis—they re-lied on a food chain consisting of bacteria living on the lava. The bacteria was eaten by microbes, which were, in turn, eaten by larger creatures.

Ballard continued to study hydrothermal vent sites. In 1982, he founded the Deep Submergence Laboratory at Woods Hole to develop underwater robots. Bringing together computer scientists and robotics specialists, Ballard developed Argo, an unmanned video camera sled that was equipped with sonar and tethered to a surface ship.

Search for the Titanic

Ballard used Argo in 1984, when he investigated the site of the Thresher, a U.S. nuclear submarine that had gone down in 1963 in 8,500 feet (2,600 meters) of water about 240 miles (390 kilome-

ters) east of Cape Cod. While Ballard prepared to find the downed sub-marine, he already had in mind an expedition to locate the Titanic, the sup-posedly unsinkable passenger ship that had sunk during its maiden voyage in 1912 after a collision with an iceberg, about 95 miles (150 kilometers) south of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Ballard’s interest in search-ing for the Titanic had been piqued by Bill Tatum, president of the Titanic Historical Society. Ballard later wrote, “Bill virtually made the tragic ship, its passengers, and crew come alive in my imagination.”

An earlier attempt by Ballard to find the Titanic, in 1977, had ended in failure. This time, he undertook his mission in cooperation with a team of scientists from France. The French ship Le Suroit, which carried powerful sonar equipment, tried to find the Titanic but was unable to do so before being called away on another mission.

To continue his search, Ballard transferred to the Knorr, a ship from Woods Hole. The Knorr had just finished searching for the wreckage of a U.S. nuclear submarine, the Scorpion, in a mission financed by the U.S. Navy. Ballard and fellow scientist Jean-Louis Michel, from the French team, mapped out an area of 150 square miles (390 square kilometers) in which they believed they would find the Titanic.

At the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massa-chusetts, Dr. Robert Ballard announces the discovery of the wreckage of the RMS Titanic off the coast of Newfound-land in September 1985. (Cynthia Johnson/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


When Ballard had searched for the Thresher, he had learned about the type of debris trail left by a sinking vessel. He planned to use this knowledge in finding the Titanic, starting at the point where passengers from the ship had been recovered in their lifeboats. His skeptical French colleagues agreed to go along after he explained that he expected the debris field to be half of a mile to 1 mile in length (approximately 1 to 1.5 kilometers), a much bigger target than the hull.

On September 1, 1985, with Argo tethered to the Knorr, Ballard and Michel found one of the Titanic’s boilers at 12,230 feet (3,730 meters). From there, they followed the debris trail until they reached what they suspected was the location of the hull. The next day, Argo was towed over the Titanic, as Ballard worried that the submersible’s cables would become entangled in the wreckage below. Then, the hull appeared. Ballard remarked to his colleagues: “It’s the side of the ship. She’s upright.” The Titanic had been found.

Ballard later wrote,

It was one thing to . . . have found the ship. It was another thing to be there. . . . I could see the Titanic as she slipped nose first into the glassy water. . . . At the center of the circle of people whooping, hugging, and dancing wildly around us, Jean-Louis and I stood silently, overcome by the significance of the moment.

Ballard predicted that all of his previous scientific achievements “would be viewed by the public as arcane precursors to this spectacular success.” And indeed they were.

Before leaving the site, Ballard used ANGUS to take still photos of the debris field. There appeared China teacups, silver serving platters, head-boards, bedsprings, bottles of wine, and shoes—the detritus of the Titanic’s historic moment.

Ballard returned to the Titanic site in 1986. This time, he brought Jason Junior (JJ), a small remote-controlled underwater vehicle connected by cable to Alvin. JJ roamed inside the Titanic, moving along the staircase landing and deep into the interior, even discovering a nearly intact chandelier as a revealing reminder of the Titanic’s opulence.

JASON Projects and More Discoveries

In 1987, Ballard’s book The Discovery of the Titanic reached the best-seller lists. At this time, he began the JASON Project. This series of expeditions has included exploring the undersea volcano Marsili Seamount in the Mediterranean and ship remains in the area from ancient Rome. As a part of the JASON Project, schoolchildren are able to view Ballard’s explora-tions as they occur.


In 1989, Ballard looked for the German destroyer Bismarck, which had been sunk by the British Royal Navy on May 27, 1941, in the Denmark Strait. An earlier search had failed, but this time he found the ship.

Following his divorce from Marjorie Hargas in 1990, Ballard married Barbara Earle, a producer of the National Geographic Explorer television show, which he hosted. (They would have two children.) With Earle, he founded the Odyssey Corporation to produce TV specials for the television division of the National Geographic Society. In 1992, in a project funded partially by the U.S. Navy, Ballard explored Guadalcanal Island in the Pacific Ocean and identified eleven ships that had gone down there during World War II. Among the ships, he found the wreckage of the Kirishima, a Japanese battleship larger than the Bismarck. It had been sunk by the U.S. battleship Washington in November 1942.

Ballard led several other expeditions in the 1990s. In one, he explored the British ocean liner Lusitania, sunk by a German submarine during World War I. In another, he conducted chemical experiments on lava flows and volcanic gases near the island of Hawaii.

In 1995, Ballard used the NR-1, the U.S. Navy’s smallest nuclear sub, to dive to the wreck of the Andrea Doria, which had gone down in a collision with a ship near Nantucket Island, Massachusetts, in 1956. Also in 1995 he used the NR-1 to compile a map of ancient trade routes between Africa and Rome, once again merging his oceanographic and historical interests. He later said,

I’ve always had a passion for history. . . . Where did we come from? . . . It’s all about the opportunity to keep learning. History is a moving target. We don’t know where it’s going to be next.

Ballard retired from Woods Hole in 1997 and founded the Institute for Exploration at Mystic Aquarium in Connecticut. He dedicated the in-stitute to deepwater archaeology. He intended to make the findings of his explorations available to the public by showing artifacts, through camera and computer hookups, as they existed on the sea bottom. Ballard was an-gered by salvagers who took artifacts from the Titanic graveyard for display in museums; he believed his approach avoided the type of degradation then occurring at such original sites.

In 1998, Ballard led three expeditions in four months as part of JASON Project IX. In May, following an eighteen-day search, he found the Yorktown, an American aircraft carrier sunk in World War II during the Battle of Midway.

In 2001, Ballard’s Black Sea expeditions resulted in marine archaeolo-gists identifying ancient shorelines, drowned river valleys, and buildings in about 300 feet (90 meters) of water off the coast of Turkey. This research


A L V I N

Alvin, the first human-occupied deep- sea research submersible, has helped scientists discover new life-forms, con-firm plate-tectonic theory, and explore hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor since it went into operation in 1964. (Henry Groskinsky/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


has since stimulated debate over the history of the Black Sea and how it evolved through the centuries.

The following year, Ballard, in cooperation with the National Geo-graphic Society, found PT-109, the patrol torpedo boat on which John F. Kennedy had served during World War II. The Japanese had rammed the boat in the Pacific, forcing Kennedy and the other crew members to cling to the bow of the ship to survive until they were able to swim to an island. From there, they were rescued.

In 2004, Ballard was appointed professor of oceanography and direc-tor of the Institute for Archaeological Oceanography at the University of Rhode Island. Looking back on his earlier expeditions, he described his descent in the submersibles as “risky.” He observed,

It’s . . . like going into the lion’s lair. . . . You can’t buy a ticket to the deep sea. It’s as alien and hostile as Mars. You need people who aren’t terrified to go to Mars and who have the technology to do it. And those are oceanographers. They work with the social scientists, the marine geologists. And together we read the chapters.

Further ReadingBallard, Robert D., ed. Archeological Oceanography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press, 2008.———. The Discovery of the Titanic. New York: Warner, 1987.———. Explorations: My Quest for Adventure and Discovery Under the Sea.

New York: Hyperion, 1995.Hill, Christine M. Robert Ballard: The Oceanographer Who Discovered the

Titanic. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 1999.

BANKS, JOSEPH 17431820

1743: Born on February 13 in London1760: Enters Oxford University1766: Makes his first voyage, on the Niger, to Newfoundland and

Labrador1768: Sets sail with Captain James Cook on the Endeavour for the South

Pacific1770: With Swedish-born botanist Daniel Carl Solander, collects a

massive number of plants at Botany Bay, Australia1778: Elected president of Britain’s prestigious Royal Society1795: Receives investiture as Knight of the Bath1820: Dies on June 19 in London


An influential British botanist, Joseph Banks brought back from his voyages to the North Atlantic and South Pacific a vast quantity of species. He served for years as president of the Royal Society, sponsor-ing a number of scientific expeditions, and he was the leading founder of the African Association.

Banks was born on February 13, 1743, into a prominent London family. His fa-ther, William Banks, served in the House of Commons and owned a considerable estate. His mother, Sarah Bate, was a wealthy heir-ess. As a boy, Joseph attended Harrow School and then, between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, he went to Eton. But more than going to school, he liked to fish and, most notably, developed an interest in botany.

As the story has it, one day while at Eton, Joseph, having finished bathing in a river, noticed the beauty of some nearby flowers and concluded that he could learn more from nature than from studying Greek or Latin. So he be-gan collecting plants. At about the same time, he discovered in his mother’s possession a book, complete with engravings, that described specimens he had encountered. This intensified his botanical searches.

Banks enrolled at Oxford University in 1760 and studied botany under a tutor. He was attracted to the teachings of Carl Linnaeus, the Swedish naturalist who developed a system for classifying plants and was popular in Banks’s time.

In 1761, Banks’s father died, and, in 1764, at age twenty-one, Banks inherited his father’s estate, Revesby Abbey in Lincolnshire. Later that year, he left Oxford without obtaining a degree and settled in London. There, he expanded his circle of friends, among them the Swedish-born botanist Daniel Carl Solander, who had studied under Linnaeus. By attending meet-ings of the British Museum, Banks made contacts with scientists in England and began writing to Linnaeus.

Banks made his first sea voyage in 1766, when he sailed on the Niger with a friend from Eton, Constantine John Phipps, to Newfoundland and Labrador. He returned to England in January 1767 with specimens or rec-ords of at least 340 plants and ninety-one birds, along with many fish and some mammals. The plants constituted the beginnings of a herbarium (a place where dried and pressed plant specimens are stored in special cabi-nets) that would become renowned for its scope.

English botanist Joseph Banks (depicted in a 1773 portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds) amassed a vast col-lection of plant and animal specimens on several voyages. He also served as presi-dent of the Royal Society, Britain’s national academy of science. (Granger Collection, New York)


Voyage with Cook

At this time, the Royal Society, to which Banks had been elected as a fellow, was encouraging the British government to send an expedition to Tahiti to participate in observing the transit of Venus over the surface of the Sun.


The transit is the movement of Venus over the Sun’s disk as seen from Earth, an event that has occurred only five times since the telescope was in-vented in 1609, and last occurred in 2004. By observing from widely spaced locations on Earth when the transit began and when it ended, astronomers could calculate the distance to Venus. From this, the scale of the rest of the solar system would follow.

King George III agreed to fund the mission, which set sail with James Cook as captain of the Endeavour in 1768. Banks convinced the Royal Society to back him in becoming part of Cook’s voyage of science and discovery.

Banks kept an extensive, 250,000-word journal of the three-year jour-ney. In it, he wrote about the beginning of the expedition on August 25, 1786:

After having waited in [Plymouth] ten days, the ship, and everything be-longing to me, being all that time in perfect readiness to sail at a moments warning, we at last got fair wind, and this day at 3 O’Clock in the even weig[he]d anchor, and set sail, all in excellent health and spirits perfectly prepared (in Mind at least) to undergo with Cheerfullness any fatigues or dangers that may occur in our intended Voyage.

At Tahiti, Cook observed the transit of Venus, although his measure-ments were imprecise. But clearly, the expedition was intended to accom-plish more. Cook was under secret orders from the British government to discover new lands in the South Pacific, to “search between Tahiti and New Zealand for a Continent or Land of great extent,” and to explore New Zealand. In addition, Banks sought to gather a wide range of information about plants, birds, and other animals, along with knowledge of the indig-enous peoples.

Working with Solander and the Finnish botanist Herman Spöring, Jr., Banks collected about 800 specimens of Australian flora, pictures of which were drawn by Sydney Parkinson. In his journal, Banks effused about the plentiful birds and the bountiful plants he found in 1770 at Botany Bay and elsewhere along the Australian coast. One quote in particular reveals something about the methods he used:

Our collection of Plants was now grown so immensely large that it was nec-essary that some extraordinary care should be taken of them least they spoil in the books. I therefore devoted this day to that business and carried all the drying paper . . . ashore and spreading them upon a sail in the sun kept them in manner exposed all day, often turning them. . . . By this means they came on board at night in very good condition.


Cook’s first expedition ended after he sailed across the Indian Ocean to the Cape of Good Hope (the southern tip of Africa). The Endeavour arrived back in England in July 1771.

Banks wanted to sail with Cook on the captain’s second expedition, in-tended to depart in 1772 in search of a land south of New Zealand. But a dispute over accommodations—Banks wanted most everything on the ship to be arranged to his liking—and his claim that the ship, Resolution, was unsafe, caused him to cancel his plans. Instead, the same year Cook set sail, Banks voyaged to the western islands of Scotland and to Iceland.

The Royal Society and a Vast Collection

In 1778, Banks was elected president of the Royal Society, a position he held until 1820. In this capacity, and in his role as an advisor to the British government on scientific issues, he sent botanists to gather specimens in New South Wales in Australia.

Banks’s interest in Australia and in the development of the British Empire led him to advocate the settlement of New South Wales. In 1779, he argued before a committee of the House of Commons that convicts should be sent to Botany Bay to help relieve the crowded conditions in British pris-ons and to develop the new land as a British colony. But he also wanted free settlers to come to New South Wales, and he became intimately involved in the plans made to carry out this policy. Indeed, much correspondence passed between him and the territory’s first four governors.

Banks organized the voyage of the Investigator to Australia in 1801–1803, during which Matthew Flinders mapped much of the continent’s coast. He sent botanists to many lands to amass great collections, including expeditions to the Cape of Good Hope, West Africa, the East Indies, South America, and India.

When Cook set sail, in 1776, on his third expedition to find the North-west Passage and again journey through the Pacific, Banks provided advice. Banks suggested that Cook take with him David Nelson, a gardener from London’s Kew Gardens, to help in bringing back newfound species of plants. In fact, Banks played an instrumental role in the development of the gardens. The expeditions sponsored by the Royal Society while Banks was its president led to the Kew Gardens becoming the world’s leading bo-tanical gardens and resulted in a host of plant species being introduced into Europe.

Banks began compiling his massive Florilegium in the 1770s. This book contains the illustrations of his discoveries from the Endeavour mission—hundreds of previously unknown plants, insects, fish, reptiles, birds, and mammals. His London home, on Soho Square, which he bought in 1776, became a gathering center for scientific discussions and housed his many


collections. One observer pictured Banks’s collection shortly before he moved to Soho:

His house is a perfect museum; every room contains an inestimable treasure. . . . The Armoury contains all the warlike instruments, mechanical instru-ments and utensils of every kind, made use of by the Indians in the South Seas. . . . The second room contains the different habits and ornaments of the several Indian nations they discovered. . . . The number of plants is about 3000, 110 of which are new genera, and 1300 new species which were never seen or heard of before in Europe. . . . [A third room] contains an almost numberless collection of animals, quadrupeds, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, insects and vermes [worms], preserved in spirits, most of them new and nondescript. Here I was most in amazement and cannot attempt any particular description.

For his scientific accomplishments, Banks was knighted by the British crown in 1795. In his later years, he remained deeply involved in scientific and community projects. In 1804, Banks and a group of friends founded the Royal Horticultural Society. He continued as president of the Royal Society and served on several government committees. He also was a trustee of the British Museum and presided over the Club of the Royal Philosophers.

During this time, Banks labored through great pain as he suffered from gout. After 1805, he was mainly confined to a wheelchair. Banks died on June 19, 1820.

Banks expanded scientific knowledge of plants and animals through his collections and those of the many other explorers whom he backed. He was, moreover, an intriguing combination of internationalist and nationalist. He believed in the advancement of science based on international cooperation, as evident in his substantial correspondence with scientists overseas, yet he also helped expand and advance the power of the British Empire, a main reason why, with Banks as president, the Royal Society worked so closely with the British government.

Further ReadingChambers, Neil. Joseph Banks and the British Museum: The World of Collecting,

1770–1830. London: Pickering and Chatto, 2007.Gascoigne, John. Joseph Banks and the English Enlightenment: Useful Knowledge

and Polite Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994.———. Science in the Service of Empire: Joseph Banks, the British State and the

Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

O’Brian, Patrick. Joseph Banks: A Life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.

See also: Cook, James; Flinders, Matthew.


BATES, HENRY WALTER 18251892

A British explorer, naturalist, and entomologist (one who studies insects), Henry Walter Bates journeyed into the far reaches of the Amazon region in Brazil to collect insect specimens. He was an early supporter of the Darwinian concept of natural selection. And he proposed the theory of mimicry, the condition in which two or more species are similar in appear-ance or some other form but only one of the species carries the specific features that makes it repulsive to a predator.

Born on February 8, 1825, to a hosiery maker in Leicester, England, Henry Bates came from humble origins. He attended boarding school un-til age thirteen, at which point, he apprenticed to a hosiery manufacturer. While working long days, he also attended the local Mechanics Institute, where he studied Greek, Latin, and drawing, often staying up past midnight to complete his schoolwork.

During this time, Bates developed an interest in natural history, es-pecially entomology, and he began collecting butterflies. Bereft of proper equipment, he stored them in the drawers of his furniture. Bates wrote about and drew descriptions of the butterflies and also began collect-ing beetles. In 1843, at age eighteen, he published a paper titled “Note on Coleopterous Insects Frequenting Damp Places.”

Shortly thereafter, Bates met Alfred Russel Wallace, a teacher at the Collegiate School in Leicester, who shared his interest in entomology. The two men collected specimens together and began talking about journeying to far-off places to expand their pursuit.

Then, in 1847, W.H. Edwards published Voyage Up the River Amazon, Including a Residence at Para. Bates and Wallace read the book and became excited by Edwards’s description of the beauty of the region and the kind-ness of its people. As a result, Bates decided to sail with Wallace across the Atlantic to Brazil.

Bates and Wallace arrived in Brazil in 1848, and settled at Para (today Belém), which they used as a base for short expeditions to collect birds and insects. For reasons now unclear, they went their separate ways in exploring Amazonia.

1825: Born on February 8 in Leicester, England1843: Publishes his first scientific paper, on insects1848: Begins exploration of the Amazon region1862: Presents paper describing his theory of mimicry1864: Begins serving as assistant secretary of the Royal Society1892: Dies on February 16 in London


In 1851, Bates journeyed to Santarém, a Brazilian town located along the Amazon River where it joins with the Tapajós River. From there, he explored the remote reaches of the Tapajós, including one of its branches. He made contact with the Mundurucú Indians and gathered considerable ethnological information, along with biological and geographical facts.

The hardships were considerable, and, at one point, some 1,400 miles (2,250 kilometers) inland along the Amazon, Bates complained of not hav-ing received any supply packages from England in a long time. His clothes were tattered, his feet bare, and his spirit sapped. He had no books to read and claimed he had been robbed. At another point he suffered from yellow fever, which caused him to take a “decoction of elder blossoms as a sudorific” that led to his falling “insensible into my hammock.”

Bates’s procedure for collecting specimens is described in a letter he wrote from the Amazon:

Between 9 and 10 a.m., I prepare for the woods: a coloured shirt, pair of trousers, pair of common boots, and an old hat, are all my clothing; over my left shoulder slings my double-barrelled gun, loaded. . . . In my right hand I take my net; on my left side is suspended a leathern bag with two pockets, one for my insect box, the other for powder . . . on my right side hangs my “game bag,” . . . with . . . thongs to hang lizards, snakes, frogs, or large birds; one small pocket in this bag contains my caps, another papers for wrapping up delicate birds.

Bates collected a total of 14,712 species, at least 8,000 of which were new to science. Among his collection were 14,000 insects, 360 birds, 140 reptiles, 120 fish, and 52 mammals.

Perhaps his most lasting achievement came when he applied his scien-tific eye to some beautiful, two-toned butterflies. He found that one type of butterfly—heliconians—emitted an odor to repel birds and to keep the birds from eating them. Another type—Dismorphia—looked like the heliconians but emitted no repelling odor. The birds, however, thought the Dismorphia were the malodorous ones, and so refrained from eating them as well. In short, butterflies of one kind mimicked the appearance of another in order to protect themselves. Bates attributed this mimicry to natural selection, saying the characteristics had been adopted to survive in an environment filled with predators.

Bates did not return to Para until 1859, when declining health forced him to leave Brazil for England. Upon reaching England, he read Charles Darwin’s recently published On the Origin of Species (1859) and embraced it. For his part, Darwin admired Bates’s theory of mimicry and praised a pa-per that Bates wrote in 1862. Darwin called it “one of the most remarkable and admirable papers I ever read in my life,” and said, “I am rejoiced that I


passed over the whole subject [of mimicry] in the ‘Origin,’ for I should have made a precious mess of it.”

In 1863, Bates published his book The Naturalist on the River Amazon, an enthralling account of his expedition. In it, he reveals his eclectic inter-est in the people, terrain, birds, insects, fish, and mammals of the Amazon, to all of which he applied an explorer’s curiosity. Also during this time, Bates developed a classification system for butterflies tied to the Darwinian theory of evolution, categorizing them from simple to more complex types. In 1861, Bates married Sarah Ann Mason; the couple had a daughter and three sons.

From 1864 until his death, Bates served as assistant secretary of the Royal Society and became editor of its journal, Philosophical Transactions. He also served as president of the Entomological Society of London (now the Royal Entomological Society) from 1868 to 1869 and again in 1878. He was elected a fellow of the Linnean Society in 1871 and of the Royal Society in 1881. In his later years, he sold his butterfly collection and con-centrated on studying beetles.

His health weakened by exposure to disease in the Amazon, Bates died on February 16, 1892, in London from complications associated with influ-


enza and bronchitis. To the present day, “Batesian mimicry” is regarded as important evidence of the theory of natural selection.

Further ReadingBates, Henry Walter. The Naturalist on the River Amazon. 1863. New York:

Routledge, 2004.Woodcock, George. Henry Walter Bates, Naturalist of the Amazon. London:

Faber, 1969.

BEAGLE, VOYAGE OF THE

The HMS Beagle was a small ship, only 90 feet (27 meters) long and 24 feet (7 meters) wide, but it left a large imprint on science. It was on this vessel, which flew the British flag, that Charles Darwin made the five-year voyage that led to his formulating the theory of evolution through natural selection.

When Darwin began his voyage in 1831, the Beagle was an eleven-year-old ship. Launched in May 1820, as a ten-gun brig in the British navy, the vessel saw no combat duty and had been moored for five years. In 1825, it was converted to a three-masted sailing ship and used on a mission by the British Admiralty to help in a hydrographic survey (charting waters, includ-ing their flow) of Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, in South America.

For the Beagle’s second voyage, also under the direction of the Admiralty, the ship was refitted under the direction of Captain Robert Fitz- Roy. In fact, it had rotted so much it practically had to be rebuilt. FitzRoy had a new deck constructed, strengthened the hull, and added twenty-two chronometers and five modernized barometers, known for their accuracy.

In seeking someone to accompany him, FitzRoy turned to Darwin, a twenty-two-year-old naturalist whose observations, it was believed, would add to the knowledge gained on the voyage. The Beagle was to circumnavi-gate the globe, and FitzRoy believed Darwin would find evidence to confirm a literal interpretation of the Bible, especially the story of the great flood. Although Darwin had begun to read scientific accounts questioning such an explanation, at this stage he, too, took much of the Bible literally.

The start of the voyage was delayed, as problems arose with refitting the ship and with inclement weather. Finally, the Beagle got under way. On December 27, 1831, it departed Plymouth Sound (located in southwestern England on the English Channel).

See also: Amazon River and Basin; Wallace, Alfred Russel.

1831: Charles Darwin begins his voyage on the Beagle1835: Darwin explores the Galápagos Islands1836: The Beagle returns home to England


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The ship stopped first at St. Jago in the Cape Verde Islands, where the volcanic terrain made Darwin contemplate the mysterious workings of na-ture. In the rocks, he sighted a white band of shells and corals some 30 feet (9 meters) above sea level, and he wondered how it was that the shells and corals were no longer under water. He concluded that a sudden drop in the sea’s level was not the cause of this exposure. Instead, he agreed more and more with the English geologist Charles Lyell, who argued that the Earth was changing constantly and slowly. This view conflicted with the widely ac-cepted “catastrophic theory,” which held that periodic catastrophes changed the Earth, the last great one having been the flood during Noah’s time.

When the Beagle reached South America at Bahia in Brazil, on February 28, 1832, Darwin studied the life peculiar to the region and the different en-vironments in which the animals there lived. He was stunned by the natural beauty he found in Brazil, particularly in the rain forests. He later wrote about “the luxuriance of the vegetation . . . the elegance of the grasses, the novelty of the parasitical plants, the beauty of the flowers.” During the trip, he collected many biological specimens.

Arriving at Montevideo, Uruguay, on the River Plate (Río de la Plata) in July 1832, Darwin found a rebellion under way against the government. At Bahía Blanca, Argentina, he met with gauchos (South American cow-boys) who told him of their warfare against the Pampas Indians. At Tierra

After major renova-tion and refitting—including the addition of extensive scientific equip-ment—the HMS Beagle carried young Charles Darwin on a five-year ocean voyage that would be a turning point in his life and the history of biologi-cal science. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


del Fuego, which he reached in December, he saw “uncivilized” humans, and he observed that the “difference between savage & civilized man . . . is greater than between a wild & domesticated animal.”

But it was in the Galápagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean about 650 miles (1,050 kilometers) off the coast of South America (today part of Ecuador), where Darwin made discoveries that would raise more questions in his mind about animals and their habitats. In the Galápagos, Darwin found tortoises so abundant, he said, “that a single ship’s company here caught from 500–800 in a short time,” and he found black lava rocks on the beach “frequented by large (2–3 ft) most disgusting, clumsy Lizards.”

From October 8 to October 17, 1835, Darwin explored one of the Galápagos Islands, called James Island but also known as San Salvador or Santiago Island, which consisted of two volcanoes. He ventured into its little-traversed interior, all the while collecting specimens important to his scientific research.

Nicholas Lawson, a British official on the Galápagos, called to Darwin’s attention that each island supported its own form of tortoises. Conse-quently, an observer could determine which island a tortoise came from just by looking at it. Darwin also observed that mockingbirds he collected from the Charles and Chatham islands (also in the Galápagos) were different from each other, and he noticed that finches displayed wide variations in the sizes and shapes of their beaks. Several years later, these discoveries would cause him to study the links between distinct but similar species and to contemplate the effects of the environment on them. That is, he considered the changeability of species. This later would lead to his theory of evolution through natural selection.

From the Galápagos, the Beagle proceeded to Tahiti, which had been visited by Europeans several times previously. There, Darwin hiked among the volcanic peaks, collected ferns, and canoed out to a reef. He was amazed to find that the reef had been formed by corals, which he called the “tiny architects” of the ocean.

In late November, the Beagle headed for New Zealand. On its arrival, Darwin observed the Maori people and concluded that they were shifty, cunning, and barbaric.

In January 1836, the expedition reached Australia. Darwin journeyed into the interior and hunted kangaroos. He also collected shells and fish and caught a native Australian bush rat. But he generally found the land to be uninteresting and was relieved when the Beagle departed westward across the Indian Ocean.

The ship rounded Africa and arrived at Falmouth, England, on October 2, 1836, thus completing its voyage.


Further ReadingBrown, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.Desmond, Adrian, and James Moore. Darwin. New York: Warner, 1991.

BELL, GERTRUDE 18681926

A British archaeologist known for her research and writings on the Middle East, Gertrude Bell also was a political strategist and intelligence officer who helped shape the modern nation of Iraq.

Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell was born into a wealthy family in Durham, England, on July 14, 1868. Her father, Hugh Bell, owned a coal-mining company. Precocious, intelligent, and curious, Gertrude excelled at school and in 1886 arrived at Oxford University. In just two years, she be-came the first woman to graduate from Oxford with a degree in history.

“To those bred under an elaborate social order,” she once wrote, “few such moments of exhilaration can come as that which stands at the thresh-old of wild travel.” Bell was, in fact, a prodigious traveler, and a mountaineer in Switzerland before she discovered her attraction to the Middle East.

Her travels were extraordinary for either a man or a woman given the arduous nature of transportation at the time, and more so because it was considered improper for a woman to journey great distances without a male companion, let alone into dangerous territory. Quite likely, travel for Bell provided more than excitement. No doubt it provided a sense of indepen-dence and accomplishment in a world where men held so much power.

The Druze and Archaeological Research

Bell studied archaeology and languages, and she became fluent in Arabic, Persian, French, and German. In 1892, she traveled to Persia and was en-thralled by its culture. Seven years later, she traveled to Palestine and Syria, which were then under the rule of the Ottoman Turks. In 1900, she under-took a dangerous trip to Jebel Mountain to make contact with the Druze, a secret sect that had been fighting the Turks for some 200 years. There, she met with the Druze king.

1868: Born on July 14 in Durham, England1888: Graduates from Oxford University with a degree in history1900: Makes contact with the Druze, a secret sect1907: Publishes Syria: The Desert and the Sown1913: Journeys to the oasis settlement of Ha’il in Saudi Arabia1921: Becomes advisor to King Faisal I and begins the Iraqi Archaeological Museum1926: Dies by suicide on July 12 in Baghdad


At the urging of the archaeologist Saloman Reinach, Bell returned to the Middle East in 1905 to study ancient ruins. She again met with the Druze, as well as with the Bedouin. Often, she camped alone on the desert sand, her tent an isolated outpost; many a time, she won the support of a sheik or chieftain with gifts and political stories and joined him in reciting Arab poetry. The contacts she made with desert rulers proved invaluable to her later political activities.

In 1907, she published her book Syria: The Desert and the Sown, a vivid description of the villages and cities she visited. Her prose made Middle Eastern culture accessible to Westerners. Her study of Turkish ruins, also in 1907, led her to write A Thousand and One Churches (1909) with the archaeologist and New Testament scholar William Ramsey.

Two years later, she began research at the ancient Hittite city of Carchemish in Mesopotamia, photographing and mapping the fortress ruin of Ukhaidir. There, she met the British scholar and soldier T.E. Lawrence, who later became famous as Lawrence of Arabia.

In 1913, Bell undertook what one historian has called her “most impor-tant achievement in the field of exploration,” a dangerous journey to the oa-sis settlement of Ha’il (in Saudi Arabia). This trek, from Damascus across the northern third of the Arabian peninsula, was laden with geographical and political challenges, as Bell faced extreme desolation and encountered hostile tribal leaders. In fact, previous explorers had turned back from the arduous trip.

Bell successfully completed this journey, and she returned with more than 300 photographs of life in the desert, including images of the land-

British writer and archaeologist Gertrude Bell, an inveterate traveler of the Middle East during the early twentieth century, was also an intelligence officer, government advisor, translator of literature, and founder of the Baghdad Museum in Iraq. (Harlingue/Roger Viollet/Getty Images)


scape and local architecture. (All told, she took more than 7,000 photo-graphs during her extensive travels.) She had undertaken an unprecedent-ed exploration of tribal life and a mapping of central Arabia and came away with a rich knowledge of tribal relations. The trip led to her appoint-ment two years later to the British Military Intelligence Department at Basra, in Iraq.

Iraq and Its Archaeological Museum

With the outbreak of World War I, Bell became less a scientist and more a politician. In 1917, the British captured Baghdad, a feat heavily dependent on the intelligence and maps that she provided to the army. Bell also was instrumental in fostering cooperation between British and Arab leaders in their fight against the Turks.

In 1919, she was appointed Oriental secretary in Iraq. When the Paris Peace Conference was held at the end of World War I, Bell attended as one of Britain’s delegates and helped draw up the modern boundaries for the country.

Bell supported T.E. Lawrence when he advocated to British authorities the consolidation of Iraq’s three districts—Basra, Baghdad, and Mosul—into one kingdom. As a liberal imperialist, she wanted the British to rule Iraq for the benefit of British interests and as a way to educate and train Arabs in Western governance. She advised that Iraq be run by the Sunni religious sect rather than the majority Shiites, because she feared that the Shiites would establish a harsh, theocratic state. And she opposed a Kurdish state in the north, because she felt that balance should be maintained among the Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds through British oversight, which, in turn, would give Britain access to Iraq’s oil reserves.

In 1921, Bell and Lawrence successfully promoted Faisal bin Hussein to become king of Iraq, while the country remained under British control. Faisal had been born into a royal family in Saudi Arabia but had never be-fore been to Iraq and thus was distrusted by some Iraqis. He had, however, sided with Great Britain in World War I and, with the help of Lawrence, had organized a revolt against the Ottoman Empire, thus forming a close relationship with the British.

Bell became a close advisor to Faisal, who was crowned King Faisal I in 1921. She was nicknamed “the Uncrowned Queen of Iraq,” and many Iraqis called her “Khatun,” meaning “great lady.” A contemporary, British author Virginia Woolf, said, “Miss Bell has a very long nose like an Aberdeen ter-rier; she is a masterful woman, has everyone under her thumb, and makes one feel a little inefficient.”

With King Faisal’s help, Bell founded the Iraqi Archaeological Museum (today the National Museum of Iraq) and became its first director. (The


museum officially opened in its permanent home shortly after her death in 1926.) In her work with the museum, she supervised numerous digs and identified and cataloged artifacts crucial to understanding ancient Iraq.

By 1926, Bell had become ill and depressed. She was afflicted with bronchitis, and her family had suffered financial setbacks, forcing the sale of her home in London. She ended her life on July 12, 1926, in Baghdad with an overdose of sleeping pills.

In her explorations and archaeological work, Bell had combined the old Iraq with the new, literally unearthing in her digs the story of the past, while forging in her politics the boundaries of a new nation. She once said,

I like Baghdad and I like Iraq. It’s the real East, and it’s stirring; things are happening here, and the romance of it all touches me and absorbs me.

Further ReadingBell, Gertrude. The Desert and the Sown. Boston: Beacon, 1985.Howell, Georgina. Gertrude Bell: Queen of the Desert, Shaper of Nations. New

York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2007.Wallach, Janet. Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell, Adventurer,

Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia. New York: Anchor, 2005.


BINGHAM, HIRAM 18751956

An American archaeologist, academic, and politician, Hiram Bingham III is best known as the “scientific discoverer” of the ancient Inca ruins at Machu Picchu in Peru.

Hiram Bingham III was born on November 19, 1875, in Honolulu, Hawaii, to Hiram Bingham and Clarissa Minerva Brewster, both of whom were Protestant missionaries, as was his grandfather, who had done much to Christianize the islands. As a boy, Hiram learned mountaineering from his father and climbed the mountains in Hawaii.

After graduating from Punahou School in Hawaii in 1892, Bingham attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, for two years and then Yale University from 1894 to 1898. He enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley for graduate work in history in 1899. He then stud-ied at Harvard from 1900 to 1905, when he earned his doctorate in Latin American history. In 1900, he married Alfreda Mitchell, an heiress whose money provided him the independence to engage in scientific expeditions.

Bingham taught history and political science at Harvard and Princeton. In 1909, he was appointed as an assistant professor in Latin American his-tory at Yale. During these years, he showed no interest in following his fam-ily’s missionary calling, a decision that caused friction between him and his parents.

Early Explorations

Bingham was attracted to the study of South American history because so little research had been done there by anyone in the United States. As he considered writing a biography of the South American liberator Simón Bolívar, he became attracted to exploration and decided to retrace the route taken by Bolívar across the continent in 1819. He later wrote,

I came to the conclusion that if I wished to understand this period in South American history, it would be necessary for me to undertake an expedition

1875: Born on November 19 in Honolulu, Hawaii1906: Retraces the steps of Simón Bolívar in South America1911: Encounters the Incan settlement of Machu Picchu1912: Begins excavating Machu Picchu1922: Wins election as lieutenant governor of Connecticut1926: Wins election to the U.S. Senate1956: Dies on June 6 in Washington, D.C.


that should have for its object not only a study of the country where Bolívar lived and fought, and a visit to the scenes of his most important battles . . . but also an exploration of the route of his most celebrated campaign.

Bingham undertook this journey in November 1906; he subsequently published The Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela and Colombia, 1906–1907 (1909). In 1908 and 1909, he traversed southern South America and served as a delegate to the First Pan American Scientific Congress, in Santiago, Chile.

It was during his southern excursion, as he traveled from Buenos Aires, Argentina, to Lima, Peru, that Bingham was drawn to the Incas. While he was in Peru, the authorities there persuaded him to join an expedition to the Inca village of Choqquequirau. He was intrigued by the ancient culture and stories about an unknown region around the high mountains. He was further influenced by Clements Markham’s book, The Incas of Peru (1910), which told of the Incas’ flight, circa 1536, from Cuzco to Vilcabamba, a nearby land of canyons and mountains, to escape the Spaniards.

In 1911, Bingham returned to Peru, this time, on an expedition spon-sored by Yale to explore the region northwest of Cuzco, in the Andes. His party included Isaiah Bowman, a geologist; Kai Hendrickson, a topogra-pher; and H. Z. Tucker, an archaeologist.

Finding Machu Picchu

In late July of that year, a local farmer told Bingham of some ancient ruins, and the American decided to find out if they might be related to the Incas. He had heard other stories about the ruins at least several days earlier and had been told about their existence by Albert Giesecke, the rector of the University of Cuzco. Still, when Bingham began his climb up the mountains on July 24 to search for the ruins, he doubted they would be significant.

That afternoon, he came upon Machu Picchu. Although he took the dimensions of some of the buildings in this first visit, he spent only a few hours there. Nevertheless, he realized he had made an important find.

He told The New York Times that he had found the ancient city when he was led by some Peruvian Indians up an old goat path to a precipitous plateau at an elevation of approximately 2,000 feet (600 meters). There, they discovered an Incan temple, along whose ruins the Indians recently had planted corn. “The white granite stones used in the foundation of the temple,” Bingham told the Times, “measured 8 by 12 by 6 feet, and were well chiseled and beautifully joined without mortar in Egyptian style.”

Machu Picchu has been called “the lost city of the Incas.” Built around 1460, it was abandoned 100 years later, when the Spanish conquered the


Incas. Its importance to the Incas is widely debated by archeologists and historians. Some think that it was a holy center. Others believe it was an estate of an Incan emperor, a center from which to control the local economies, or even a prison. It was one of the few Incan sites not plundered by the Spanish, who failed to find it, thus adding to the value of Bingham’s find.

Bingham believed that his team were the first white men to gaze on the city of Machu Picchu since the time of the Spanish invasion. On that point, however, he was wrong. In 1902, Agustin Lizarraga, who lived nearby in the town of San Miguel, had reached the ru-ins, and two local missionaries, Thomas Paine and Stuart McNairn, may well have reached the site in 1906. Still, Bingham was the first to publicize the importance of the ruins to the understanding of ancient Incan society and to methodically explore them. This is why he is often called their “scientific discoverer.”

On leaving Machu Picchu, Bingham and his party mapped the Urubamba River and then climbed Mount Coropuna, at 21,763 feet (6,633 meters) the second-tallest peak in South America (after Mount Aconcagua in Argentina). The icy conditions forced them to use crampons (climbing irons) in their ascent. At the summit, they planted the Yale flag and left a canister containing a record of their feat.

Bingham returned to Machu Picchu in 1912 to excavate the site. The following year, he wrote about his findings for National Geographic maga-zine. (The National Geographic Society had supported his expedition.) At one point during his excavation trip, both his mules and his native guides deserted him, leaving him wandering on a mountain for two days with little food. He was saved when he met an Indian, who led him down a path to his base camp.

At Machu Picchu, Bingham found the skulls and skeletons of prehistoric human beings, along with bronze tables. He returned to the United States with some of the human remains, several of the tables, and some pottery. The Peruvian government questioned his removal of these items and, in general, distrusted his work at Machu Picchu, thinking he would disfigure or remove valuable items. In 2007, Yale agreed to return thousands of artifacts unearthed by Bingham and his colleagues, including mummies and ceramics.

Hiram Bingham III, a Yale University his-torian, rediscovered the “lost” Inca city of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes in July 1911. Yale, which had cospon-sored the expedition, agreed in 2007 to return thousands of relics he had re-moved from the site. (Granger Collection, New York)


Life after Machu Picchu

During World War I, Bingham served in the U.S. Army Air Service. In 1918, he commanded the flying school at Issoudun, France.

Entering politics after the war, he served as lieutenant governor of Connecticut from 1922 to 1924. In the latter year, he was elected governor of the state but served only two days before being elected to the U.S. Senate, as a Republican, to fill a vacant seat. Reelected in 1926, he faced an uphill battle for a third term in 1932.

By then, the Senate had censured Bingham for placing a lobbyist on his payroll. At the same time, the Republican president, Herbert Hoover, and the Republican-controlled Congress were largely reviled for their in-eptitude in handling the economic crisis of the Great Depression. Bingham thus went down to defeat.

He subsequently engaged in banking and, during World War II, lec-tured at naval training schools. A zealous “communist hunter” during the cold war, he chaired the Civil Service Commission’s Loyalty Review Board from 1951 to 1953. He died in Washington, D.C., on June 6, 1956.

Over the years, Bingham wrote three books based on his expedition to Machu Picchu: Inca Land (1922), Machu Picchu, Citadel of the Incas (1930), and Lost City of the Incas (1948). As a result of these works and his expedi-tion, his name remains indelibly linked to the ancient Inca ruins at Machu Picchu.

Further ReadingMiller, Char. Fathers and Sons: The Bingham Family and the American Mission.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982.———, ed. Selected Writings of Hiram Bingham, 1814–1869: To Raise the

Lord’s Banner. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen, 1988.

BOUGAINVILLE, LOUISANTOINE DE 17291811

1729: Born on November 12 in Paris1753: Writes a paper on integral calculus that earns him membership

in Britain’s prestigious Royal Society1766–1769: Circumnavigates the globe and writes detailed

descriptions of the plants and animals he finds1771: Publishes a book that portrays the island of Tahiti as a paradise

and influences utopian philosophers1811: Dies on August 20 in Paris


A French explorer, Louis-Antoine de Bougainville contributed to the sci-entific findings of the Enlightenment by circumnavigating the globe to discover new lands for his country and record the geography, plants, and animals that he found.

Bougainville was born on November 12, 1729, in Paris to Pierre-Yves de Bougainville, a wealthy notary in the city’s courts of law, and Marie-Françoise d’Arboulin. As a young man, he showed a talent for mathematics. Bougainville studied under Alexis Clairaut, a prominent mathematician and astronomer, and, in 1753, he wrote a paper on integral calculus that was so impressive it earned him membership in Britain’s prestigious Royal Society.

Bougainville initially prepared to become a lawyer, but he lost interest in an endeavor he considered dry and boring. Instead, he entered the French army in 1753. Three years later, he traveled to Canada, where he fought in the French and Indian War, sometimes called the Seven Years’ War, against the British. There, he served as an aide-de-camp to Louis-Joseph de Montcalm-Grozon, the major general in command of French troops.

The war had begun in North America but escalated into a nearly world-wide fight for empire. When it ended in 1763, the French suffered a tre-mendous defeat and lost control of New France to the British. Following the war, Bougainville spent money from his personal fortune to settle dis-

Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, the first Frenchman to circumnavigate the world, is greeted by natives in Tahiti—which he later described as an earthly paradise—in 1767. His account made Tahiti famous in Europe and rein-forced the concept of the “noble savage.” (Granger Collection, New York)


placed Acadians (French people from Canada) on the Falkland Islands, but the colony proved short-lived.

In 1766, the French government, under King Louis XV, gave Bougainville command of two ships, La Boudeuse, a frigate, and L’Etoile, a transport, for a voyage of discovery around the globe. On November 15, Bougainville left Nantes, on the western coast of France. Among those accompanying him was the botanist Philibert Commerçon.

Bougainville clearly wanted to add to the world’s scientific knowledge at a time when more and more educated Europeans were embracing rational thought as part of the Enlightenment. He was a nationalist who wanted to advance the power of France, but he also was an internationalist, who worked with scientists from other countries.

The expedition sailed westward through the Strait of Magellan, at the southern tip of South America. In the spring of 1767, Bougainville ar-rived at Tahiti. He then journeyed to Samoa and New Hebrides (today Vanuatu), both located in the central South Pacific, and sailed through the Solomon Islands, located just to the east of New Guinea, where he named Bougainville Island, to the northeast of Australia, for himself.

Following an attack by islanders against his crew, Bougainville contin-ued on to the Moluccas (in Indonesia). He completed his circumnaviga-tion of the globe on March 16, 1769, when he arrived at Saint-Malo, on the northwestern coast of France, making him the first Frenchman to sail around the world.

Throughout his voyage, Bougainville kept journals that he filled with keen observations about plants and geography, including his identifica-tion of natural harbors at which ships could anchor. A South American climbing plant, the Bougainvillea, was later named for him.

In 1772, he published his Description from a Voyage Around the World, in which he portrayed Tahiti as a paradise. Utopian philosophers, who be-moaned the corruption of Western society while insisting that people were good when living within a state of nature, embraced this vision. In one of his journal entries, Bougainville wrote about Tahiti and its people:

Our white skin delights them, they express admiration in this regard in the most expressive manner. Furthermore, the race is superb, with men 5 feet 10 inches tall, many reaching six feet, a few exceeding this. Their features are handsome. They have a head of hair they wear in various ways. Several also have a long beard which they rub as they do their hair with cocoanut oil. The women are pretty and, something [that] is due to their food and water, men and women and even old men have the finest teeth in the world. There people breathe only rest and sensual pleasures. Venus is the god they worship. The mildness of the climate, the beauty of the scenery, the fertility of the soil everywhere watered by rivers and cascades, the pure air unspoiled


by even those legions of insects that are the curse of hot climates, everything inspires sensual pleasure.

From 1779 to 1782, Bougainville again commanded a naval ship. He participated in the French blockade of Yorktown, Virginia, which helped the American colonies defeat Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. During this time, he married Flore-Josephe Longchamp de Montendre, with whom he would have three sons.

In 1787, Bougainville was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences. He obtained the rank of vice admiral in 1791, but shortly there-after retired to his estate in Normandy, having escaped the indignity of imprisonment and the fate of execution that befell many of the elite in the bloody French Revolution. Bougainville died in Paris on August 20, 1811.

Further ReadingHamilton, Edward P., trans. and ed. Adventure in the Wilderness: The

American Journals of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, 1756–1760. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1964.

Kimbrough, Mary. Louis-Antoine de Bougainville, 1729–1811: A Study in French Naval History and Politics. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen, 1990.

Suthren, Victor J.H. The Sea Has No End: The Life of Louis Antoine de Bougainville. Toronto, Canada: Dundurn, 2004.

BRUCE, JAMES 17301794

A Scottish explorer, James Bruce attempted to solve for Europeans the mys-tery of where the Nile River begins when, in 1769–1770, he ventured into the highlands of eastern Africa and mapped one of the river’s tributaries, the Blue Nile.

Bruce was born on December 14, 1730, in Stirling County, Scotland. He was educated at Harrow School and Edinburgh University and later studied for the bar. His pursuit of a law career ended, however, when he married the daughter of a wine merchant and entered that business. After his wife died in 1754, he traveled to Portugal and Spain.

1730: Born on December 14 in Stirling County, Scotland1763: Appointed consul to Algiers1765: Explores the Roman ruins at Barbary1770: Reaches the source of the Blue Nile River1790: Publishes a five-volume account of his journey to the Nile1794: Dies in Scotland on April 27


Energetic, skilled as a horseman and a marksman, and possessing a forceful personality along with an explosive temper, Bruce impressed al -most everyone he met. He certainly impressed several British leaders, with whom he worked during Great Britain’s fight against Spain in 1762 (as part of the Seven Years’ War), for they appointed him consul to Algiers. He as-sumed the post in 1763.

But Bruce had more than political duties in mind. He wanted to ex-plore, not only as an adventurer, but also as an archaeologist and a cartogra-pher. He learned Arabic (along with several other languages) and became a competent linguist, astronomer, historian, and botanist. He also drew well.

In 1765, he resigned as consul and journeyed into the interior of the kingdoms of Algiers and Tunis in northern Africa. Thereafter, he sailed to Crete, nearly losing his life when a storm drove his boat onto a large rock. He explored ruins in Lebanon, at Baalbek, where he found a temple dating from ancient Rome, and in Syria, at Palmyra, an oasis location that had served as a Roman colony.

His greatest desire, though, was to find the source of the Nile River, the cradle of ancient Egyptian civilization and one of the most dominant natural features in the world. Bruce was convinced he would find the riv-er’s wellspring in Abyssinia (today, Ethiopia). The source of the Nile had long played on the human imagination: Ptolemy, the ancient Greek as-tronomer and mathematician, said the river’s waters originated in a group of massive mountains in Africa, known by natives as the “Mountains of the Moon.”

Bruce believed that of the Nile’s two main tributaries, the White Nile and the Blue Nile, the Blue Nile was the most important, because it was the Nile of the ancients. Despite Bruce’s claim, both the Blue Nile and the White Nile were important to the Nile itself, for while the Blue Nile contributed most of the Nile’s water volume, the White Nile was much longer.

Bruce began his journey at Alexandria, then traveled to Thebes (the current location of the towns of Karnak and Luxor) and crossed the des-ert to Kosseir. Donning the outfit of a Turkish sailor to traverse what was then part of the Ottoman Empire, he sailed along the coast of the Red Sea and debarked at Jidda, on the coast of Saudi Arabia, in May 1769. He then departed from Loheia (today a part of Yemen) and sailed di-rectly across the Red Sea, which he had mapped, reaching Massawa, then a Turkish possession, in September.

He arrived at Gondar, the capital of Abyssinia, in February 1770, which placed him near the source of the Nile. He carried with him the scientific instruments crucial to his mapping and goal of pinpointing the source of the Blue Nile. To reach Gondar, his men had to carry a heavy quadrant over steep mountains.


Bruce lived in Abyssinia for two years, caught amid the internecine con-flict and bloody war then gripping the land. Abyssinians distrusted white Europeans, but Bruce’s courage, athleticism, and confidence won over King Ras Michael, as did his treating the queen mother’s grandchildren for small-pox. The king even made Bruce a cavalry commander.

In November 1770, Bruce traveled overland from Gondar in his con-tinuing effort to find the source of the Blue Nile. He reached the southern shore of Lake Tana, its waters studded with islands. Bruce said eleven of the islands were likely inhabited, although the local people claimed many more of them to be so.

Today, most geographers believe there are thirty-seven islands in Lake Tana. They also consider the lake to be the source of the Blue Nile, and that, by reaching Lake Tana, Bruce had accomplished his goal. The Abyssinians, however, considered the source to be a spring at Gishe Abbay, about 70 miles (110 kilometers) from the lake. (“Gishe” means “source” and “Abbay” means “Nile”; Ethiopians still call Gishe Abbey the sacred source.) With guidance from the Abyssinians, Bruce, who also believed Gishe Abbay to be the source, pushed on and reached the more distant site.

As it turned out, Bruce was not the first European to find the source of the Blue Nile at Lake Tana. That feat had been accomplished by Father Pedro Paez, a Spanish Jesuit missionary, in 1615. Although few Europeans were aware of Paez’s discovery, Bruce knew about it, yet he claimed the Spaniard’s memoirs had been fabricated.

In 1771–1772, Bruce descended the Blue Nile, all the way to its conflu-ence with the White Nile at present-day Khartoum. He thus became the first European to follow the full course of the river.

Following a harrowing return to northern Africa across the desert of Sudan—a trip on which he was beset by thirst and hunger—Bruce arrived in France in 1773. There, he was praised for his accomplishment by French naturalist Georges Louis-Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.

But when Bruce arrived in London in 1774, his reports were met with widespread skepticism. In 1790, he published his five-volume Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768–1773, but many ridiculed his stories as fake. His tales of warfare, cavorting with women, and engaging in barbarous feasts with the Abyssinians, along with his graphic descrip-tions of bloodthirsty encounters, seemed too sensational to believe.

It was all true, though, as was the seemingly incredible combination of adventure and science in which Bruce had engaged. To his study of ruins and landscape Bruce applied critical observation and careful measurement. In doing so he represented both the spirit and practicality of the modern scientific method.

Bruce died in Scotland on April 27, 1794. His autobiography was pub-lished posthumously in 1805.


Further ReadingBredin, Miles. The Pale Abyssinian: A Life of James Bruce. London:

HarperCollins, 2000.Bruce, James. Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768–1773.

1790. New York: Horizon, 1964.Reid, J.M. Traveller Extraordinary: The Life of James Bruce of Kinnaird. London:

Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1968.

BURTON, RICHARD FRANCIS 18211890

An English explorer who discovered Lake Tanganyika in eastern Africa, Richard Francis Burton was a modern Renaissance man—an archaeolo-gist, linguist, ethnographer, diplomat, soldier, author, and translator—all wrapped in a flamboyant, irascible, explosive personality.

Richard Francis Burton was born on March 19, 1821, in Herefordshire, England, to Joseph Netterville Burton, a captain in the British army, and Martha Baker. A few months after he was born, the family moved to Tours, France. They would move several more times during Burton’s youth, living in towns in France and Italy.

He had the reputation for being a wild child and caused problems for his parents as he rebelled against authority. On one occasion, he stole his father’s rifle and shot out a church’s stained-glass windows. As a teen, he frequented taverns and brothels, gambled, and experimented with opium. Partly in an effort to “tame” the young man, his father sent him to Trinity College at Oxford University in 1840. Although Burton was bright, he had little preparation for college and frustrated his tutors by rejecting his schoolbooks in favor of Italian novels.

India, the Middle East, and Africa

Burton hated Oxford from the start and thought it boring and pretentious. He earned the nickname “Ruffian Dick” for challenging students to duels.

1821: Born on March 19 in Herefordshire, England1840: Enters Trinity College at Oxford University1842: Joins the army of the British East India Company1853: Makes a pilgrimage to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and

Medina1854: Travels to the Somalian city of Harar, a site usually closed to

Christians1858: Discovers Lake Tanganyika in eastern Africa1890: Dies of a heart attack in Trieste, Austria-Hungary, on October 20


In 1842, he was expelled and joined the army of the British East India Company, whereupon he was sent to India.

Ever the individualist, Burton did what most Britons in India refused to do: He immersed himself in Hindu culture. While his fellow soldiers criticized him for embracing the local customs, Burton learned to speak Hindustani, Gujarati, and Marathi. (Later in his life, he added Persian, Arabic, and some twenty-seven other languages.) He went undercover to investigate male brothels and, in a report colonial authorities later sup-pressed, alleged that the customers included British officers.

In 1847, Burton journeyed to the Portuguese possession of Goa on the Indian coast. Two years later, he returned to Europe. In 1850, he published a guide to the region, Goa and the Blue Mountains.

In 1853, the Royal Geographical Society sponsored Burton in an expe-dition to Arabia. He undertook a hajj, or pilgrimage, to the Islamic holy cit-ies of Mecca and Medina. It was a dangerous trip. If he had been discovered, he likely would have been arrested or even killed. To prepare for the journey Burton studied Islamic culture. (He learned so much about it that he later praised Muslim beliefs and practices.) In 1855, he published A Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah.

Burton returned to his regiment in India in 1854 and volunteered to under-take an assignment recently proposed by the Royal Geographical Society: to journey into the interior of Somalia to investigate its natural resources. In October, he arrived in Aden, then a British colony, on the Arabian Peninsula. There, he met John Hanning Speke, a Briton who had served in the Indian army and had explored the Himalayas and Tibet.

Burton next traveled on his own to Harar in Somalia, a city that was closed to Christians, because they were considered a threat to Islam. Along the way, he studied the customs and language of Somali clans. He stayed at Harar for ten days and, while there, met the emir.

Back in Aden, Burton prepared to re-turn to East Africa, this time with Speke, with the intention of again entering Harar and then finding and following the Nile River. In April 1855, Burton led a party that

Flamboyant and multitalented, Richard Francis Burton discovered the great lakes of Central Africa in the late 1850s. He wrote dozens of books on his travels and other subjects, including swordsmanship and falconry, and mastered more than thirty languages. (Granger Collection, New York)


included forty-two men, camels, horses, and mules. They made camp near the Somali settlement of Berbera.

For reasons unclear but perhaps in search of plunder, tribesmen at-tacked the expedition. Burton was struck by a tribesman’s javelin that en-tered one of his cheeks and came out the other, taking four of his teeth (it would leave a permanent scar). He was forced to elude his attackers with the javelin still stuck in him. One of his colleagues was killed, and Speke was wounded and captured. He escaped and, dripping blood, staggered into Berbera, then walked another three miles before he was found by a rescue party. The expedition was ruined.

The Sea of Ujiji

Despite this failure, the Royal Geographical Society decided to fund a search by Burton to find the Sea of Ujiji and the source of the Nile. (Today, the Sea of Ujiji is called Lake Tanganyika. It is situated between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania.) Again working with Speke, Burton prepared for the expedition while in Bombay, India.

In 1856, the team arrived in Zanzibar, off the coast of present-day Tanzania, where Burton studied the island’s geography, language, history, flora, and fauna, and made ethnological observations; he spent six months exploring the Zanzibar and neighboring coasts. On June 17, 1857, Burton and Speke departed Zanzibar for the African mainland. Ten days later, they began their journey inland, traveling westward across Tanzania.

Depending heavily on a local guide, Sidi Mubarak, the two men tra-versed a caravan path used by Arab slave traders. Their expedition included two gun-bearers, thirteen soldiers provided by the sultan of Zanzibar, ten slaves, and forty-one helpers. Burton took with him numerous scientific devices, including two chronometers, two prismatic compasses, a pocket thermometer, a sundial, a rain gauge, an evaporating dish, two sextants, a mountain barometer, measuring tape, two boiling thermometers, a tele-scope, a pocket pedometer, and what was described as a box of “math-ematical instruments.”

Problems beset Burton and Speke almost from the start. Malaria deci-mated the party. Burton grew weak and depressed, as his body felt as if it were on fire, and Speke could hardly walk. Quarrels broke out among the members of the expedition, men and animals ran away, food supplies dwin-dled, and most of the scientific instruments broke. Nevertheless, Burton and Speke pushed on.

On February 13, 1858, they arrived at the “sea” they had been search-ing for, actually the vast Lake Tanganyika. By this time, however, Speke’s eyesight was so badly damaged that he could make out nothing more than a smeared image. (He later recovered from his blindness.) Unlike on his pre-


vious journeys, which were more adventure than science, this time Burton had made an important geographical discovery.

Lake Victoria and Dispute with Speke

The following day, the expedition entered the settlement of Ujiji on the shores of the lake. Shortly thereafter, Burton heard of another lake to the

John Harrison’s marine chronometer of 1759—his fourth attempt at such a device—accurately measured east-west position, or longitude, over long distances. It was a major breakthrough for exploration at sea as well as on land. (Granger Collection, New York)


north. At that point, he made what some historians consider to be a “great mistake.” He decided to stay at Ujiji while Speke headed north.

Speke said it was his idea to search out what was later called Lake Victoria. Burton said he was the one who told Speke to undertake the mission. Whatever the case was, Burton failed to add another discovery to his accomplishments, one that would have ranked him among the most renowned explorers of Africa.

Why did Burton make this mistake? Four reasons were at play: he doubted Speke would find much; he wanted to continue to gather informa-tion from the people in the place where he was camped; he wanted to regain his health; and he believed that he already had accomplished what he had set out to do. As it was, Speke found Lake Victoria, among the greatest of the European discoveries in Africa.

In 1860, Burton published Lake Regions of Central Africa, a detailed account of the geography of the region and a description of the cultural practices of the people who lived there. He also traveled to the United States, met with the Mormon leader Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, and published a report on polygamy.

The following year, he married Isabel Arundell. She was from a promi-nent English family, and he had first met her at Boulogne in France.

In 1863, Burton cofounded, with James Hunt, the Anthropological Society of London. By this time, Speke and Burton had had a falling out. Tension had long existed between the two men because of their differing personalities; now, they quarreled over who owed the outstanding debts from their last expedition. Burton also disputed Speke’s claim—an accurate one, as it turned out—that Lake Victoria was the source for the White Nile. He called Speke’s evidence inconclusive and asserted that Speke’s survey had been inadequate.

The two men were scheduled to debate the importance of Lake Victoria on September 15, 1864, before the British Association for the Advancement of Science (now the British Science Association). The day before the de-bate, Speke died from a gunshot wound while hunting. It still is uncertain whether he shot himself accidentally or committed suicide. Burton was greatly shaken by Speke’s death.

In the early 1860s, Burton served as British consul to Fernando Póo (today the island of Bioko in Equatorial Guinea) and while there explored the west coast of Africa. In 1865, he was transferred by the British foreign service to Brazil. He explored the country’s central highlands and canoed down the São Francisco River. But he disliked the country and considered his time there to be “banishment.”

In 1869, he was appointed consul to Damascus, and, in 1877, he became consul to Trieste in Austria-Hungary. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1886. Burton died of a heart attack in Trieste on October 20, 1890.


See also: Speke, John Hanning.

Burton wrote several travel books that were poorly received, in part be - cause of his accounts of foreign sexual practices that were at odds with Victorian standards. He also published several English-language translations of Asian classics, including the erotic Kama Sutra. His most celebrated translation, how-ever, was The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885), more commonly called The Arabian Nights, which originally was written in Arabic.

Burton’s conclusions and theories, while often wrong, challenged ac-cepted thinking. His expedition to central Africa resulted in a mixed record: On the one hand, he had found Lake Tanganyika and, through Speke, Lake Victoria. On the other hand, he had explored the region only haphazardly and failed to traverse the Nile River.

Further ReadingBrodie, Fawn. The Devil Drives: A Life of Sir Richard Burton. New York: W.W.

Norton, 1984.Farwell, Byron. Burton: A Biography of Sir Richard Francis Burton. New York:

Viking, 1963.Kennedy, Dane Keith. The Highly Civilized Man: Richard Burton and the

Victorian World. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.

BYRD, RICHARD E. 18881957

An American explorer long believed to have been the first to fly over the South Pole, Richard Evelyn Byrd charted substantial portions of Antarctica and researched the continent’s meteorological and geographical features.

Byrd was born on October 25, 1888, in Winchester, Virginia, to Richard E. Byrd, a wealthy lawyer, and Eleanor Flood, both of whom came from prominent families in the state. When Richard was twelve years old, he visited the Philippines. Although he stayed there for only a year, he de-veloped a sense of adventure and expressed his desire someday to journey to the North Pole.

In 1908, Byrd entered the U.S. Naval Academy; he was commissioned in 1912. Four years later, he broke his ankle in an accident, which ended

1888: Born on October 25 in Winchester, Virginia1912: Graduates from the U.S. Naval Academy1925: Commands naval air unit in an expedition to Greenland1929: Becomes the first person to fly over the South Pole and maps Antarctica1933: Lives alone at Advance Base in Antarctica1955: Becomes head of Operation Deep Freeze1957: Dies in Boston on March 11


his assignment as a midshipman on a battleship. During World War I, he learned to fly and, in 1918, became a naval aviator. (He never flew in combat during the war.)

In 1925, Byrd commanded a U.S. Navy air unit as part of an expedition to Greenland led by a civilian, Donald Baxter MacMillan. The mission had as its goal studying the region’s natural phenomena and surveying large expanses of the uncharted ice. The following year, Byrd and his colleague Floyd Bennett made what they claimed to be the first flight over the North Pole.

A recent analysis of Byrd’s diary, however, indicates he may not have made it to his destination. The diary, discovered in the mid-1900s and pub-lished for the first time by Ohio State University in 1998, includes messages from Byrd to his pilot, Bennett (the noise in the plane required the two men to pass written messages to each other), which indicate that Byrd believed he had reached the North Pole. In one of them, he states,

We should be at the Pole now. Make a circle. I will take a picture. Then I want the sun. Radio that we have reached the pole and are now returning with one motor with bad oil leak but expect to make Spitzbergen.

But the diary also contains still-legible erasures of navigational calcula-tions. Some analysts insist that these calculations show that Byrd had not reached the exact location of the North Pole.

Base in Antarctica

In 1927, Byrd and the Norwegian American Bernt Balchen, along with Bertrand B. Acosta and George O. Noville, were the first to fly a transatlan-tic mail route from New York to France.

Polar explorer and aviator Admiral Richard E. Byrd led five expeditions to Antarctica. He was said to be the first man to fly over both the North Pole (1926) and the South Pole (1929). His claims regarding the former were later called into question. (Imagno/Hulton Ar-chive/Getty Images)


Over the next several months, Byrd finalized his plans to lead an expe-dition to Antarctica with the goal of flying over the South Pole. He bought three airplanes for the trip: a Ford trimotor monoplane, which was the main aircraft, and two other monoplanes to serve as backups and help transport scientists. These planes, along with much other equipment, were hauled aboard two ships to Antarctica.

In late December 1928, Byrd and his expedition selected the site for a base camp on the Ross Ice Shelf, on the east side of the Bay of Whales. They called their camp Little America and erected two main buildings, several smaller ones, and rooms carved out of the snow and covered with tarpaulin roofs. The buildings contained a library, hospital, and radio lab.

Radio transmitters and receivers were crucial to the expedition. Byrd was not the first to use such communications in Antarctica, but his expedition, he claimed, provided “the most elaborate system of com-munication ever proposed in a Continent where radio conditions are notoriously bad.”

Byrd made his first Antarctic flight in mid-January 1929. On a second flight two weeks later, he discovered and named the Rockefeller Mountains. In March, three members of the expedition flew in one of the backup planes to the mountain range. They surveyed the terrain and collected geological samples. Then, a tremendous windstorm tore their airplane from its moor-ings and destroyed it. The men had to be rescued by Byrd.

When winter set in, Byrd and his men hunkered down at Little America. They endured blizzards and subzero temperatures as commonplace, along with weeks of complete darkness.

Flyover

In November 1929, a team from the expedition, led by Laurence Gould, be-gan a geological investigation of the Queen Maud Mountains. The journey took several weeks and involved maneuvering around dangerous crevasses. At Mount Fridtjof, they found sandstone and coal, proof that the Queen Maud Mountains were not volcanic.

While this expedition continued its work, on November 28, 1929, Byrd readied his plane, the Floyd Bennett, for the flight over the South Pole. The plane had been transported in sections to Antarctica and had sat through an entire frigid winter. Before takeoff, the engines were warmed by torches. The pilot, Balchen, revved up the engines, let them die down, and then revved them up again to test them.

It was a beautiful day, with bright sunshine glistening on the snow and ice—a beauty that belied some of the dangers involved in the trip. High winds could make flying impossible; for miles, the terrain blended into an indistinguishable sameness; a magnetic compass was useless so close to the


pole; and a fuel dump had to be set up in the Queen Maud Mountains to provide enough gas for the party’s return to Little America.

Along with Byrd, who served as navigator, and Balchen, the crew consisted of Harold June, the copilot and radio operator, and Ashley C. McKinley, the aerial photographer. They faced a journey of 1,600 miles (2,600 kilometers) to and from the South Pole. The New York Times later described the beginning of the flight:

A huge gray plane slipped over the dappled Barrier at 3:29 o’clock this after-noon, the sun gleaming on its sides, reflected in bright flashes from its metal wing and whirling propellers. With a smooth lifting movement, it rose above the snow in a long, steady glide.

At Liv Glacier, the plane proved too heavy to make it over an 11,000-foot (3,350-meter) pass, so the explorers had to jettison empty gasoline cans and packages of food. Finally, the plane cleared the pass by a few hun-dred yards.

Byrd and his colleagues reached the South Pole at 1:14 a.m. on November 29, 1929, whereupon Byrd dropped a small American flag at the site. After they flew around the area for eleven minutes, they returned to Little America as the first explorers to have flown over the South Pole.

In addition to the geological findings and the historic flight, Byrd’s expedition mapped 150,000 square miles (390,000 square kilometers) of Antarctica and discovered the Edsel Ford Range, Marie Byrd Land (named by Byrd for his wife), Sulzberger Bay, and Paul Block Bay. His discovery of the entire eastern boundary of the Ross Sea was considered by many to be the most important accomplishment of the expedition.

On his return to the United States from Antarctica, Byrd was feted at celebrations in New York, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. At a ceremony held at the Washington Auditorium in June 1930, the demand for seats far exceeded the building’s capacity. President Herbert Hoover presented Byrd with a special gold medal from the National Geographic Society; the event was broadcast over national radio.

Alone at Advance Base

In March 1933, during a second Antarctic expedition that lasted until 1935, Byrd began a five-month stay in a shack called Advance Base. He wanted to investigate the weather from an inland location and study the aurora.

Byrd originally planned to locate Advance Base at the foot of the Queen Maud Mountains and live in it with two other men. But his plans changed, because the prebuilt shack was too difficult to transport such a distance and because Byrd feared that three men living in such close


The all-metal Tin Goose (a nickname for the Ford tri-motor monoplane) was produced for civil transport beginning in 1925 and later used by the military. Richard E. Byrd flew one called the Floyd Bennett over the South Pole in 1929. (Underwood and Underwood/Time & Life Pic-tures/Getty Images)


See also: Antarctica.

confines would get on one another’s nerves. So Advance Base was set up about 120 miles (200 kilometers) from Little America and occupied only by Byrd.

In this incredibly harsh environment, Byrd dealt with the isolation and extreme cold. He was nearly killed when the ventilation system malfunc-tioned. He later wrote,

This much should be understood from the beginning: that above everything else, and beyond the solid worth of weather and auroral observations in the hitherto unoccupied interior of Antarctica . . . I really wanted to go for the experience’s sake. So the motive was in part personal. . . . The novocaine in my medical kit froze and shattered the glass tubes. So did the chemicals in the fire bombs. Two cases of tomato juice shattered their bottles. Whenever I brought canned food inside the shack I had to let it stand all day near the stove to thaw.

Byrd led another expedition to Antarctica from 1939 to 1940, dur-ing which he discovered more than 100,000 square miles of area (259,000 square kilometers), and a third one from 1946 to 1947, which was an official U.S. Navy expedition involving thirteen ships and several planes. During the expedition, about 845,000 square miles (2.2 million square kilometers) were mapped, roughly one-third of which were newly discovered lands, and Byrd again flew over the South Pole.

In 1955, Byrd was appointed head of Operation Deep Freeze, which was part of the International Geophysical Year and included the explora-tion of Antarctica. In 1956, he made his last flight over the South Pole. Over the years, he had written several books, including Skyward (1928), Little America (1930), Discovery (1935), Exploring with Byrd (1937), and Alone (1938).

After suffering from poor health for several months, Byrd died in Boston on March 11, 1957, from a heart ailment.

Further ReadingGoerler, Raimund, ed. To the Pole: The Diary and Notebook of Richard E. Byrd,

1925–1927. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998.Rodgers, Eugene. Beyond the Barrier: The Story of Byrd’s First Expedition to

Antarctica. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1990.Rose, Lisle A. Explorer: The Life of Richard E. Byrd. Columbia: University of

Missouri Press, 2008.


CARTER, HOWARD 18741939

A British Egyptologist who labored for years in general obscurity, although with considerable renown among archaeologists, Howard Carter gained worldwide fame when he discovered the tomb of King Tutankhamen, an Egyptian pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, in 1922.

Howard Carter was born on May 9, 1874, in the village of Kensington, near London. His father, Samuel Carter, was an artist who painted portraits of family pets for the local residents. When Howard was a child, his father taught him how to draw.

Attracted to stories of ancient Egypt, Carter longed to explore the des-ert land at a time when archaeologists were becoming interested in the artis-tic wonders and scientific secrets held in Egypt’s ancient tombs. In addition, the potential monetary value of such discoveries meant that expeditions were being financed in hopes of returning a profit.

Carter got his chance when, at age seventeen, he was hired by the Egypt Exploration Fund as a draftsman to copy drawings and inscriptions. At Alexandria, he copied scenes from the walls of the tomb of Bani Hassan, a sovereign prince who lived sometime around 2000 b.c.e.

In 1892, Carter worked for Flinders Petrie, the noted British archae-ologist and Egyptologist who had earlier excavated the Great Pyramid of Giza. The two men undertook excavations at El-Amarna, an ancient Egyptian capital. Petrie trained Carter in archaeological excavation and was impressed when the young man made several finds.

In 1893, Carter served as the main artist for the Egypt Exploration Fund’s excavation of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el Bahbri. After six years of this work, the Egyptian government appointed Carter to be the First Chief Inspector General of Monuments as part of the Egyptian Antiquities Service. In this position, he supervised archaeological digs in the Nile Valley, first in the Upper Nile and later in the Lower Nile.

1874: Born on May 9 near London1891: Egypt Exploration Fund hires him as a draftsman1893: Serves as main artist for excavation of the temple of Queen Hatshepsut1899: Egyptian government appoints him as First Chief Inspector General of

Monuments1922: With Lord Carnarvon, enters the tomb of King Tutankhamen1923: With Lord Carnarvon, enters the burial chamber of King Tutankhamen1939: Dies from cancer in Kensington on March 2


Carter resigned his post in 1905, after the Egyptian government de-moted him because of his involvement in a dispute involving some French tourists. The tourists had engaged in a brawl with several Egyptian guards at a historic site, and Carter got into trouble for siding with the guards and refusing to apologize to the tourists.

For Carter, there followed three years of struggling to make ends meet, until he was introduced by Gaston Maspero, his former supervisor at the Antiquities Service, to George Edward Stanhope Herbert, the fifth Earl of Carnarvon. Educated at Eton College and the University of Cambridge, the wealthy Lord Carnarvon had developed an interest in Egyptian antiquities, and he hired Carter to excavate several sites.

By this time, Carter longed to unearth the tomb of King Tutankhamen, who had reigned from 1333 to 1324 b.c.e. Carnarvon agreed to back Carter in his quest. The two men worked in the field, digging first in the western part of the Valley of the Kings in 1915 and then, from 1917 to 1922, in the main valley. Carnarvon, however, grew frustrated with their lack of success. He agreed to continue with the search only after Carter pleaded for just one more season to excavate.

In October 1922, Carter focused on the site of Ramses VI’s tomb near Luxor. His team removed some 70,000 tons (63,000 metric tons) of sand and gravel over several months, still apparently without reward, until


a worker discovered what appeared to be a carved stone step. Carter de-scribed it in his diary as “the beginning of a steep excavation cut in the bed rock” and wrote that “it was of the nature of a sunken staircase entrance to a tomb of the type of the XVIIIth Dyn., but further than that nothing could be told until the heavy rubbish above was cleared away.” This was done, revealing more steps leading downward to a royal seal.

Carter later wrote, “Here before us was sufficient evidence to show that it really was an entrance to a tomb, and by the seals, to all outward appear-ances that it was intact.” Breaking the seal, he found a doorway and a pas-sage behind it. On November 26, 1922, Carter and Carnarvon entered the tomb of King Tutankhamen.

Startling items, many with gold inlay, came into view—a treasure trove of couches, chairs, alabaster vases, chariots, a throne, stools, chests. They discovered four chambers, all enclosed by golden doors. Carter wrote, “We were astonished by the beauty and refinement of the art displayed by the objects surpassing all we could have imagined—the impression was overwhelming.”

On February 16, 1923, Carter and Carnarvon entered the burial chamber. There lay King Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, which had on it four goddesses carved in high relief. Inside the sarcophagus were three coffins, one inside the other; the innermost one contained the pharaoh’s body. It was wrapped in linen bandages, and the king’s face was covered with a mask of gold.

King Tutankhamen’s reign had been limited and of little political con-sequence. He became pharaoh at about the age of nine and ruled until his

Archaeologist How-ard Carter examines the sarcophagus of King Tutankhamen, discovered during the excavation of his tomb in Egypt’s Val-ley of the Kings in 1923. The tomb and its treasure had lain largely undisturbed for more than 3,000 years. (Granger Col-lection, New York)


death at about the age of eighteen. Despite the brevity of the young king’s reign, the plethora of objects discovered by Carter and Carnarvon revealed the life of ancient Egyptians in great detail.

It took ten years for the contents of the tomb to be moved to the Cairo Museum. Carter retired from his active participation in excavating the site later in 1923; in 1924, he went on a lecture tour of the United States. He spent the rest of his life as a collector of Egyptian antiquities. Carter died at Kensington on March 2, 1939, from cancer.

As for King Tutankhamen, in 2007 the remains of his mummified body were removed from the original sarcophagus and placed in a climate-controlled glass case to keep it from further deterioration. Visitors to the underground tomb in the Valley of the Kings can see his face—black, leath-ery, and displaying the king’s buck teeth—and his feet. The rest of the body remains covered by linen.

Since the discovery of King Tutankhamen, Carter has been criticized for what today would be considered shoddy archaeological methods. For example, the mummy was exposed to sunlight for hours, which risked its deterioration, and the body was damaged in the removal of the golden mask from its face. Carter also may have violated his archaeological permit by taking some items from the tomb to be placed in his home.

Nevertheless, his discovery was nothing short of monumental in ar-chaeological circles and contributed mightily to historical knowledge. “The news of the discovery spread fast all over the country,” wrote Carter, “and inquisitive enquiries mingled with congratulations from this moment be-came the daily programme.” To this can be added that, through Carter’s discovery, today the shortened version of King Tutankhamen’s name, King Tut, is recognized around the world.

Further ReadingJames, T.G.H. Howard Carter: The Path to Tutankhamun. London: Kegan

Paul International, 1992.Vandenberg, Philipp. The Golden Pharaoh. New York: Macmillan, 1980.Winstone, H.V.F. Howard Carter and the Discovery of the Tomb of

Tutankhamun. Manchester, UK: Barzun, 2006.

CHEESMAN, LUCY EVELYN 18811969

1881: Born in Westwell, England1923: Becomes record keeper for an expedition to the South Pacific1928: Receives a grant to collect insects in New Hebrides1933: Explores Papua New Guinea1969: Dies on April 15 in London


A British entomologist, Lucy Evelyn Cheesman explored dangerous regions of the South Pacific to collect insects and study the connection between those on New Guinea and those found elsewhere in the South Pacific.

Cheesman was born in 1881 in Westwell, an English country village in Kent. Her father, Robert Cheesman, was a man of inherited wealth, and so Evelyn (the name she preferred to use) grew up in comfort. Although she was frail, she liked to collect snails, plants, and flowers, and she examined glowworms to see what made them glow. She wanted to become a veterinar-ian, but no colleges were willing to admit women to study the subject at that time.

During World War I, Cheesman worked as a clerk for the Admiralty, the British government department in charge of naval affairs. Later, she worked as a secretary at the Imperial College of Science in London.

Around 1919, she was given the opportunity to take charge of the long-neglected Insect House at the Zoological Society of London. She delved into entomology and, in 1923, accepted an appointment as the re-cord keeper for a government-sponsored research expedition to the South Pacific. Among its many stops, the expedition visited the Galápagos Islands, Marquesas Islands, and Tuamotu Archipelago.

Cheesman often broke away from the main group to collect insects on her own. At Tahiti, she quit her government job to engage in her own re-search. She explored the island, as well as Bora Bora and other islands in French Polynesia. During this time, she traveled light and relied on the local people for support. On her return to England in about 1926, she donated 500 insect specimens to the British Museum of Natural History.

In 1928, Cheesman received a grant from the museum to collect insects in the Pacific islands of New Hebrides (today Vanuatu). There, on moun-tainous Malekula, she lived among the Big Nambas, a Melanesian people known at that time for their cannibalism, but she became friends with King Ringapat, who protected her.

For Cheesman, the greatest danger came from the wildlife. She had to dodge crocodiles and, at one point, to escape Nephila spiderwebs—large, strong webs that momentarily entrapped her. She collected hundreds of insects, along with specimens of orchids, ferns, and mosses. But as she pre-pared to leave for England in 1930, her entire collection was ruined when a British official left it out in the rain.

In 1933, Cheesman explored Papua New Guinea, where, at one point, she set up a cloth screen at night to collect insects attracted to a light. She had in mind studying the connection between insects on New Guinea and those elsewhere in the South Pacific. She later wrote,

My collection of insects made in the Territory of Papua in 1933–34 sug-gested to me that there must have been formerly [an] older land connected


with New Guinea, which possibly had not been entirely submerged during the Late Cretaceous [period].

She also explored the Cyclops Mountains in the remote western part of New Guinea and spent a year in nearby Waigeo and the Japen Islands. She left New Guinea in 1942 when the Japanese invaded the island. In England during World War II, she helped her country by sharing her knowledge of the South Pacific with the British government.

After the war, Cheesman climbed the mountains of New Caledonia to collect more insects. In 1953, following the replacement of one of her hips, which had been damaged in a railroad accident, she journeyed to Aneityum, the southernmost inhabited island in the Vanuatu archipelago.

Cheesman died in London on April 15, 1969. The London Times said in her obituary that she was “single-minded in her devotion to natural history.”

Further ReadingCheesman, Lucy Evelyn. The Two Roads of Papua. London: Jarrolds, 1935.Tinting, Marion. Women Into the Unknown: A Sourcebook on Women Explorers

and Travelers. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1989.

COMO BLUFF, WYOMING

A geological formation in Wyoming, Como Bluff is the site of the discovery, in the late nineteenth century, of a large number of dinosaur bones that contributed to the emergence of modern American paleontology.

The finds included the bones of Stegosaurus (a plated dinosaur with a spiked tail), Camptosaurus (large herbivorous dinosaurs), Camarasaurus (a short-necked dinosaur known for its large teeth), Allosaurus (which grew to 35 feet, or 10.5 meters), Diplodocus (a huge dinosaur known for its long tail and powerful hind legs), and Brontosaurus. (Later renamed Apatosaurus, the Brontosaurus was one of the largest of all land animals and measured 70 feet, or 21 meters, in length.)

Como Bluff, a ridge produced millions of years ago by geological fold-ing (which results from two layers of rock pressing together), runs in an east-west direction between Rock River to the south and Medicine Bow River to the north, amid the Medicine Bow Mountains in the southeast-

1877: Teams working for paleontologist O.C. Marsh begin excavating large numbers of dinosaur bones

1897: Walter Granger discovers Bone Cabin Quarry, the site of several tons of dinosaur bones


ern part of Wyoming. In 1877, railroad workers discovered large bones near Como Bluff and notified the paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh about their find.

Between 1877 and 1889, teams working for Marsh excavated large numbers of bones. Soon after Marsh’s men began their work, another team, under paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, also began digging at the site. Marsh and Cope had been engaged in fierce competition for prominence in the field of paleontology, and their efforts at Como Bluff continued and intensified the contest.

In 1897, the Bone Cabin Quarry was discovered near Como Bluff. It was named for a cabin made of dinosaur bones that had been built there by a local trapper. From 1898 until 1905, several tons of dinosaur bones were removed from the quarry as the result of full-scale excavations.

Later excavations at Como Bluff occurred under the direction of the American Museum of Natural History. One such effort, in 1968–1970, produced only small numbers of dinosaur bones. A few more have been collected since.

Three geological formations have been exposed at Como Bluff: the Sundance, the Morrison, and the Cloverly, each containing fossils from the Late Jurassic period (between 199 and 145 million years ago) of the Mesozoic era (known as the “age of reptiles”). The dinosaur remains found in these formations generally were well preserved, and the Morrison Formation additionally revealed fossilized remains of turtles, crocodiles, and fish.

Como Bluff produced the only known specimen of Coelurus (a small carnivorous dinosaur with elongated legs). It was found at Reed’s Quarry 13. In all, the bluff produced significant finds from twenty-two sites.

The findings at Como Bluff had a tremendous impact on the study of paleontology by encouraging further explorations and kindling popular in-terest in dinosaurs. The bluff ranks as perhaps the greatest collection of di-nosaur remains in North America, and it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Further ReadingJaffe, Mark. The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C.

Marsh and the Rise of American Science. New York: Crown, 2000.Ostrom, John H., and John S. McIntosh. Marsh’s Dinosaurs: The Collections

from Como Bluff. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.

See also: Marsh, Othniel Charles.


COOK, JAMES 17281779

A British sea captain, navigator, and cartographer, James Cook made three voyages in the Pacific Ocean. He extensively surveyed the ocean and its lands, proved Antarctica was a frozen mass of ice, showed that New Zealand consisted of two islands, and collected flora and fauna previously unknown to Europeans.

James Cook was born on October 27, 1728, in Marton, North Yorkshire, England, to James Cook, a Scottish farmer, and Grace Pace. Young James worked with his father before apprenticing to William Sanderson, a shop-keeper in nearby Staithes, in 1745.

At the shop, James stocked shelves and sliced cheese and bacon. Staithes was a small fishing village, and James spent hours listening to fishermen tell stories about the sea. Wanting to go to sea himself, he studied math, geog-raphy, and astronomy—subjects he would need to know if he ever were to command a ship.

Cook became a seaman in 1746, when he was apprenticed to a ship owner in Whitby and began learning navigation. By 1752, he was a first mate, and second in command to the captain. Three years later, he joined the Royal Navy and, with his background and penchant for hard work, soon moved up the ranks to become a ship’s master, meaning that he could navigate a ship.

In the ensuing Seven Years’ War between Great Britain and France, Cook served as master of the Pembroke. In the winter of 1758, he plied the waters of the St. Lawrence River in a small rowboat and discovered a route that General James Wolfe would use in July 1759 in his historic landing to fight the French at Quebec. Cook’s feat earned him the respect of the navy’s commanders but, when the war ended in 1762 and the Pembroke returned to England, he was discharged. That same year, he married Elizabeth Batts; the couple would have five children.

1728: Born on October 27 in Marton, England1758–1759: Charts the St. Lawrence River to aid England in its war

with France1763: Admiralty appoints him to survey the coasts of Newfoundland1768–1771: Makes his first voyage to the South Pacific, on the

Endeavour1769: Measures the transit of Venus and begins exploring the coasts of

New Zealand1772–1775: Undertakes his second voyage to the Pacific and becomes

the first person to circumnavigate Antarctica1776–1780: Aboard the Resolution, searches for the Northwest Passage1779: Killed on February 14 by natives at Kealakekua Bay on Hawaii


Cook’s reputation as a navigator contin-ued to impress his colleagues and command-ers in the navy. In 1763, the British Admiralty hired Cook as the “main surveyor of the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador.” As captain of the Grenville, a schooner that he converted to a brig, he surveyed the northwest coast of Newfoundland in 1763 and 1764, the south coast in 1765 and 1766, and the west coast in 1767.

The work was of considerable importance, for Newfoundland was, militarily, critical to Britain’s new role as possessor of Canada and, economically, invaluable for its cod fisheries. Cook used land-based trigonometry (in which he used a reference object and two observation points and then measured the angles of the sight lines and the distances between the ob-servation points to calculate lengths) and made soundings in a small boat to chart the coasts. From these efforts, he produced detailed, high-ly accurate maps. Moreover, in 1766, he made observations of the Sun’s eclipse that earned him a reputation as an able mathematician and astronomer.

Voyage of the Endeavour

Two years later, in 1768, Cook was commissioned as a first lieutenant and appointed to command the Endeavour, a refitted coal-hauling ship, on a sci-entific mission for the British government, which had been encouraged to act by the Royal Society. His announced assignment was to sail to Tahiti, where he was to observe the transit of Venus across the face of the Sun, but he also was given secret orders to thoroughly explore the geography of the South Pacific. This was to include a search for a continent between Tahiti and New Zealand, a terra incognita, or unknown land, that was thought to exist.

Reaching Tahiti would be no easy task. Unknown to Europeans until the year before, it was a tiny speck of an island in the vast Pacific, an ocean the Western world knew little about. And Cook had no reliable way of de-termining longitude, since the chronometer (a precision timepiece) had not yet been widely disseminated.

On August 25, 1768, Cook and his party, ninety-four men in all—among them the naturalist Joseph Banks—departed Plymouth. “We took our leave of Europe for heaven knows how long,” Cook wrote in his journal, “Perhaps for Ever.”

Captain James Cook, known as the great-est ocean explorer of the eighteenth century, conducted three major Pacific voyages, spanning nearly nine years in all. Cook is known for applying scientific methods and new technology to exploration and mapping. (Granger Collection, New York)


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For this voyage, the Endeavour became a scientific laboratory. On it, Cook measured the transit. He experimented with his crew’s diet to see if scurvy, caused by a shortage of vitamin C, could be avoided. He became an ethnog-rapher, observing and recording foreign cultural practices. And through the actions of Banks, he collected flora and fauna unknown to Westerners.

Setting off, Cook pointed the Endeavour south to the Madeira Islands, off the west coast of Africa, before directing it westward across the Atlantic. When he left Madeira on September 18, 1768, he journeyed into regions Europeans knew little, if anything, about.

Cook reached Brazil and then rounded South America en route to Tahiti, where he was to observe the transit. But on the way, he headed south toward Antarctica, which he hoped to sight.

On January 30, 1769, after a fruitless five-day search for Antarctica, Cook resumed his voyage to Tahiti, and reached the island in April. His crew arrived there largely unblemished by the dreaded scurvy, having been fed fruits and a considerable quantity of sauerkraut. “At this time we had but very few men upon the Sick list,” Cook wrote. The Tahitians greeted Cook in friendship, and he called the island an idyllic paradise.

At Tahiti, he observed the transit of Venus across the Sun, which lasted six hours. Measuring the transit was considered important to determining the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Cook wrote in his journal,

This day proved as favorable to our purpose as we could wish. Not a cloud was to be seen the whole day and the air was perfectly clear, so that we had every advantage we could desire in observing the whole of the planet Venus over the sun’s disk. We very distinctly saw an atmosphere or dusky shade around the body of the planet.

Despite the good viewing conditions, Cook found it difficult to pin-point when Venus began crossing the Sun. So his observations were inconclusive.

From Tahiti, he proceeded south, although not directly so. As he fre-quently did during his expeditions, he followed circuitous routes, in the hope that he might discover new lands, in this case even crossing his own path.

In October 1769, he arrived at New Zealand and spent the next six months exploring its coasts. He was prevented from traveling inland be-cause of opposition from the indigenous Maoris, whose cannibalism terri-fied Cook’s men. With this expedition, Cook established that New Zealand consisted of two islands and was not a part of Antarctica.

On April 19, 1770, Cook sighted the coast of Australia (then called New Holland) and explored and named Botany Bay (along which the town of Sydney later was founded). In June, he ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef. It took seven weeks for his men to repair the Endeavour.


E N D E A V O U R

His Majesty’s Bark Endeavour, commanded by Captain James Cook on his first Pacific voyage (1768–1771), underwent a major overhaul before setting out on this extended scientific mission. (Robert W. Nicholson/National Geographic/Getty Images)


From Australia, Cook traveled to New Guinea and to Batavia (today part of Indonesia), and then west to the Cape of Good Hope, and finally north to England. On their arrival home, Joseph Banks portrayed himself as the essential person on the voyage; however, the publication of Cook’s journal earned the captain considerable fame for his navigational abilities, his documentation of his discoveries, and his mapping of the Pacific.

Return to the South Pacific

Cook began a second expedition to the South Pacific in 1772, this time, with two ships. While he captained the Resolution, which was a mere 110 feet long (34 meters) and 35 feet wide (11 meters), Tobias Furneaux, a navigator, commanded the Adventure, which measured just 98 feet long (30 meters) and 30 feet wide (9 meters).

Cook’s experience on his return to Tahiti in 1773 showed how Europeans were changing the local society. This time, the Tahitians, enticed by Western goods, tried to steal almost everything from Cook’s ships.

In December, Cook traveled farther south than any previous European explorer when he crossed the Antarctic Circle. His trip dispelled lingering reports about Antarctica being a fertile land. In January 1774, as ice hung from the Resolution’s sails and blocked the ship’s path, Cook turned away from the region. He reported in his journal for January 30,

The outer or northern edge of [an] immense ice field was composed of loose or broken ice so close packed together that nothing could enter it. About a mile in began the firm ice, in one compact solid body and [it] seemed to in-crease in height as you travel it to the south. In this field we counted ninety-seven ice hills or mountains, many of them vastly large.

He later amended his journal to say he believed that “the ice extends all the way to the pole or perhaps joins to some land.” Cook never did lay eyes on the Antarctic landmass, but his expedition was the first to circumnavi-gate Antarctica.

The journal entry of January 30 reveals Cook’s drive and the confidence he had in his abilities. “I, whose ambition leads me not only farther than any man has gone before me, but as far as I think it possible for man to go,” he said in reference to his search for Antarctica. Cook clearly knew he was the best navigator, the best explorer.

During this second expedition, Cook traveled a distance roughly equal to triple the equatorial circumference of the Earth, some 70,000 miles (110,000 kilometers). He plotted the exact position of Easter Island (2,237 miles, or 3,600 kilometers, west of continental Chile, of whose territory the island is today a part) and sent an exploratory party inland, where they


came across the ruins of “three platforms of stone work.” At their top had been four large statues, since fallen. One of the statues, lying on the ground but still intact, was 15 feet long (4.6 meters). “Each statue had on its head,” wrote Cook in his journal, “a large cylindrical stone of red color, wrought perfectly round.”

Among Cook’s other discoveries were New Caledonia and Norfolk Island, along with the Isle of Pines. When he finished exploring the South Pacific, he sailed east to Tierra del Fuego and across the Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope before returning once again to England.

Seeking the Northwest Passage

By the time he returned home in 1775, Captain Cook was considered Europe’s leading navigator. In 1776, he was made a fellow in the Royal Society. That same year, he agreed to search for the Northwest Passage from the Pacific, while the British government sponsored other expeditions to seek the passage from the Atlantic. By this time, many Europeans believed that such a route connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans could be found


somewhere in the Arctic. And a Russian map circulating at the time de-picted Alaska as an island, with a strait between it and the North American mainland.

Cook left England in July 1776 as captain of the Resolution, accompa-nied by the ship Discovery, captained by Charles Clark. Cook sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and then eastward across the Indian Ocean and into the Pacific. He journeyed to New Zealand and Tahiti, and reached Hawaii in January 1778.

From Hawaii, he sailed along the coast of California and mapped it. In March, he reached the coast of Oregon and, shortly thereafter, began sailing along the coast of British Columbia, which he also mapped.

On April 1, Cook anchored at Resolution Cove in Nootka Sound and stayed there until late April. At the cove, he conducted scientific observa-tions and made repairs to the ships. He then left Nootka and sailed along the Alaska coast, where he discovered Prince William Sound and sailed into the inlet (today called Cook Inlet) at what is now Anchorage, Alaska. He pro-ceeded to the Bering Strait and onward to the northeast coast of Siberia.

With sea ice closing in, and the Resolution leaking and its hull filling with water, Cook pressed on through the Bering Strait. When the ice bar-rier became impassable, he ordered the Resolution and the Discovery to turn south. He did not know that he was only 50 miles (80 kilometers) from the Beaufort Sea, the entrance to his goal, the Northwest Passage. (The sea stretches along the northern coast of Alaska.)

Cook circumnavigated the big island of Hawaii from December 1778 to January 1779. He dropped anchor for a while and then set sail, but a storm forced him to turn back to Hawaii, where he arrived on February 11. On the island, tensions developed between Cook’s crew and Hawaiians. Cook’s men demanded a seemingly endless supply of food and fulfilled their lust with the local women; the Hawaiians stole items from the Europeans. The final straw was when the Discovery’s cutter (a small boat used to travel between the ship and the land) was stolen.

On February 14, 1779, Cook went ashore at Kealakekua Bay. A show-down between Cook and a large crowd of Hawaiians resulted in Cook killing one native with his shotgun and some of his sailors killing six more Hawaiians. As Cook turned to leave the scene, a Hawaiian stabbed him in the back with a dagger. The group then descended on the badly wounded Cook as he lay sprawled in the sand and stabbed him repeatedly, until he was dead.

Then, in a ritual reserved for the highest members of Hawaiian society, the natives roasted Cook’s body in a pit for six hours. Eventually, some of his bones were recovered by his crew. They buried him in Kealakekua Bay with full military honors; a tiny coffin, carrying his remains, was weighted down with cannonballs. The ships Resoultion and Discovery returned home under the command of John Gore in October 1780.


Cook was more than a discoverer. His keen observations combined with his mathematical calculations produced maritime charts so accurate that they became the standard for years to come. He greatly expanded the European knowledge of the South Pacific, and through his journals encour-aged other expeditions.

Those who read Cook’s account were especially intrigued by the north-western coast of North America. His trade with the Nootka Indians for pelts indicated that a fur trade could prosper there. Indeed, several of Cook’s men later were involved in such expeditions. Many historians consider Cook to be England’s greatest seaman, navigator, surveyor, and explorer.

Further ReadingBeaglehole, J.C., ed. The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of

Discovery. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1999.———. The Life of Captain James Cook. Stanford, CA: Stanford University

Press, 1974.Dugard, Martin. Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James

Cook. New York: Pocket Books, 2001.Mackay, David. In the Wake of Cook: Exploration, Science, and Empire, 1780–

1781. New York: St. Martin’s, 1985.Williams, Glyndwr, ed. Captain Cook: Explorations and Reassessments.

Rochester, NY: Boydell, 2004.

COPE, EDWARD DRINKER 18401897

An American paleontologist, Edward Drinker Cope traveled the western United States in search of dinosaur fossils and engaged in a fierce contest with fellow paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh of Yale University for scientific prominence. He advanced the disputed theory that animal and plants of the same lineages grow bigger in body size over time.

Born into a Philadelphia Quaker family on July 28, 1840, Cope grew up amid wealth. Although his formal schooling ended when he was six-teen, he enrolled in an anatomy class at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine taught by Joseph Leidy (considered the father of American vertebrate paleontology) and reorganized the reptile collec-tions at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences. At age eighteen, he delivered his first scientific paper at the academy, on the reclassifica-

See also: Pacific Exploration.

1840: Born on July 28 in Philadelphia1865: Becomes curator at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia1871: Begins his travels in the American West1897: Dies on April 12 in Philadelphia


tion of salamanders. In his lifetime, he would publish more than 1,200 scientific papers.

In 1863, Cope traveled to Europe to study collections in such cities as Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, and Vienna. The following year, he was ap-pointed professor of natural science at Haverford College (near Philadelphia), a post he held until 1867. Cope also served as curator of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1865; in 1889, he accepted a professor-ship of geology and paleontology at the University of Philadelphia.

From 1871 to 1877, Cope traveled the American West in search of dinosaur fossils. In 1872, he traveled to Wyoming as part of a government-sponsored geological survey under prominent geologist Ferdinand Hayden. In 1874 and 1875, he traveled to Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, and Texas as part of another geological survey under George Wheeler, a notable explorer and cartographer. In New Mexico, Cope found evidence of some of the oldest known mammals.

Cope advanced a theory, since challenged, called “Cope’s rule,” in which he maintained that animal and plants of the same lineages grow bigger in body size over generations, making them more adept at obtaining food and at other ways of surviving. Cope believed that change in the environment causes changes in the needs of organisms, which, in turn, cause changes in their behavior. He was a neo-Lamarckian, following the concept of French scientist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck that changes acquired during an organism’s lifetime somehow are transferred into genetic information and passed on to the offspring. The idea embraces evolution as a part of nature but is at odds with the method of evolution proposed by Charles Darwin. (Darwin believed that changes in an organism during its life do not affect the evolu-tion of the species.)

Cope was known for his volatile temper, having once engaged in a fist-fight at a meeting of the American Philosophical Society. More famously, he engaged in a long feud with Marsh—a contest sometimes called the Great Bone Wars. They competed for the limelight in American paleontology. Each rushed to outdo the other in collecting fossils, publishing papers, and winning acclaim.

As a result, they often produced mistake-riddled findings. At one point, in 1869, Marsh discovered an error by Cope, who in restoring a 35-foot-long (10-meter-long) plesiosaur had put the skull on the wrong end of the reptile. (Marsh later committed a similar mistake with another dinosaur.)

In the late 1870s, Cope’s excavation team dug for fossils at Wyoming’s Como Bluff in fierce competition with one of Marsh’s teams. The two men even sent spies into each other’s camps. Philosophically, Marsh embraced Darwinian evolution, another point of contention with Cope.

In addition to his feud with Marsh, Cope conflicted with administrators at Haverford and with members of the Academy of Natural Sciences. Yet Cope


also produced such impressive works as The Vertebrata of the Tertiary Formations of the West (1884) and The Origin of the Fittest: Essays on Evolution (1887).

In his later years, Cope lost a great deal of money due to bad invest-ments in mining projects. He died on April 12, 1897, in Philadelphia. In the popular mind, he is most often remembered in the context of his feud with Marsh and the selfishness the two men exhibited in their frantic pursuit of science and fame.

Further ReadingJaffe, Mark. The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C.

Marsh and the Rise of American Science. New York: Crown, 2000.Wallace, David Rains. The Bonehunters’ Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the

Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

COUSTEAU, JACQUESYVES 19101997

French oceanographer Jacques Cousteau gained fame for his many books and documentaries dedicated to his undersea explorations, including those made from his base ship, the Calypso. But Cousteau did more than pro-duce popular works. He developed a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, showed that human beings could live underwater for extended periods of time, and exposed the threat of pollution to the oceans.

Jacques Cousteau was born on June 11, 1910, in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, in southwestern France. His father, Daniel Cousteau, was a legal advisor to wealthy clients and moved his family about the European conti-nent. Jacques was a sickly child, but he learned to swim at age four and fell in love with the sea.

Invention of Scuba and Voyages of the Calypso

While in his teens, Cousteau attended boarding school in Alsace, France, but he had little interest in schoolwork. In 1930, he entered the French naval academy at Brest and, movie camera in hand, spent much of his free time filming scenes of the sea.

See also: Marsh, Othniel Charles.

1910: Born on June 11 in Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France1930: Enters the French naval academy1950: Converts the Calypso into a research vessel1953: Publishes The Silent World1962: Begins the first of three Conshelf expeditions1975: Founds the Cousteau Society1997: Dies on June 25 in Paris


In the late 1930s, Cousteau served as an artillery instructor at a naval base in Toulon and experimented with watertight goggles to improve his vi-sion while swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. With his friends, he began using homemade snorkel hoses, insulated body suits, and portable breath-ing devices in an attempt to dive deeper.

Serving in the French navy during World War II, he continued his underwater experiments. It was during this time that he met Émile Gagnan, a French engineer. Working together, the two men invented the Aqua-Lung, later called a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, or SCUBA.

In 1950, Cousteau obtained a ferryboat, the Calypso, which formerly had been a minesweeper, and converted it into a ship for diving, filming, and oceanographic research. The vessel had been purchased by an Irish mil-lionaire, Thomas Loel Guinness, who subsequently leased it to Cousteau for a nominal fee.

Cousteau strongly believed that undersea exploration would contribute to a better understanding of the world. He developed a motto for his work: “We must go and see for ourselves.”

In 1952, he and a team of divers traveled aboard the Calypso to a loca-tion off the French Mediterranean coast to engage in an archaeological proj-ect. There, Cousteau salvaged an ancient Roman shipwreck located some 140 feet (43 meters) down in the water. He called it the most thorough marine salvation ever done, as he and his fellow divers found a collection of items, including amphorae (two-handled earthenware jars).

The popular French oceanographer and undersea explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau enters the observation chamber of his research ship Calypso during the filming of his 1956 documentary, The Silent World. (Granger Collection, New York)


Besides having salvaged the ship, Cousteau had shown the effectiveness of scuba gear. In 1953, his book The Silent World brought scuba diving, and Cousteau’s name, to a wider audience; it sold more than 5 million copies. In the book, he told of his early diving adventures, provided vivid descriptions of undersea life, and reflected on his findings. For example, he wrote,

Fish do not like to go up or down, but swim on a chosen level of the reef, like tenants of a certain floor of a skyscraper. . . . The more we experience the sea, the less certain we are of conclusions.

In 1955, with backing from the French government and the National Geographic Society, Cousteau took the Calypso on a 13,800-mile

C A L Y P S O


(22,200-kilometer) voyage to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. He made a documentary of the exploration done by his divers and by scientists; the film, like his book, is titled The Silent World.

Conshelf

In the 1960s, while the first Russian and American astronauts were ven-turing into outer space, Cousteau wanted to show that humans could live underwater on the continental shelves. In 1962, he launched a project, fi-nanced by the oil industry, called Conshelf I. In this study, two men spent a week in the Mediterranean inhabiting a diving saucer that Cousteau had developed, called DS-2.

Conshelf II followed in 1963. In this study, five men lived for a month below the surface of the Red Sea in a pressurized home consisting of several buildings. The headquarters, dubbed Starfish House, could sleep eight and housed a biological lab and a photography room. One building in the com-plex, called Deep Cabin, housed two explorers 85 feet (26 meters) below the surface. The entire complex was laced with cables that powered a specially designed air-conditioning unit and other devices from the surface and en-abled communication with the Calypso. Cousteau’s documentary film about this expedition, World Without Sun (1964), was widely praised—The New Yorker said Cousteau’s “cameras make everything we behold so ravishing”—and won an Academy Award.

In 1965, Cousteau launched Conshelf III, with the deep-sea living en-vironment now established at 330 feet (100 meters) in the Mediterranean. The expedition involved twelve ships, which carried 150 technical and medical experts. A film about it, shown on television in the United States as a National Geographic Society special, led to a multimillion-dollar contract with the ABC television network.

From the mid-1960s until the mid-1970s, Cousteau produced specials under the title The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau. His documenta-ries for ABC, and later for the Public Broadcasting System and Turner Broadcasting, extolled the voyages of the Calypso and revealed aquatic life to millions of viewers.

During this time, Cousteau also became a crusader against the pol-lution of the seas he so loved. Gilbert Grosvenor, the chairman of the National Geographic Society, called him “the Rachel Carson of the oceans” (referring to the American author who exposed the dangers of widespread chemical pollution in the 1950s and 1960s). In 1973, Cousteau founded the Cousteau Society (based in the United States) to advocate environ-mental protection and publicize the effects of pollution. (The Cousteau Society and its French counterpart, l’Équipe Cousteau, continue their work today.)


Recognizing that damage to the oceans was the result of more than industrial chemicals, Cousteau condemned dynamite fishing, fishing in spawning grounds, and landfills that affected wetlands. He warned,

The ocean floors are being scraped. In the past the sea renewed itself. It was a continuous cycle. But this cycle is being upset.

In 1937, Cousteau had married Simone Melchior, with whom he had two sons, Jean-Michel and Philippe. Both were involved in undersea explo-ration. (Philippe died in 1979 when his seaplane crashed.) After Simone died in 1990, Cousteau married Francine Triplet, and they had two chil-dren. Cousteau died in Paris on June 25, 1997.

Over the years, some critics have assailed Cousteau for having staged underwater scenes to make them appear more dramatic. Others have pointed to his lack of scientific credentials—a “layman explorer,” he held no academic degrees in science. Yet he advanced scuba diving and under-water archaeological work, paved the way for extensive undersea research, exposed environmental threats, and raised the public’s understanding of the world’s oceans.

Further ReadingBerne, Jennifer. Manfish: The Story of Jacques Cousteau. San Francisco:

Chronicle, 2008.Cousteau, Jacques, with Frédéric Dumas. The Silent World. New York: Harper,

1953.Munson, Richard. Cousteau: The Captain and His World. New York: William

Morrow, 1989.

DARWIN, CHARLES 18091882

1809: Born on February 12 in Shrewsbury, England1831: Graduates from Cambridge and boards the HMS Beagle.

captained by Robert FitzRoy, for a scientific expedition1835: Reaches the Galápagos Islands and makes observations that

will prove crucial to his theory of natural selection1857: Writes letter to American botanist Asa Gray, in which he

expresses his theory of natural selection


Based on evidence from his expedition to the Galápagos Islands and from other locations to which he traveled on the brig-sloop Beagle in the 1830s, British naturalist Charles Darwin proposed the theory of evolution through natural selection, which revolutionized scientific thought and, in many ways, modern thought.

Charles Robert Darwin was born on February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England, into a wealthy and distinguished family. His maternal grandfather, Josiah Wedgwood, had earned a fortune in pottery by indus-trializing the craft. His paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, had helped run the Wedgwood pottery firm and had earned prominence as a physician, thinker, and inventor. Charles’s father, Robert Waring Darwin, also was a physician. His mother was the first child of Josiah Wedgwood and married Robert in 1796; she died when Charles was eight years old.

Charles Darwin grew up at the Mount, his family’s spacious three-story home, with a greenhouse and an observatory, set on a hill in Shrewsbury. He graduated from the elite Shrewsbury School in 1825 and then attended the University of Edinburgh to study medicine. He soon lost interest in the subject, however, and transferred to Cambridge University, from which he expected to get a de-gree and become an Anglican clergyman.

At Cambridge, Darwin was greatly influ-enced by the geologist Adam Sedgwick, with whom he went on a geological excursion in 1831, and the naturalist John Stevens Henslow, who taught Darwin to investigate natural phenomena and collect specimens with an eye to careful, de-tailed study. Darwin was an industrious student, known for his insightful mind, attention to de-tail, and willingness to question accepted ideas and reconsider his own views. He later said that he loved science and liked “reflecting over any subject.”

One of Darwin’s favorite pastimes as a young man was collecting beetles, and the measure of his seriousness became evident when his collec-

1858: With Alfred Russel Wallace, a fellow British naturalist, publicly presents the theory of natural selection

1859: Publishes On the Origin of Species1871: Publishes The Descent of Man1872: Publishes The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals1882: Dies in London on April 19

Charles Darwin began formulat-ing his theory of evolution by natural selection during the voyage of the Beagle in the early 1830s. It would not be until 1858, however, that he would publish his revolutionary views—jointly with Alfred Russel Wallace. (Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images)


tion was recognized in J.F. Stephens’s compendium Illustrations of British Entomology (1828–1835). In his autobiography, Darwin wrote that he had “invented two new methods” for collecting the bugs:

I employed a labourer to scrape during the winter, moss off old trees and place [it] in a large bag, and likewise to collect the rubbish at the bottom of the barges in which reeds are brought from the fens, and thus I got some very rare species.

He also recounted how one day he grabbed two beetles and placed one in each hand, only to spot another one he wanted. Since he did not want to lose any of them, he took the one in his right hand and popped it into his mouth. The bug, however, secreted a liquid that burned his tongue, forcing him to release it and lose one of the others as well.

The Beagle

The year 1831 would prove to be momentous for Darwin. After earning his degree from Cambridge in the spring, he secured a place on the Beagle for a scientific expedition that would last five years and provide the founda-tion of his life’s work and scientific legacy. A young and largely untested naturalist when he graduated from Cambridge, Darwin nevertheless was recommended for the expedition by Professor Henslow. He persuaded his father to allow him to make the journey and agreed to serve without pay in the study of geological formations, flora, and fauna.

The Beagle departed Devonshire on December 27, 1831, and reached the Cape Verde Islands in January 1832 and South America in April. From then until September 1835, Darwin explored the natural wonders of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile, with an excursion to the Falkland Islands. He traversed the coasts and journeyed inland, captivated by the beauty and diversity of life. In Brazil, he wrote in his journal, his mind was “a chaos of delight.” The forest was “a most paradoxical mixture of sound & silence.”

While in South America, he traveled from the coldest mountain cli-mates to tropical forests, and from the Pampas to Tierra del Fuego. He was constantly observing, taking notes, and collecting specimens. In March and April 1835, he journeyed from Santiago, Chile, over the Andes Mountains to Mendoza in Argentina. Geological hammer in hand, he traversed the Andes with two guides, ten mules, and a mare, chipping away at the rocks as he went, gathering fossils.

At Valdivia on the south Chilean coast, on February 20, 1835, Darwin suddenly felt a trembling beneath his feet. Then the earth shook. He had experienced an earthquake whose intensity he did not fully realize until he reached what had been its epicenter at the port of Talcahuano, where he


observed houses that had collapsed, uprooted trees, and boulders that had fallen from the hillsides. Soon after the earthquake began, an enormous wall of water had surged up from the ocean through the bay and pounded the town; it was followed by two more gigantic waves. Inland, the town of Concepción had been completely destroyed.

Darwin was stunned and saddened by the devastation, but he also made an important scientific observation. As a result of the catastrophe, the level of the land had risen several feet. If the land could rise by that amount as a consequence of a single event, Darwin wondered, why could it not rise by a significant amount—even as much as 10,000 feet (3,000 meters)—over a longer period of time? Perhaps such transformations might explain why he had found seashells high in the Andes.

The Galápagos

On September 16, 1835, Darwin reached the Galápagos Islands, a small, rocky chain some 600 miles (950 kilometers) west of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. Only a few people lived on the islands, mainly exiled prisoners. Darwin and the crew of the Beagle arrived first at Chatham Island. No wav-ing coconut palms greeted them; no beautiful sandy beaches. The landscape was stark, black, and dotted with volcanic cones. Roaming lizards seemed to be everywhere. Uninviting as they were, the islands provided the young naturalist with a window to the past. He wrote,

Nothing could be less inviting. [The islands were] a broken field of black ba-saltic lava, thrown into the most rugged waves, and crossed by great fissures. Here, both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact—that mystery of mysteries—the first appearance of new beings on this earth.

The Beagle cruised the islands for more than a month, during which time Darwin camped for a week with four other men on James Island. There, he again saw lizards—marine iguanas, really—crowded along the shoreline. They had enormous mouths, spiny ridges down their backs, and long, flat tails. Darwin picked one up and flung it into a pool of water to see if it would come back to the land; it did. He flung it a second time; again, it came back to land. Curious to find out what the lizards ate, he dissected one and found seaweed in its stomach.

Inland from the beach, Darwin came across two giant tortoises, so big that he was unable to turn one of them over. Hopping on the back of one and riding it for a distance, he calculated that the tortoise could travel 60 yards (55 meters) in 10 minutes. He came upon other tortoises on a long procession, a seemingly endless back-and-forth journey up a hill to a fresh-


water spring and back down again. Hundreds of the tortoises had been killed by sailors who had come to the island; the animals, he noted, were good eating if roasted in their shells.

A British official stationed on the Galápagos, Nicholas Lawson, called Darwin’s attention to an important fact: Each island supported its own form of tortoise. Just by looking at one of them, Lawson explained, an observer could determine which island the tortoise came from. Darwin, for his part, noticed how the finches of the Galápagos showed wide variations in the shapes and sizes of their beaks from one island to another.

Only later would the pieces of the Galápagos puzzle come together in Darwin’s mind. The beaks on the finches, he hypothesized, varied to allow each species to take better advantage of the food supply in its locale. A thin, sharp beak, for example, allowed the bird to eat insects and grubs; a large, claw-shaped beak allowed it to eat buds, fruits, and nuts, where those forms of food prevailed.

Darwin concluded that the finches that adapted better to the environ-ment were more likely to survive. Moreover, he proposed, over time, they passed on the beneficial change, or mutation, from generation to generation, with the new characteristic eventually replacing the older, outmoded one. For Darwin, all living things were in competition—for space, food, mates—


and mutation allowed for the species’ survival. The process amounted to one of “natural selection”; the organisms that survived were the ones best suited to their environments and to reproducing in them.

As did the process itself, Darwin’s thoughts about natural selection and evolution took shape gradually. Aboard the Beagle, he continued his journey, traveling to Tahiti, New Zealand, and Australia. He returned to England in October 1836, completing what he considered to be the most impor-tant event in his life, a milestone in his career. Later that year, he discussed his thoughts about species change in his Notebooks on the Transmutation of Species. Still, he had yet to fully formulate his theory of evolution through natural selection.

Darwin and Malthus

Then, he read An Essay on the Principle of Population (published in 1798 as a pamphlet and later revised and expanded) by the British economist Thomas Malthus. Darwin later recounted this experience:

In October 1838, that is fifteen months after I had begun my systematic inquiry, I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of a new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work.

In his recollection, Darwin condensed the time frame of his “systematic inquiry”—it actually had been going on quite a bit longer than he stated, and it would take another twenty years for him to refine it. Clearly, how -ever, his reading of Malthus had eliminated many of his doubts and pro-pelled him toward the theory of natural selection.

In 1842, Darwin put down on paper his first sketch of the theory of evolution. He was not the first to discuss evolution; others in the scien-tific community had pondered and discussed various possibilities before. Darwin’s master stroke was to offer the theory of natural selection as a coherent scientific explanation for the entire process—in other words, a theory of evolution through natural selection.

As for Malthus, he had stated in his work that the geometric growth in human population taxed food supplies to the point that only famine, disease, and war could keep the number of human beings from becoming unmanageable. This, he contended, was how human populations remained in balance.


Darwin took Malthus’s theory and used it to shape his own. In doing so, he challenged the leading theory of the time regarding geological change, the catastrophic theory. According to this view, changes to the Earth come about only through catastrophes of nature. The last had been Noah’s flood, during which only those life-forms taken aboard Noah’s ark had survived.

Challenges to the “Catastrophes”

Even before Darwin, many had posed challenges to the catastrophe theory. Thus, Darwin later said, “The only novelty in my work is the attempt to explain how species became modified.”

In 1830, Sir Charles Lyell, in his Principles of Geology, wrote that the Earth’s geological features change gradually and that changes occurring over time can be understood by studying current geological processes. Although Lyell later would reject Darwin’s theory of natural selection, the young naturalist took a copy of Lyell’s book with him on the Beagle, ready to measure Lyell’s findings and soon to add more ammunition to the assault on the catastrophe theory.

Another pre-Darwinian challenger was Charles Darwin’s own grandfa-ther, Erasmus Darwin, who advocated biological evolution. In 1770, he affixed the motto “Everything from shells” on his carriage and bookplates. (A skepti-cal clergyman responded in verse: “Great wizard be! By magic spells, Can all things raise from cockle shells.”) In 1800, Jean Baptiste Lamarck, a French naturalist who has been called “the founder of the doctrine of evolution,” pro-posed that species change over time in reaction to their environments.

On the popular front, a book appeared in 1845 titled Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, in which the Scottish journalist Robert Chambers went so far as to argue that human beings derived from monkeys and apes. Although the book sold widely—Prince Albert reportedly read it aloud to Queen Victoria—it was vilified by those who were appalled by the idea and those who found in it a sloppy use of facts and little to support the outlandish claim. Darwin reacted to the book by calling its geology “bad” and its zoology “far worse.”

Nevertheless, Vestiges contributed to a delay in the publication of Darwin’s own work. In the aftermath of Chambers’s work, Darwin proceed-ed cautiously. He did so in part to avoid having his research come out amid all the controversy over Vestiges, and in part because he wanted to be sure that he had his facts straight and that his claims were fully corroborated.

Wallace and On the Origin of Species

In any event, skepticism regarding the catastrophe view had appeared before Darwin proposed his theory of natural selection. Indeed, the foundation had been laid for a more thorough and systematic alternative to the idea


of catastrophe, supported by extensive empirical evidence—the very kind to which Darwin, as a rigorous scientist, was committed. In 1857, Darwin wrote a letter to the American botanist Asa Gray in which he provided an abstract of his forthcoming book:

I think it can be shown that there is such an unerring power at work, or Natural Selection . . . which selects exclusively for the good of each organic be-ing. . . . This little abstract touches only on the accumulative power of natural selection, which I look at as by far the most important element in the production of new forms. [italics added]

As Darwin continued to work on his theory, he soon encountered a startling development. In 1858, Alfred Russel Wallace, an English natural-ist who had been working independently, sent Darwin an essay in which he proposed the theory of natural selection (although he did not use that phrase). Like Darwin, Wallace had been influenced by Malthus. After read-ing the Essay on the Principle of Population, Wallace began asking about animals, “Why do some die and some live?” In considering the question, he realized that “in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain—that is, the fittest would survive.”

T H E D E S C E N T O F M A N


Although Wallace had previously informed Darwin about the progress he had made in investigating the relationship of species to their environ-ments, Darwin was amazed by Wallace’s essay and how it dovetailed with his own. He wrote Lyell, “If Wallace had my MS. [manuscript] sketch writ-ten out in 1842, he could not have made a better short abstract!”

Darwin offered to get Wallace’s paper published in any journal of the latter’s choosing. He then sent Wallace’s essay, along with an outline of his own similar views, to the Linnean Society in London.

On July 1, 1858, their joint presentation, “On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection,” was read publicly at Burlington House, the home of the Linnean Society. Darwin attended, Wallace could not. The two men, who had established a friendship years earlier, remained close friends; Wallace never felt slighted by the greater attention paid to Darwin.

Wallace’s work encouraged Darwin to finally publish his book On the Origin of Species in 1859. In it, he presented his theory of natural selection in full detail. According to this view, the young in a species compete with each other for survival and pass on to the next generations any variations that might help them succeed. The variations constitute adaptations to the en-vironment, which are communicated through heredity. Sometimes, Darwin recognized, only the slightest variations could mean the difference between the survival and extinction of a species. Beyond natural selection, Darwin also suggested that related organisms come from common ancestors.

On the Origin of Species sold widely and quickly went through several printings. A reviewer for The New York Times wrote,

We are persuaded that the doctrine of progressive modification by Natural Selection will give a new direction to inquiry into the real genetic relation-ship of species, existing and extinct—will, in fact, make a revolution in natural history.

In a similar vein, botanist H.C. Watson wrote in a letter to Darwin,

Your leading idea will assuredly become recognized as an established truth in science, i.e. “Natural Selection.” It has the characteristics of all great natural truths. . . . You are the greatest revolutionist in natural history of this century, if not of all centuries.

Other scientists criticized Darwin for failing to present the proof be-hind the hereditary transfer of variations. Religious opponents attacked him for undermining orthodox belief by seeming to equate human beings with animals and denying the creation story as recounted in the Bible. Yet Darwin had been careful to avoid advancing any theory concerning the ori-


gin of life, and not to deny that there was a supreme creator. Indeed, the text of his book referred to “laws impressed on matter by the Creator.”

Darwin elaborated on various aspects of his theory and offered new ones in three subsequent works: The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, published in 1868; The Descent of Man, published in 1871; and The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872.

In his personal life, Darwin had wed a first cousin, Emma Wedgwood, in January 1839. The couple had ten children, two of whom died in infancy.

Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, in London. He was given a state funeral and buried at Westminster Abbey. He has been recognized as a giant of modern science who revolutionized the field of biology and unleashed an enduring challenge to age-old assumptions about the nature of life, humanity, religion, and society.

Further ReadingBowleb, Peter. Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence. New York:

Cambridge University Press, 1996.Brown, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.Desmond, Adrian, and James Moore. Darwin. New York: Warner, 1991.

DISCOVERY, AGE OF

1420: Under Prince Henry the Navigator, the Portuguese explore and settle the Madeira Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Morocco

1487: Portuguese explorer Bartholomeu Dias sails around the southern tip of Africa1492: Sailing for the Spanish crown, Christopher Columbus reaches America, landing

in the Bahamas1497–1499: Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama sails around the southern tip of

Africa and reaches India1519: Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese navigator sailing for Spain, begins a journey

that culminates in the first voyage around the world1521: Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés captures the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán

(site of modern-day Mexico City)1532: Francisco Pizarro conquers the Inca Empire for Spain1534: French explorer Jacques Cartier discovers the St. Lawrence River, one of the

major waterways of North America1540: Spanish conqueror Francisco Coronado begins his search for the fabled Golden

Cities of Cíbola1610: English explorer Henry Hudson enters and explores Hudson Bay in Canada1616: English sea pilot William Baffin maps the entire shore of Baffin Bay in Canada1682: René-Robert de La Salle of France descends the Mississippi River to the Gulf

of Mexico

See also: Wallace, Alfred Russel.


From the mid-fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries, Europeans sailed the world’s oceans to discover unseen lands, peoples, and natural resources in the farthest reaches of Africa, Asia, and the Western Hemisphere. Their far-flung explorations constituted the Age of Discovery, whose motivation was part materialistic and part scientific.

Historians debate the extent to which the Age of Discovery—also known as the Age of Exploration—was truly scientific in purpose and ori-entation. According to some, the overseas expeditions were guided, at least in part, by the quest for empirical evidence to support fledgling scientific theories. Others insist that evidence of scientific curiosity as a primary mo-tivation is, at best, scant.

Prince Henry the Navigator

Sailors from Portugal began voyaging southwest into the Atlantic during the 1300s; however, it was not until Prince Henry the Navigator (1394–1460)—the son of Portugal’s King John I—sponsored such explorations that they ventured far south along the coast of Africa, across the equator, and finally around the southern tip of the continent.

Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal, whose sponsorship of ocean voyages in the first half of the fifteenth century launched the Age of Discovery, is portrayed in an illuminated travel chronicle of 1453. (Granger Collection, New York)


Numerous obstacles worked against ocean voyagers journeying to the equator. The lack of sophisticated navigational equipment made it difficult for sailors to determine their location; storms buffeted their ships and often carried them away at will; and legend had it that the water near the equa-tor would boil travelers to death or that sea monsters would swallow them whole. Latitude 29° north was recognized as a point from beyond which no one had ever returned.

It was Prince Henry who envisioned expeditions far south to determine if it were possible to journey around Africa. Neither a navigator nor a sailor himself (except for his participation in one brief naval engagement), Prince Henry earned his place in history by encouraging voyages of discovery in the first half of the fifteenth century. Certainly, his motivation was less a matter of scientific curiosity than one of filling Portugal’s coffers and spreading the Christian faith.

For one thing, Prince Henry sought to open trade routes with the Far East that would enable Portugal to bypass the small independent states on the northern Italian peninsula (called “city states”) that dominated passage through the eastern Mediterranean Sea. In addition, he also dreamed of converting pagans to Christianity and of containing Islam by linking Europe with a mythical Christian kingdom that he thought real. Finally, he sought to fulfill the prophecy of his horoscope, which foretold that he would make important discoveries.

Thus, under a charter from Prince Henry, Portuguese sailors explored and settled the Madeira Islands in 1420. Gil Eannes, on a voyage sponsored by Prince Henry in 1434, navigated the dangerous shoals (referred to by Arabs as the “father of danger”) off the west coast of Africa and rounded Cape Bojador (today part of Western Sahara); Nuno Tristão reached Cape Blanc (in what is now Mauritania) in 1441; Dinis Dias reached the Cape Verde Islands (off of modern-day Senegal) in 1444; and Tristão reached the mouth of the Gambia River in 1446.

When Spain began its own expeditions to Africa, the Portuguese felt pressured to sail farther yet. In 1487, Bartholomeu Dias (ca. 1450–1500) and his crew were blown past the southern tip of Africa (later called the Cape of Good Hope) by a storm and thereby discovered that it was possible to sail around the continent.

Ten years later, Vasco da Gama (ca. 1469–1524) rounded Africa and landed at Mozambique, where Arabs told him of rich ports to the north. Da Gama proceeded across the Indian Ocean and reached Calicut on the southwest coast of India in May 1498, returning to Portugal the following year. He lost two of his four ships and half of his men along the way, but he proved that it was possible to sail south and east from Europe to Asia.


Christopher Columbus

By this time, another idea had been advanced by a part-time weaver and sailor from Genoa, Italy, Christopher Columbus (1451–1506). Long inter-ested in maps and mapmaking, Columbus knew of the findings of ninth-century Muslim geographer Alfragan, who had calculated that one degree of the Earth’s circumference is equal to 66 nautical miles (122 kilometers). Columbus, however, made the mistake of misreading Alfragan’s figure as 45 nautical miles (83 kilometers). In actuality, one degree is equal to 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers); thus, for each degree Columbus miscalcu-lated (shortened) the circumference of the Earth by 15 nautical miles (28 kilometers). Since the Earth is divided into 360 degrees, this meant that he had shortened the total circumference by 5,400 nautical miles (10,000 kilometers).

Moreover, Columbus agreed with the Italian mathematician Paolo Toscanelli who, influenced by the findings of the explorer Marco Polo, had determined that Asia extended much farther east than it actually does. With Toscanelli’s numbers in hand, Columbus insisted that he could sail west from the Canary Islands for about 2,400 miles (3,900 kilometers) and reach Asia ( Japan)—a miscalculation that left him more than 8,000 miles (13,000 kilometers) short. Nevertheless, even at the distance calculated by Columbus, he proposed a daring journey, for he would have to sail far into the open sea with no coastal markers to guide him.

Columbus set about seeking a sponsor for his expedition. He met with rejection until the Spanish monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella, finally agreed to back him. The Italian was promised 10 percent of all profits, governor-ship over any newfound lands, and the title Admiral of the Ocean Sea. The rest would belong to Spain.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew set sail from Palos, Spain. Their expedition consisted of three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. The largest, the flagship Santa Maria, measured only about 100 feet (30 meters) long and carried thirty-nine crewmembers.

Upon reaching the Bahamas on October 12, Columbus believed that he had made it to the outer islands of Asia. He claimed that he had found a land resplendent with gold and spices and a people—“Indians”—who could be converted to Christianity. He imprisoned several dozen of these native people, of whom only a few survived the journey back to Europe the fol-lowing year. Thus began the long, dismal treatment of Native Americans by Europeans.

Indeed, Columbus’s treatment of native peoples, as well as the unin-tended consequences of European contact, later ignited ongoing controversy among historians and others over how to evaluate the famous mariner. For example, in his classic work Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life of Christopher


Columbus (1942), Samuel Eliot Morison praises Columbus for his bravery and navigational talent. In A People’s History of the United States (1980), Howard Zinn accuses the explorer of committing genocide.

Columbus ultimately made three subsequent voyages across the Atlantic (1493–1496, 1498, and 1502–1504), but it was another Italian who became the namesake of the lands he had discovered. In 1499, and again in 1501, the Florentine navigator Amerigo Vespucci sailed to the coast of Brazil, and he concluded that Columbus had discovered a “new world.” In 1507, a German publisher, influenced by Vespucci’s account, placed the Italian’s name on a map of the new continent, thereby designat-ing it “America.”

Other Spanish and Portuguese Expeditions

In the wake of Columbus’s voyages, several other Spaniards sailed west to explore the Americas, prompted by a mix of motivations. Scientific inquiry was part of the story, but a relatively minor part.

On February 19, 1519, Hernán Cortés (1485–1547) sailed from Cuba with a force of some 600 men with the purpose of conquering and coloniz-ing Mexico. In May 1521, Cortés and his well-armed soldiers laid siege to

N I Ñ A , P I N T A , S A N T A M A R Í A


the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán; by August 3, upon the capture of the Aztec emperor, Montezeuma II, Tenochtitlán fell. Cortés consolidated Spanish control over the land and people of Mexico, treating some natives brutally and forming alliances with others.

In similar fashion, Francisco Pizarro (ca. 1476–1541) conquered the Incas of Peru. In 1532, on his third expedition to the west coast of South America, Pizarro arrived with a force of 180 men, including several dozen cavalry, and proceeded inland through Peru. Although the expedition pro-vided valuable information about the Inca Empire, Pizarro’s main goal was to conquer the native peoples and get from them as much gold as he could. Solidifying the Spanish conquest, Pizarro and his army defeated the Inca leader Atahuallpa on November 16, 1532, and captured the capital, Cuzco, a year later.

In the meantime, Ferdinand Magellan (ca. 1480–1521), a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, received a royal commission to find a west-ward route to the Spice Islands of Asia. The expedition, consisting of five ships and 270 men, set sail west across the Atlantic Ocean in 1519, journey-ing around South America and into the Pacific Ocean. Magellan was killed in a skirmish with an indigenous tribe in the Philippines in April 1521, but one of his ships, with a crew of eighteen men, reached Spain in September 1522, completing the first voyage around the world.

Another Spanish conquistador, Francisco Coronado (ca. 1510–1554), who had conquered territories in northwest Mexico, set out across the Rio Grande in February 1540 in search of cities said to be laden with gold. As it turned out, however, the Golden Cities of Cíbola turned out to be a group of Zuni pueblos in Arizona and contained no particular riches at all.

From there, Coronado dispatched a small party westward under Garcia López de Cárdenas, who became the first Europeans to see the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River. In the spring of 1541, Coronado pushed farther north and east, through and beyond what is now Texas, in search of yet another wealthy kingdom, called Quivira. Arriving in what is today central Kansas, he found only a village of the Wichita people and, again, no riches. Despite his failure to find gold, Coronado had discovered vast tracts of land previously unknown to Europeans.

French and English Expeditions

For the French, Jacques Cartier (1491–1557) discovered the St. Lawrence River in 1534 and made two other expeditions to North America in the 1530s and 1540s. The French based their claim to Canada largely on Cartier’s findings. In 1673, the French-Canadian explorer Louis Jolliet (1645–1700) joined with Father Jacques Marquette (1637–1675) on an expedition across Lake Michigan and along the Fox and Wisconsin rivers.


On June 17, they entered the Mississippi River and followed it south to just below the mouth of the Arkansas River before turning back. Their explora-tion opened the Great Lakes and Mississippi Valley region to European settlement and influence.

René-Robert Cavelier, the Sieur de La Salle (1643–1687), explored the region south of lakes Ontario and Erie from 1669 to 1670; he later claimed to have discovered the Ohio River the following year. With the Italian-born explorer Henri de Tonti (ca. 1650–1704) and a large party of French and Indians, La Salle descended the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682. Claiming all the land drained by the river for France, he named the region Louisiana.

Among English explorers, Henry Hudson (?–ca. 1611) undertook four expeditions to North America in search of the Northwest Passage. In 1607,

The mariner’s astrolabe, a vital instrument of navigation beginning in the fifteenth century, made it possible to deter-mine the latitude of a ship at sea. This Portuguese bronze astrolabe dates to 1555. (Granger Collection, New York)


aboard the Hopewell, he reached Greenland. Then in September 1609, aboard the Half Moon on an expedition sponsored by the Dutch East India Company, he entered New York Bay. He spent the following month explor-ing the Hudson River to a point about 150 miles (240 kilometers) from its mouth, about where Albany is located today.

In 1610, Hudson sailed for an English company in the ship Discovery. That summer, he entered Hudson Bay, in Canada. He spent three months exploring the eastern islands and shores while trying to find an outlet to the northwest. No outlet was ever found, and those aboard the Discovery spent the winter in Hudson Bay. In the spring, the crew mutinied. Hudson, his son, and several others were set adrift in a small boat; they were never heard of again.

As part of another expedition searching for the Northwest Passage, the famed British navigator William Baffin (1584–1622), sailing on the ship Tiger as part of a fleet under the command of Captain Benjamin Joseph in 1615, explored the Hudson Strait and part of Southampton Island in Canada, compiling highly accurate maps and notes on the local tides. Baffin also determined longitude by comparing the altitude of the moon with another body in space and measuring the angular distance between them, purportedly making him the first person to take such a lunar measurement at sea.

In 1616, Baffin journeyed again to North America, this time aboard the ship Discovery with Robert Bylot as captain. Sailing farther north than any previous European explorers, they mapped the entire shore of Baffin Bay, including Lancaster Sound. Baffin mistakenly concluded that the bay lacked the outlet he was looking for; he failed to realize that Lancaster Sound would take him west to other channels and eventually to the Pacific Ocean.

Taken together, these and the many other expeditions during the Age of Discovery made the western European countries dominant in conquering overseas lands, unleashed a migration of Europeans across the oceans, and either inadvertently or purposefully advanced the scientific knowledge of the world. In doing so, Western society underwent an important transition from the medieval emphasis on superstition to the application of rational thought.

Further ReadingBarden, Renardo. The Discovery of America: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego,

CA: Greenhaven, 1989.Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea. New York: MJF, 1997.———. The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America. New York:

Oxford University Press, 1978.Parry, J.H. The Age of Reconnaissance, 1450–1650. London: Phoenix, 1963.


DUNBARHUNTER EXPEDITION

With William Dunbar as leader and George Hunter as second in command, the Dunbar-Hunter Expedition of 1804–1805 explored the Ouachita River, which flows through the present-day cities of Hot Springs, Arkansas, and Monroe, Louisiana, and the nearby hot springs of the Old Southwest, in territory gained by the Louisiana Purchase. The expedition’s scientific accomplishments were second only to those of the more famous Lewis and Clark expedition in the northern and far western part of the territory.

William Dunbar

Prior to his expedition with Hunter, William Dunbar compiled an impres-sive record in business and science. He was born circa 1750 near Elgin, Scotland, to Sir Archibald Dunbar and Anne Bayne. An inquisitive young man, William was directly influenced by the Scottish Renaissance, with its emphasis on science, then in full swing. In 1767, he graduated from King’s College at Aberdeen, where he had embraced professor Alexander Rait’s be-lief that the cultivation of higher mathematics would advance civilization.

Dunbar emigrated to America in 1771, largely because he saw it as a land of opportunity. He arrived with goods he used in the Indian trade at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania, and he entered into a long and lucrative partner-ship with Philadelphia merchant John Ross and his son, Alexander. In the mid-1770s, Dunbar founded a plantation near the lower Mississippi River, at Manchac, in what was then British West Florida (today Louisiana). Working with the Rosses, he used slave labor to make barrel staves, which he then shipped to the Caribbean. During the American Revolution, how-ever, the plantation was plundered and many of his slaves ran away.

After rebuilding his plantation at Manchac and establishing a mercan-tile house in New Orleans, Dunbar built another plantation, near Natchez,

ca. 1750: William Dunbar is born in Scotland1755: George Hunter is born in Scotland1771: Dunbar emigrates to America1774: Hunter emigrates to America1792: Dunbar builds his plantation, the Forest, near Natchez, Mississippi1796: Hunter journeys to St. Louis1804: The Dunbar-Hunter expedition begins on October 16, on the east bank of the

lower Mississippi River1805: The expedition ends on January 27 in Natchez1810: Dunbar dies on October 16 at the Forest1832: Hunter dies on February 23 in New Orleans


in 1792. The Forest, as he called it, became his home. Dunbar and his wife, Dinah Clarke, raised nine children there. By this time, West Florida had come under the control of Spain, and Dunbar formed a close relationship with the new government.

While accumulating wealth by raising and selling indigo and cotton, again an industry based on using slave labor, Dunbar also became widely known for his scientific interests. He invented new types of plows and employed innova-tive agricultural practices on his land. In addition, he invented an improved iron-screw press designed to pack cotton into square bales for shipment; studied Indian languages and paleontology; described trees, recorded their lo-cations, and listed their uses for new settlers; catalogued flowers; wrote about fish and wildlife; and kept detailed daily weather observations.

Later, Dunbar built an astronomical observatory, equipped with what he described as a “Gregorian reflector [telescope] of 5½ or 6 feet in length in the great tube with 9 inch aperture possessing 6 magnifying powers from 100 to 525.” As he noted in his diary: “The small fortune which I have acquired cultivating the earth alone enables me to procure many instru-ments of moderate expense which might facilitate my researches.” With his extensive scientific studies, the Forest became a gathering point for fellow scientists, and his many visitors included the leading American botanist of the time, William Bartram.

In 1798, Dunbar represented Spain on the boundary commission that drew the 31st parallel between Spanish West Florida and the United States (and placed Natchez within the latter). The American representatives were led by land surveyor Andrew Ellicott, who was known for his mathematical and astronomical studies. Dunbar and Ellicott became fast friends.

It was through Ellicott, who had done work for Thomas Jefferson, that Dunbar struck up a correspondence with the president—himself an ac-complished naturalist. In their letters, Dunbar and Jefferson discussed flora and fauna, as well as various scientific ideas. When Dunbar began writing articles for Transactions, the journal of the American Philosophical Society, Jefferson reviewed Dunbar’s writings before they went to publication. The articles covered topics ranging from weather and fossils to eclipses of the sun and the flow of the Mississippi River.

The Expedition

In 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark stopped at the Forest on their way to St. Louis and the launch of their own historic expedition to explore the newly purchased Louisiana Territory. Dunbar was immediately impressed with their knowledge and determination.

A short time thereafter, President Jefferson invited Dunbar to head an expedition to explore the Red and Arkansas rivers. Despite his relationship


with the president, Dunbar, at age fifty-four, had never expected a chance to lead such an important expedition. But Jefferson recognized Dunbar as the leading scientific expert on the Old Southwest and wanted him to collect information on the landscape, plant and animal life, and native peoples of the region.

Dunbar agreed, and Jefferson appointed George Hunter of Phila-delphia to assist him on the expedition. Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1755, Hunter had come to America in 1774. He served in a Continental Army hospital during the American Revolution and was imprisoned for a time by the British. By the 1790s, he was part owner of a distillery and trading successfully in pharmaceuticals.

Although Hunter had a reputation for being opportunistic and slow moving, his background in chemistry lent a solid background in science to the expedition. More important, he had traveled extensively in the American wilderness. In 1796, he journeyed from Philadelphia to Pitts-burgh and then along the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, eventually reaching the Spanish outpost at St. Louis. In 1802, he traveled to Kentucky and took extensive notes about the region’s mineral wealth.

Dunbar handled most of the planning and organization for the pro-posed journey. Hunter did not arrive in Natchez until August 1804; he brought with him his medicines, geological tools, and mathematical instru-


ments. Before they departed, however, opposition from the Spanish and from Native American tribes, combined with Dunbar’s enthusiasm for exploring the region’s hot springs, led to a change in plans: The expedi-tion would be limited to exploring the Ouachita River and the nearby hot springs in west-central Arkansas.

The Dunbar-Hunter Expedition debarked from St. Catherine’s Landing, near Natchez, on October 16, 1804. Dunbar, Hunter, and their team of fifteen explorers, including soldiers, would travel a total of about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) over 103 days. During the course of the journey, Dunbar made astronomical observations and collected plants and rocks for study upon returning home.

The expedition ascended the Ouachita River from Louisiana into Arkansas and then continued on to the hot springs. Dunbar noted one spring with a temperature of 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius) and col-lected water samples for further analysis. Despite spending several days at the spring, he failed to determine what caused the waters to be heated.

The expedition landed back at Natchez on January 27, 1805. Dunbar sent specimens to Jefferson to share with scientists and wrote a report that the president submitted to Congress on February 19, 1806. In his intro-duction to the report, Jefferson stated that the expedition had been led by “Mr. Dunbar, of Natchez, a citizen of distinguished science, who had aided, and continues to aid us, with his disinterested and valuable services in the prosecution of these enterprises.”

Also in 1806, Dunbar contributed to a book on the exploration of the Louisiana Territory titled Discoveries Made in Exploring the Missouri, Red River, and Washita by Captains Lewis and Clark, Doctor Sibley, and William Dunbar. Included in the work were lists and descriptions of flow-ers, vegetables, and trees, along with meteorological information about the region.

Although poor health forced him to decline an invitation from Pres-ident Jefferson to lead another expedition into the Old Southwest, Dunbar did play a major role in planning it. In 1806, a party led by surveyor and astronomer Thomas Freeman and medical student Peter Custis traveled 600 miles (950 kilometers) up the Red River, until they were turned back by Spanish troops.

Having served in the Mississippi territorial legislature before his expe-dition with Hunter, Dunbar was chosen as speaker of the house in 1803 and served in the position for two years, until losing interest in politics. He became seriously ill in 1808, recovered, and then died from unknown causes at the Forest on October 16, 1810.

In the meantime, Hunter journeyed to Kentucky in 1809; six years later, he settled in New Orleans with his family. He worked as a druggist there until his death on February 23, 1832.


Further ReadingDeRosier, Arthur H., Jr. William Dunbar: Scientific Pioneer of the Old Southwest.

Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2007.Rowland, Eron, ed. Life, Letters, and Papers of William Dunbar of Elgin,

Morayshire, Scotland, and Natchez, Mississippi: Pioneer Scientist of the Southern United States. Jackson: Mississippi Historical Society, 1930.

EARLE, SYLVIA 1935

An American botanist, oceanographer, deep-sea explorer, author, and lec-turer, Sylvia Earle has been dubbed “Her Royal Deepness” for the time she has spent in the water and the discoveries she has made there.

Sylvia Alice Earle was born on August 30, 1935, in Gibbstown, New Jersey, to Lewis Earle, an electrician, and Alice Freas Richie. She was raised on a farm near Camden, New Jersey, where her mother taught her to study animals and respect their habitats. Earle later recalled how she spent much time at the pond in her backyard, filling jars with fish, frogs, and tadpoles.

In 1948, when Earle was thirteen, her family moved to Dunedin, Florida, on the Gulf Coast near Clearwater. Earle immediately was attract-ed to the sea. “On my first visit to the shore,” she later wrote, “a great wave knocked me off my feet. I’ve been irresistibly drawn to the ocean ever since.” At age seventeen, she began scuba diving and from then on preferred being in the ocean to being on land.

Intelligent and hardworking, Earle graduated from Florida State University in 1955. She earned her master’s degree from Duke University the following year and immediately began studying for her doctorate there.

1935: Born on August 30 in Gibbstown, New Jersey1948: Moves to Dunedin, Florida1966: Earns doctorate in botany from Duke University1976: Begins studying sperm whales in the Pacific Ocean1979: Makes her “JIM Dive” in a suit of armored plating1982: With Graham Hawkes, founds Deep Ocean Engineering1990: Becomes chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration1998: Begins leading the Sustainable Seas Expeditions to study the U.S. National

Marine Sanctuaries


Her graduate studies were inter-rupted by the first of her three mar-riages, the births of her two children, and her need to take a job outside academia. Nevertheless, in 1964, she found time to join an expedition to the Indian Ocean sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Upon returning home, she re-sumed her graduate studies and conducted research on marine flora in the Gulf of Mexico. Earle was one of the few botanists at the time who actually went into the water to study specimens; most had them collected by others and then studied them

onshore. Earle obtained her doctorate from Duke in 1966; her dissertation stood out for the details it provided about aquatic life.

In the summer of 1970, Earle became a U.S. aquanaut when she took part in Tektite II, a scientific underwater project sponsored by the U.S. Navy, the Department of the Interior, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). In the program, scientists lived on the ocean floor near the Virgin Islands for an extended period; Tektite I was for male aquanauts, Tektite II for women.

Earle lived with four other scientists in two large tanks joined by a cy-lindrical passageway, 50 feet (15 meters) beneath the surface. During the two weeks of the project, Earle alone cataloged twenty-six plants previously unknown to those waters. NASA applied what was learned about living in restricted, close quarters to its human space flight program.

Tektite II brought Earle national publicity and a visit to the White House. She recalled,

Tektite lifted me from the realm of pure science to communicating with a broad audience. Suddenly there were microphones in front of me and mil-lions of people were hearing what I had to say. I felt a strong obligation to educate them about the oceans.

From 1976 to 1980, Earle studied sperm whales in the Pacific Ocean as part of a research team. Her work resulted in a show on public television titled “Gentle Giants of the Pacific.”

During this time, she made a historic deep-sea dive in 1979. For this dive, she donned a “JIM suit,” bulky armor plating made of plastic and metal that resembled the suits worn by astronauts on the moon. In the JIM suit,

Botanist and deep-sea explorer Sylvia Earle, who led scores of research expedi-tions and spent ex-tended periods in an undersea habitat, has also been the chief scientist at NOAA, a prolific author, and a staunch advocate for the world’s oceans and marine life. ( John Shearer/WireImage/Getty Images)


Earle dove to a depth of 1,250 feet (381 meters) in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of the Hawai‘ian island of Oahu. It was a dangerous dive, because even a slight tear in the suit would create so much pressure that she would be crushed to death, and because she walked the ocean floor untethered from the expedition’s submarine.

It was the deepest solo dive ever made to that time without using a ca-ble connected to a surface vessel. Earle was on the seabed for more than two hours, collecting numerous specimens along the way. She wrote about her adventure in a book titled Exploring the Deep Frontier, published in 1980.

From 1980 to 1984, Earle served on the National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmosphere. In 1982, she founded a company called Deep Ocean Engineering (later Deep Ocean Technologies) with the designer of the JIM suit, her husband, Graham Hawkes. The company produced sub-mersibles, including the Deep Rover, a one-person vessel much more com-pact and less expensive than other subs. In 1985, Earle took Deep Rover to a depth of 3,000 feet (900 meters).

By this time, Earle had become an outspoken environmentalist who advocated protection of the oceans. She warned,

If the sea is sick we’ll feel it. If it dies, we die. Our future and the state of the oceans are one.


In 1989, Earle studied the effects of the Exxon Valdez oil spill at Prince William Sound in Alaska. Two years later, she surveyed the oil that spilled into the Persian Gulf after Iraq destroyed oil wells during its 1990–1991 invasion of Kuwait and war with the United States.

In 1990, Earle had become the first woman to serve as chief scien-tist of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She left that post in 1992 over political conflicts. From 1998 to 2002, she led the Sustainable Seas Expeditions to study the U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries, federally protected areas encompassing some 18,000 square miles (47,600 square kilometers) of coastal waters.

During the course of her long career, Earle has cataloged more than 20,000 marine plant specimens. She has written approximately 125 books and articles on marine science, has led some 60 expeditions, and has spent more than 6,000 hours underwater. In addition, she has held several aca-demic jobs, including staff researcher at the Farlow Herbarium at Harvard University from 1967 to 1981.

Above all, she has worked incessantly to generate public interest in marine life and the fate of the world’s oceans. In 1999, the president of the National Wildlife Federation, Mark Van Putten, praised her achievements:

Sylvia Earle has earned tremendous credibility among her peers in the sci-entific community. But perhaps her greatest accomplishment is her ability to popularize the mysteries of the oceans for nonscientists all over the world.

Further ReadingEarle, Sylvia. Dive! My Adventures in the Deep Frontier. Washington, DC:

National Geographic Society, 1998.———. Sea Change: A Message of the Ocean. New York: Putnam, 1995.Earle, Sylvia, and Al Giddings. Exploring the Deep Frontier. Washington, DC:

National Geographic Society, 1980.

EVEREST EXPEDITIONS

1921: British explorer George Leigh Mallory leads a reconnaissance expedition up the north slope of Mount Everest, from Tibet

1953: On May 29, New Zealand climber Edmund Hillary and Tibetan Sherpa Tenzing Norgay become the first to reach the summit

1963: An American scientific expedition, led by Swiss climber Norman Dyhrenfurth, reaches the summit for the first time

1975: Junko Tabei of Japan becomes the first woman to reach the summit


The initiative to reach the summit of Mount Everest—located in north-eastern Nepal along the border with China, it is the highest mountain in the world, at 29,035 feet (8,850 meters)—began in the late 1800s with European explorers, who first contemplated an ascent on foot.

Traditionally, area residents believed that the Himalayas were the home of gods. Mount Everest, the highest among them, was therefore to be re-vered, not conquered. While most of the efforts to reach the top of Mount Everest have had few scientific benefits and even less scientific motivation, a number of the expeditions have contributed to the understanding of re-gional topography and climate, as well as of the effects of extreme condi-tions on human survival.

In England at the turn of the twentieth century, the Royal Geo graph-ical Society and the Alpine Club began promoting the idea of climbing Mount Everest. The chief obstacles were getting to the mountain—since Nepal and Tibet were closed to foreigners at the time—and overcoming its hostile terrain and weather conditions.

Edmund Hillary of New Zealand (left) and Nepalese Sherpa guide Tenz-ing Norgay (right) were the first climb-ers to reach the peak of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth. They reached the summit on May 29, 1953. (Granger Collection, New York)


Mount Everest, named in the mid-1800s for George Everest, a surveyor general of India, is covered by enormous glaciers and buffeted by howling winds, and heavy snowstorms. At the summit, the temperature never rise above freezing and can drop as low as -76 degrees Fahrenheit (-24 degrees Celsius).

With Tibet briefly open to foreigners in 1921, George Leigh Mallory—who famously declared that he wanted to climb Mount Everest “because it’s there”—led a British expedition up the north side of the mountain; however, the group had to turn back due to high winds and avalanches. A second British expedition, in which Mallory also took part, reached a record altitude in 1922 before having to turn back. On his third attempt, in 1924, Mallory and fellow climber Andrew Irvine disappeared on the northeast ridge. (Mallory’s body was found in 1999 just 800 feet, or 240 meters, from the summit.) On these attempts, and others to come, Sherpas (people of Tibetan descent who lived near the Himalayas) proved important as guides and porters.

Attempts to reach the summit in the 1930s and 1940s also failed, though an important breakthrough came in 1933 with the first airplane photography of the summit and the surrounding landscape. This contrib-uted to what some have called the “Golden Age of Mount Everest Explor-ation” in the 1950s and 1960s.

During the spring and autumn of 1952, two Swiss expeditions reached the South Col, a major mountain pass (and today the most popular route to the top). But they failed to advance more than a short distance beyond it.

Then on May 29, 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa from Nepal, climbing as part of a British expedition led by John Hunt, traversed beyond the South Col and reached the summit. To do so, they had to navigate what came to be called the “Hillary Step,” a 55-foot (17-meter) formation of rock and ice so steep that just one slip could cause a climber to plunge to certain death. They made the ascent without the ropes commonly used by climbers today.

In 1960, a Chinese and Tibetan team led by Shih Chan-chun made the first summit of Everest by traversing the North Col and Northeast Ridge. Three years later, an American expedition led by the Swiss climber Norman Dyhrenfurth reached the summit. The team consisted of nine-teen mountaineers and scientists from throughout the United States, along with thirty-seven Sherpas.

A key purpose of the U.S. expedition was scientific research in the fields of physiology, psychology, glaciology, and meteorology. One of the expedition’s more interesting assignments was to record how climbers reacted to the extreme stresses at high altitudes, where oxygen de-privation was unavoidable. Information from these findings proved useful in the U.S. manned space flight program.


In 1975, Junko Tabei of Japan became the first woman to reach the summit, as part of an all-female expedition (accompanied by male Sherpas). Three years later, Austrians Reinhold Messner and Peter Habeler climbed to the summit without the use of oxygen tanks. And in 2003, a Sherpa named Lakpa Gelu climbed the southern route from Base Camp to the summit in a record 10 hours, 56 minutes.

Over the years, more than 200 people have lost their lives trying to reach the summit of Mount Everest. Those who traverse the mountain to-day may encounter remnants of tents, empty oxygen canisters, and even frozen corpses. Climbing Mount Everest in the twenty-first century has be-come heavily commercialized, with guided trips costing $65,000 or more.

Further ReadingBernbaum, Edwin. Sacred Mountains of the World. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1997.Johnston, Alexa. Reaching the Summit: Sir Edmund Hillary’s Life of Adventure.

New York: DK, 2005.

EXPLORERS CLUB

The Explorers Club was founded in New York City in 1904 to promote and support scientific expeditions throughout the world. Today, its mis-sion remains much the same. The Explorers Club defines itself as “an international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the ad-vancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore.”

The organization was founded in New York City by Henry Collins Walsh, who had engaged in an Arctic expedition in the mid-1890s, as well as several other men prominent in the sciences and journalism. Among them were Frederick Dellenbaugh, an American explorer who had jour-neyed to the western United States with John Wesley Powell; Adolphus Greely, an American polar explorer; Carl Lumholtz, a Norwegian discov-erer and ethnographer; Marshall Saville, an American archaeologist; and Donaldson Smith, a British explorer. After meeting in early May 1904, they held a dinner on May 28 at the Aldine Association, where the Explorers Club was formally organized.

1904: The Explorers Club is formally organized on May 281921: The Explorers Journal is first published1981: The club opens membership to women for the first time2000: The club sponsors an expedition to the world’s highest plateau, the Chang-Tang


The club was incorporated on October 25, 1905, whereupon regular meetings were initiated. In 1912, the club established its headquarters in a building on Amsterdam Avenue, where it housed its books, documents, trophies, and artifacts. It also began inviting explorers and natural scientists to present lectures about their experiences and findings. The same year, the Arctic Club of America merged with the Explorers Club.

In 1921, the club began publishing the Explorers Journal. It contains articles about the organization and its activities along with timely scientific information. In 1961, the club purchased the site of its present headquar-ters, a townhouse on East Seventieth Street in Manhattan named for famed journalist Lowell Thomas.

Another major landmark came in 1981, when the Explorers Club opened its membership to women. The first female members included Sylvia Earle, the world-renowned American oceanographer; Dian Fossey, the American zoologist known for her studies of the mountain gorillas in East Africa; Anna Roosevelt, the daughter of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; and Kathryn Sullivan, an oceanographer who would become the first American woman to walk in space.

Over the years, several club members have been involved in momen-tous explorations. When astronaut Neil Armstrong journeyed to the moon on board Apollo 11 in 1969, he brought with him the Explorers Club flag. The ranks of notable members include Roald Amundsen, Robert Ballard, Edmund Hillary, Charles Lindbergh, Robert Peary, Ernest Shackleton, Chuck Yeager, and thousands of others.

In the year 2000, the club sponsored an expedition to the world’s high-est plateau, the Chang-Tang, in Tibet. Today, the Explorers Club has more than thirty U.S. and international chapters, with member scientists and explorers from more than sixty countries.

Further ReadingThe Explorers Club. http://www.explorers.org.Plimpton, George, ed. As Told at the Explorers Club: More Than Fifty Gripping

Tales of Adventure. Guilford, CT: Lyons, 2003.

FLINDERS, MATTHEW 17741814

1774: Born on March 16 in Donington, England1789: Joins the Royal Navy1795: Explores Botany Bay in Australia and George’s River


In his journeys to Australia, the English naval commander, explorer, and hydrographer Matthew Flinders proved that Tasmania is an island, charted the Unknown Coast, and led a team of scientists in collecting valuable in-formation about the largely unexplored continent.

Matthew Flinders, Jr., was born on March 16, 1774, in Donington, Lincolnshire, England, to Matthew Flinders, a surgeon, and Susanna Ward. Young Matthew was a bright boy who was particularly attracted to math-ematics. He attended a free school run by the local parish and a grammar school run by the Reverend John Shinglar.

Located in eastern England’s fenlands, Donington was tied to the sea for its livelihood. Matthew was fascinated by the sea and relished the stories of an older cousin who served in the Royal Navy. At the nearby port of Boston, he walked amid the wharves and watched the ships as they sailed into the harbor. He read Daniel Defoe’s novel Robinson Crusoe (1719) and, many years later, wrote that he had gone to sea “against the wishes of friends from reading [it].”

Flinders joined the Royal Navy at age fifteen. Two years later, in 1791, he journeyed to Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti under Captain William Bligh aboard the HMS Providence. During these journeys, Flinders was the most junior of the midshipmen aboard and likely was involved in only lim-ited navigational work.

Down Under

Flinders next served on the HMS Reliance, which in 1795 sailed from England to Port Jackson, Australia, near Sydney. The journey greatly ex-panded his experience and furthered his reputation.

With George Bass, the ship’s surgeon, he explored the area around Sydney in a small, open boat. Captain James Cook had previously navigated the coastline, but Flinders wrote,

[T]he intermediate portions of the coast, both north and south, were little further known than from captain Cook’s general chart; and none of the more distant openings, marked but not explored by that celebrated navigator, had been seen.

Flinders and Bass sailed into Botany Bay and then up George’s River before abandoning their boat to travel by foot for another 20 miles

1798: With George Bass, circumnavigates Van Damien’s Land (Tasmania)1803: Explores southern Australia’s Unknown Coast1814: Publishes Voyage to Terra Australis; dies in London on July 19


(32 kilometers). They mapped the river’s course more extensively than had been done before and noted the richness of the soil in the area.

The adventure excited Flinders and made him determined to seek fur-ther discoveries. Several weeks later, in another small boat, the Tom Thumb, Flinders and Bass explored Providential Cove, located 22 miles (35 kilome-ters) south of Port Jackson. Flinders engaged in hydrographical research, likely his first time doing so, before rejoining the Reliance to sail for the Cape of Good Hope.

In 1798, as a lieutenant on the sloop Norfolk, Flinders studied the wa-ters at the Furneaux Group, islands north of Van Damien’s Land (today Tasmania). From October 1798 to January 1799, he and Bass circumnavi-gated Van Damien’s Land, passing through what is now known as Bass Strait and proving the territory to be an island. Bass took detailed notes on the plants, animals, and geography.

Back in England in 1801, Flinders published a memoir, Observations on the Coast of Van Diemen’s Land, which he dedicated to the great British botanist Joseph Banks. Later that year, Flinders was given command of the Investigator, with the assignment to explore the coastline of southern Australia, called the “Unknown Coast.” The Investigator had been built in


1795 and purchased by the Royal Navy in 1798. Flinders later described it as “three-hundred and thirty four tons . . . newly coppered and repaired” and evaluated it as “the best vessel which could, at that time, be spared for the projected voyage to Terra Australis.”

Joseph Banks, who would remain in England, appointed most of the ship’s scientific staff of six men: Robert Brown, England’s leading botanist; Ferdinand Lukas Bauer, botanical painter; William Westall, landscape painter; Peter Good, gardener (whose chief duty was to help transport plants); John Allen, miner (who served as the mineralogist); and John Crosley, astronomer. Good and Bauer often gathered plants while Brown was busy processing them.

The Investigator sailed from England on July 16, 1801, and reached Cape Leeuwin, on Australia’s southwest coast, in December. From then into May 1803, Flinders conducted a detailed exploration of the Unknown Coast, chartering the shoreline and sending scientists ashore to collect specimens.

In February, he entered Spencer Gulf; the following month, he discov-ered Kangaroo Island, observing the vast number of kangaroos feeding on the grass. The kangaroos were so unafraid, Flinders wrote, that “the poor animals suffered themselves to be shot in the eyes with a small shot, and in some cases to be knocked on the head with sticks.” Flinders himself shot ten kangaroos and used the meat for stew.

At the eastern end of the Unknown Coast, in April 1802, Flinders un-expectedly met Nicolas Baudin, captain of the French ship Le Géographe. Flinders named the meeting site Encounter Bay.

Flinders arrived at Port Jackson, on June 9, 1803. His exploration made him the first person to provide a detailed outline of Australia’s south coast. While at Port Jackson, Robert Brown took measures to preserve the plants he had collected. The Investigator then completed a circumnavigation of Australia, including a study of the Great Barrier Reef and the Gulf of Carpentaria.

During the course of the journey, however, Flinders discovered that the Investigator was severely rotted and desperately in need of repair. While he searched for a substitute ship, he traveled as a passenger on the Porpoise. In August 1803, the Porpoise struck a reef and sank about 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) north of Port Jackson. Flinders escaped on a small boat and managed to get others who had been aboard the ship res-cued from Wreck Reef, which jutted just 3–4 feet (about 1 meter) above sea level.

Sailing on the Cumberland, Flinders entered Torres Strait in October 1803. Beginning the trip back to England, he sailed west across the Indian Ocean and arrived in French-controlled Mauritius that December. Flinders was promptly arrested, as France had gone to war with England months earlier. Although he was imprisoned only briefly, he was detained on the


island for nearly seven years. Although it was a bitter experience, it gave Flinders the opportunity to work on his journals. The governor of the is-land finally granted Flinder’s release in June 1810.

Writings and Reputation

Returning to England in October 1810, Flinders published his description of the near circumnavigation of Australia—titled Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s Ship the Investigator—in July 1814. In addition to recounting the voyage, this work provided extensive information on meteorology, hydrography, magnetism, and navigation. Having been ill for some time, Flinders died on July 19, 1814, in London, at the age of forty.

In his years at sea, he had made major contributions to the mapping of the Australian coast, especially the Unknown Coast. The accuracy of his charts was a result of his often sailing twice over explored coastlines in or-der to check his work. In addition, he had researched the tides and shown how iron in ships affected compasses. His report, Magnetism on Ships, was circulated throughout the Royal Navy. By the late 1800s, a “Flinders Bar” of soft, unmagnetized iron in a brass container was being used to correct the effect of shipboard metals on compass readings.

Flinders suggested the names Australia and Terra Australis for the large continent he had circumnavigated, which previously had been identified on maps as “New Holland.” His scientific curiosity and intellectual commit-ment were well summarized in a letter from Joseph Banks in April 1803:

The Frequent opportunities you have Given to the naturalists to investigate does you Great Credit both as a navigator & as a considerate man. Natural history is now a study so much in Repute by the Public & in its self is so interesting, that the Good word of the Naturalists when you come home will not fail to interest a large number of People in your Favor.

Further ReadingEstensen, Miriam. The Life of Matthew Flinders. Crows Nest, Australia: Allen

and Unwin, 2002.

See also: Banks, Joseph; Pacific Exploration.


GOBI DESERT

Straddling Mongolia and China, the Gobi Desert has been the site of sev-eral major scientific expeditions, most notably those in pursuit of fossils and ancient Buddhist ruins. The largest desert in Asia, the Gobi covers approxi-mately a half-million square miles (1.3 million square kilometers), extend-ing about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from east to west and about 600 miles (950 kilometers) from north to south.

The Gobi is largely an arid plateau that ranges in elevation from 3,000 feet (900 meters) above sea level in the east to 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) in the west. It is ringed by mountains: the Da Hinggan Ling to the east; the Altun Shan and Nan Shan to the south; the Tian Shan to the west; and the Altay Shan, Hangayn Nuruu, and Yablonovyy to the north. Most of the Gobi is covered with grass or scrub and has enough food and water for nomadic herders to raise animals; however, the southeastern Gobi has no water.

Trade routes—preeminently the fabled Silk Road—have crisscrossed the Gobi since ancient times. The first European to cross the Gobi was the Venetian explorer Marco Polo in the thirteenth century.

In the twentieth century, several modern scientific expeditions sought the Buddhist cave-temples near the Chinese city of Dunhuang. Among them is the Cave of the Thousand Buddhas, which dates back to 366 c.e. The entire complex, called the Mogao Caves, contains Buddhist art created over a period of about 1,000 years.

In the early 1900s, a Chinese Taoist named Wang Yuanlu searched for the caves and discovered 60,000 documents walled up among them. Many of the documents were religious in nature; some were secular, such as ad-ministrative records and dictionaries. Other expeditions to the caves fol-lowed, including ones from France, Japan, and Russia.

At the turn of the twentieth century, the Swedish explorer Sven Anders Hedin discovered the ruins of the ancient oasis city of Loulan in remote northwestern China. Also discovered there have been the remains of Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Bronze Age civilizations.

366: The Cave of a Thousand Buddhas, a religious temple, is first created 1971: A Mongolian-Polish expedition finds the remains of a 6-foot-long (1.83-meter-

long) dinosaur, Protoceratops2002: A new species of sauropod, a long-necked dinosaur, is found at Bor Guve


In a series of expeditions during the 1920s and 1930s, the American naturalist Roy Chapman Andrews discovered a trove of dinosaur bones and eggs in the Gobi Desert. The Gobi is particularly abundant in fossils from the late Cretaceous period, from about 98 million to 65 million years ago. The Flaming Cliffs site in Mongolia has been an especially rich source of dinosaur fossils.

Dinosaur remains have continued to turn up in the Gobi. In 1971, a Mongolian-Polish expedition uncovered the remains of a Protoceratops, a dinosaur about 6 feet (1.83 meters) long and 2 feet (61 centimeters) tall, with a thick neck and horns, and a Velociraptor, a long-tailed carnivore about the same size as Protoceratops. In the 1990s, a team led by American pale-ontologist Mark A. Norell discovered the Ukhaa Tolgood fossil field, which The New York Times described as the “richest vertebrate site in the world,” in Mongolia.

And in 2002, anthropologists discovered a new species of sauropod, Erketu ellisoni, an extremely long-necked creature, at Bor Guve, a recently excavated site also located in Mongolia. The expedition was sponsored by the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, which continue to sponsor joint fossil ex-peditions to the region.

Further ReadingMan, John. Gobi: Tracking the Desert. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,

1999.

As evidenced by this fossilized dinosaur skull, discovered in the windswept Bayanzag Valley of Mongolia, the Gobi Desert continues to provide fertile ground for paleon-tological research. (DEA/Christian Ricci/De Agostini/Getty Images)

See also: Hedin, Sven.


HAKLUYT SOCIETY

Founded in 1846 to publish primary and secondary works pertaining to early expeditions, the London-based Hakluyt Society took its name and inspiration from sixteenth-century geographer Richard Hakluyt.

The Hakluyt Society held its first meeting on December 15, 1846, in the London Library at St. James’s Square. The society was organized largely through the efforts of geographer and historian William Desborough Cooley.

In Cooley’s view, it was important that the scientific study of geography be placed in historical context. Cooley himself wrote several works support-ing this approach, among them The Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained; Or, an Inquiry into the Early History and Geography of Central Africa (1841) and Inner Africa Laid Open (1852), which described the geo-graphic features of the little-known African interior.

Cooley had wanted to name the society for Christopher Columbus, but the governing council, whose members in the first year included Charles Darwin, decided on naming it for Richard Hakluyt, an early advocate of English overseas expansion. Hakluyt was born about 1552 and attended Westminster School, then Christ Church School at Oxford University. He graduated from Oxford with a bachelor’s degree in 1574 and a master’s de-gree in 1577.

While at Westminster, Hakluyt had discovered a map in his cousin’s library and been intrigued by how it was compiled and by his cousin’s sto-ries about explorers. From that point on, Hakluyt had devoted his studies to geography.

As a lecturer on the subject at Oxford, he discussed the changing na-ture of maps and called attention to the possibilities for English overseas expansion. He insisted that, because of the explorations of John Cabot—who, in 1497, while sailing under the English flag, landed near Labrador, Newfoundland, and explored the coast of northeastern Canada—England had a rightful claim to America that preceded the Spanish claim to the con-tinent. Hakluyt insisted that England had been remiss in failing to press

1582: English geographer and writer Richard Hakluyt publishes Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America, advocating settlement of North America

1589: Hakluyt publishes Discoveries of the English Nation, considered the most comprehensive geography of his time

1846: The Hakluyt Society is founded on December 15 in London


its rights and argued that great benefits would ac-crue from developing the eastern North American coast south of the French settlements in Canada and north of the Spanish settlements in Florida. In addition, he called for the English to search for the Northwest Passage.

In advocating for North American settlement, Hakluyt made contact with many sea captains, merchants, and sailors. In 1582, he published a work, Divers Voyages Touching the Discoverie of America, in which he advocated the colonization of America. Two years later, he wrote the tract Discourse of Western Planting, which he presented to Queen Elizabeth I in support of a plan by Sir Walter Raleigh to settle North America.

About this time, Hakluyt was appointed chap-lain to the English ambassador to France. He lived in Paris for five years. There he collected informa-tion for the English government on French overseas expeditions as well as those of other countries. As Hakluyt put it, he made “diligent inquriie of such things as might yield any light unto our western discoverie in America.”

Hakluyt published his greatest work, The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, in 1589. The compendium included the firsthand accounts of sea captains and explorers, stories about strange lands and sea monsters, and, in a later edition, a plea for the colonization of Virginia. Hakluyt died on November 23, 1616.

The declared mission of the Hakluyt Society today is “to advance knowledge and education by the publication of scholarly editions of pri-mary records of voyages, travels and other geographical material.” Toward that end, it has published more than 200 works of scientific findings from expeditions around the globe, focusing on geography, ethnology, and natu-ral history. In addition to publishing scholarly texts, the society organizes meetings, symposia, and conferences to promote exploration, cultural en-counters, and specific organizational goals.

Further ReadingThe Hakluyt Society. http://www.hakluyt.com.Mancall, Peter C. Hakluyt’s Promise: An Elizabethan’s Obsession for an English

America. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007.

English geographer Richard Hakluyt, namesake of the London-based schol-arly society and pub-lisher, produced his landmark work—The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation—in 1589. (Eliot Elisofon/Time & Life Pic-tures/Getty Images)


HANBURYTENISON, ROBIN 1936 , AND MARIKA HANBURYTENISON 19381982

Cornish explorer, conservationist, and writer Robin Hanbury-Tenison and his wife, English explorer and food writer Marika Hanbury-Tenison, fo-cused their scientific efforts on the ethnographic study of indigenous peo-ples, whom they worked to save from the displacement caused by modern developments.

Robin was born on May 7, 1936, in Cornwall and educated at Oxford University. Marika was born in London in 1938 to John and Alexandra Hopkinson. Robin and Marika were wed in 1959 and eventually had two children.

By the time of their marriage, Robin had engaged in two expeditions, one to South Asia and one to South America. The latter included the first land crossing of the continent at its widest point. To make this crossing, he traversed mountains and muddy swamps, attaching pieces of wood to his jeep in order to keep from sinking. In the mid-1960s, he journeyed across the Sahara Desert by camel; he also made the first river crossing of South America from north to south, beginning at the Orinoco River in Venezuela and finishing at Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Marika, meanwhile, began her career writing about cooking and went on to author several cookbooks and magazine articles. Beginning in 1968, and continuing until her death in 1982, she was the food editor at a London newspaper, the Sunday Telegraph. In 1971, not long after the birth of their second child, Marika accompanied her husband on a three-month trip to live among the Xingu people of Brazil and record their way of life.

The expedition was sponsored by Survival International, an organiza-tion Robin had helped found. At the time, the Xingu were being forced from their native land by development, and the Hanbury-Tenisons recorded how the tribe was faring in the encampments in which it had been placed. Survival International was formed to help protect indigenous people from such dislocation and thereby protect their cultural practices.

Upon the couple’s return, Marika published a book about the expedi-tion, titled Tagging Along in the United States and For Better, For Worse: To

1936: Robin Hanbury-Tenison is born on May 7 in Cornwall1938: Marika Hanbury-Tenison, née Hopkinson, is born in London1971: The Hanbury-Tenisons live among the Xingu people in Brazil1974: The couple travels to the outer islands of Indonesia1982: Marika dies of cancer1998: Robin returns to Mulu on the island of Borneo


the Brazilian Jungle and Back Again in England (both 1972). In this book, she wrote,

For me, the expedition to South America had been an awakening, I had met and lived with the Amerindian tribes who form so large a part of the work of Survival International. . . . These beautiful, fine, intelligent, amazing people should be saved from the kind of degradation, loss of pride, and the straight wiping out of their kind which will inevitably occur unless something revolu-tionary happens—and happens fast.

In 1973, Robin published a follow-up book, a plea on behalf of indig-enous peoples titled A Question of Survival for the Indians of Brazil.

The couple set out again the following year, this time to the outer is-lands of Indonesia. Again, they lived with the native tribes and, as in Brazil, studied the effects of displacement. Their ethnographic findings and plea for the protection of threatened native peoples were captured in Malika’s book Slice of Spice (1974) and Robin’s A Pattern of Peoples: A Journey Among the Tribes of Indonesia’s Outer Islands (1975).

From 1977 to 1978, Robin Hanbury-Tenison led the largest expedition ever organized by the Royal Geographical Society, taking a group of 115 scientists to the interior of Sarawak in Borneo. Out of this expedition came his groundbreaking book, Mulu: The Rain Forest (1980); this work played a major role in focusing world attention on the threat to tropical rain forests.

Back at the couple’s farm in Cornwall, Marika was diagnosed with can-cer. She died in 1982, at age forty-four. Robin was remarried the following year, to Louella Williams Edwards, who accompanied him on several sub-sequent expeditions.

In 2009, Robin Hanbury-Tenison published The Land of Eagles, a book about his travels through Albania. The London Times, meanwhile, dubbed him “the greatest explorer of the past 20 years.” After a return trip to Mulu in 1998, he wrote,

The rate of destruction of the world’s forests has accelerated so dramatically that the end is in sight. My return to Mulu . . . showed me that the time has come to stop tilting at windmills and feel[ing] better by protesting without success at all that has gone wrong. Now our only hope is to take part in help-ing to save what is left, restore what has been damaged and make sure that, if we are not too late, it never happens again.

Further ReadingHanbury-Tenison, Marika. Tagging Along. New York: Coward, McCann and

Geoghegan, 1972.


Hanbury-Tenison, Robin. A Pattern of Peoples: A Journey among the Tribes of Indonesia’s Outer Islands. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1975.

———, ed. The Seventy Great Journeys in History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006.

———. Worlds Apart: An Explorer’s Life. Boston: Little, Brown, 1984.

HEDIN, SVEN 18651952

A geographer, explorer, and prolific researcher and writer, Sven Anders Hedin of Sweden led several expeditions into Central Asia, compiling ex-tensive scientific data about the region and its history. In addition to provid-ing essential information for the detailed mapping of Central Asia, Hedin is known for his explorations of the Gobi Desert and the discovery of several important archaeological sites.

Hedin was born on February 19, 1865, in Stockholm, Sweden, to Ludvig Hedin, the chief architect of the city, and Anna Berlin Hedin. As a boy, Sven was attracted to exploration through the exploits of Finnish-Swedish mineralogist and explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, who had tra-versed the Northeast Passage along the Arctic shores of Europe and Siberia. When Nordenskjöld returned to Sweden in 1880, Sven’s father took the boy to see him. Hedin later said that he remembered the scene, with its huge crowds and jubilant celebration, for the rest of his life.

Hedin’s first journey of any distance came after his graduation from high school, when he traveled to the Russian city of Baku to tutor a Swedish boy. Located at the foot of the Caucasus Mountains on the Caspian Sea, Baku gave Hedin his first taste of Central Asia, which became another life-long attraction. Hedin entered Stockholm University in 1886, followed by Uppsala University, where he took up the study of geography. From 1889 to 1890, he attended the University of Berlin for advanced studies under Germany’s leading geographers.

Bookish and small in stature, Hedin appeared to be more the scholar than the adventurer, but he proved effective at combining both interests.

1865: Born on February 19 in Stockholm, Sweden1890: Begins serving as an interpreter for a Swedish diplomatic mission to Persia1894–1897: Makes his first major expedition to Central Asia1900: Discovers the ancient Chinese city of Loulan1904: Publishes Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899–19021906–1908: Undertakes his third expedition to Central Asia1926: Organizes the Sino-Swedish expedition to northwestern China1952: Dies on November 26 in Stockholm


From 1890 to 1891, he served as an interpreter for a Swedish diplomatic mission to Persia (now Iran). From Tehran, he was able to travel to Mount Damāvand, where he measured the el-evation of the peak (his figures turned out to be inaccurate) and recorded the weather patterns and vegetation.

Leaving Tehran again in September 1890, Hedin traveled east across northern Persia and then turned north, reaching Kashgar, the west-ernmost town in China, in December. From there, he traveled to Lake Issyk Kul in Russia, where he visited the grave of Nikolai Przhevalsky, a famous Russian explorer whom the young Swede greatly admired; two years earlier, Hedin had translated Przhevalsky’s works.

From this trip, Hedin learned much about how to organize a major expedition, including the bringing together of equipment, servants, guides, and the necessary animals.

Central Asian Expeditions

Hedin went on to organize and lead three major expeditions to Central Asia. During the first, which lasted from 1894 to 1897, he attempted to climb Muztagata in the Pamir Mountains, but failed. (Known as “the roof of the world,” the Pamirs of Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan are among the highest mountains anywhere.) Nevertheless, he made valu-able observations of the region’s lakes, streams, and glaciers and became the first to map the Muztagata massif.

The highlight of Hedin’s second expedition, from 1899 to 1902, was his discovery of the remains of the ancient oasis city of Loulan in the Gashun Gobi desert of northwestern China. The expedition had found an old river-bed called Kuruk Daria and followed it for more than 150 miles (240 kilo-meters), when a guide inadvertently came across the remains of Loulan, an important outpost on the ancient Silk Road well before the Christian era. At the site, Hedin uncovered the ruins of houses, ancient Chinese writings, and other remains and sent them to archaeologists for further study.

Returning to Loulan in 1901, Hedin discovered a dried-up lake bed. Research led him to conclude that in approximately 330 c.e. there had been a dramatic change in a northern lake, called Lop Nur, and the Tarim River, whose lower branch was Kuruk Daria. The river’s water no longer flowed in the same bed, and the northern Lop Nur had dried up; in the

Swedish explorer and travel writer Sven Hedin made a host of notable dis-coveries, including the Trans-Himalaya Mountains and the ancient city of Lou-lan in northwestern China, on three major expeditions to Central Asia. (Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images)


meantime, two new lakes had formed, creating a southern Lop Nur. The shift in the river, he concluded, had caused the inhabitants to abandon Loulan.

According to Hedin, the Tarim and its tributaries had changed course because of the collection in their waters of silt from windblown desert sand over hundreds of years. Because the desert regions to the north had been decimated by windstorms, he maintained, the elevation of the land had de-clined and the bottoms of the southern Lop Nur lakes were rising. Thus, he predicted, the water eventually would return to its previous beds. Hedin’s theory was proven accurate in 1921, when Kuruk Daria again filled with water and the northern Lop Nur was restored. (Kuruk Daria dried up again in 1976 after being dammed for irrigation; this caused both the northern and southern Lop Nur to dissipate.)

In 1903, Hedin published a travel book, Central Asia and Tibet, about his first expedition. The work proved highly popular and was translated into a number of foreign languages. The expedition, and in particular the discovery of Loulan, earned Hedin widespread acclaim from the scientific


community. Britain’s Royal Geographical Society awarded him its Victoria Medal for “the highest record of geographical research.”

Hedin’s next major publication, from 1904 to 1907, was Scientific Results of a Journey in Central Asia, 1899–1902, totaling six volumes (the last two were compiled by contributors). The set included a map show-ing the physiographic features of the Chechen and Lop deserts—the sand, clay, and water sources—along with detailed information about the Tarim River and the formation and movement of sand dunes in the surrounding desert. The third and fourth volumes focused on Tibet. Again, the Royal Geographical Society singled out the Swede for his fortitude in exploring Central Asia and his thoroughness in reporting the results.

Hedin’s third expedition began in 1906 and ended in 1908. With a caravan of camels, servants, and two cavalrymen, he journeyed across Persia. In the course of this expedition, Hedin located the sources of the Indus, Brahmaputra, and Sutlej rivers in western Tibet. For the Indus, he pinpointed the springs from which the headwaters flowed. He re -count ed his journey in Transhimalaya (1909), a two-volume work (later supplemented by a third volume) containing maps of the region and a detailed narrative of what he had found in the Tibetan highlands. In it, he wrote,

Among the results of my voyage are two hundred specimens of rocks, fossils from two places, 68 panoramas, 162 sheets of maps, over 100 portraits of natives, and between 400 and 500 photographs.

During the period 1913–1918, Hedin immersed himself in national conservative politics, advocating the rearmament of Sweden. He also found time to write Southern Tibet (1917–1922) a multivolume work on the phys-ical geography of a large part of Central Asia published between 1917 and 1922. It was a land, he noted, that had been inadequately explored before his journey. He wrote,

As to the Central Transhimalaya, it was absolutely unknown. . . . I went out to fill up the blanks, so far as my forces allowed.

Notable details included the altitude of each of the 482 camps made by Hedin in western Tibet. Contributors to volume six analyzed Hedin’s 1,200 rock samples. Other contributors analyzed Hedin’s meteorological observations—such as air pressure, humidity, and wind speed—and his as-tronomical data. The London Times stated, “For our latter-day geographi-cal knowledge of Tibet, we owe more to the author of this work than to any other explorer.”


Sino-Swedish Expedition

Resuming his explorations, Hedin organized and led the Sino-Swedish Expedition of 1926–1935, which focused on the northwestern provinces of China. This was much more of a group effort than his previous expeditions. Different teams of scientists established weather stations and collected ar-chaeological, botanical, geological, and ethnographic information.

Their work was hampered, however, by failure to obtain permission from the Chinese government to conduct airplane flyovers. Hedin himself was taken captive by a Chinese general and briefly detained as an enemy spy. Nevertheless, the work of the scientific staff yielded several major reports—fifty-four volumes published between 1937 and 1982, with others still in progress.

Between 1931 and 1940, Hedin wrote four books for general readers, mainly about the Gobi Desert. Perhaps because of his affinity for German culture and conservative politics, or perhaps out of his desire to see Soviet communism contained, Hedin was a firm supporter of Nazi Germany, and he maintained personal contacts with Adolf Hitler and other high German officials. He did use his correspondence with them to request par-dons for those condemned to death and the release of concentration camp prisoners.

In his last years, Hedin, who lived with three family members in a house in Stockholm, wrote his political memoirs and an autobiography. He died from a viral infection on November 26, 1952. He left behind a massive collection of published works totaling about 30,000 pages and a legacy of having scientifically revealed “the heart of Asia.”

Further ReadingHaslund, Henning. Men and Gods in Mongolia. London: K. Paul, Trench,

Trubner, 1935.Hedin, Sven. My Life as an Explorer. New York: Kodansha International,

1996.Kish, George. To the Heart of Asia: The Life of Sven Hedin. Ann Arbor:

University of Michigan Press, 1984.

See also: Nordenskjöld, Adolf Erik.


HENSON, MATTHEW 18661955

An African American explorer known for his technical skills, Matthew Henson provided crucial leadership during Robert E. Peary’s historic expe-dition to the North Pole in 1909. Henson accompanied Peary on all eight of the latter’s Artic voyages and was selected, along with four Eskimos, for the final run to the North Polar regions in April 1909.

Matthew Henson was born on August 8, 1866, in rural Charles County, Maryland, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) south of Washington, D.C. His parents, who had been free blacks in the era of slavery, struggled to make ends meet as tenant farmers. When Matthew was still a child, the fam-ily moved to Washington, where jobs were more available. After the death of his mother, however, Matthew and his siblings were sent to live with a nearby uncle. Matthew completed the sixth grade and then dropped out of school. When his uncle could no longer support him, twelve-year-old Henson obtained work as a cabin boy on the merchant ship Katie Hines. He had been attracted to the sea by stories he had heard from sailors who ate at a restaurant where he worked.

Henson worked on the Katie Hines for five years, during which time he traveled to such lands as Japan, China, the Philippines, France, and Spain—exotic locales for a young American. The captain of the ship took a special liking to him, taught him about navigation, and encouraged him to read. When the captain died, however, Henson left the ship. He worked at a variety of jobs for the next several years.

While employed at a men’s clothing store, Henson met Robert E. Peary, who was planning to lead an engineering team to Nicaragua to survey a route for a canal through Central America. Peary asked Henson to accom-pany him as his servant, and Henson agreed. Before long, he was managing Peary’s labor camp of nearly 150 men.

Peary next asked Henson to join him on an expedition to Greenland. They arrived there with a team of explorers in 1891. Their goal was to cross the island’s northern ice cap. Henson learned from the local Inuit people how to hunt, drive a dogsled, and otherwise survive in the harsh terrain. As Peary later said, “He was more of an Eskimo than some of them.”

1866: Born on August 8 in Charles County, Maryland1891: Arrives in Greenland with American explorer Robert E. Peary1906: With Peary, comes within 175 miles (280 kilometers) of the North

Pole1909: With Peary, reaches the North Pole on April 61912: Publishes autobiography, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole1955: Dies on March 10 in New York City


Upon their return to New York in 1892—having crossed the ice cap—Peary praised Henson’s role in the mission (in somewhat condescending terms): “Henson, my faithful colored boy, hard worker and apt at anything . . . showed himself . . . the equal of others in the party.”

Henson accompanied Peary on a succession of subsequent expedi-tions to Greenland, including one to retrieve the three Cape York mete-orites, which collided with Earth more than 10,000 years ago and whose total known weight is 58.2 tons. In 1886, they sledged deep into the inte-rior of Greenland. In 1891 and 1892, they mapped the northern coast of Greenland. On the expedition of 1898–1902, their fourth, Peary, Henson, and four Inuits were overwhelmed by harsh conditions and were able to travel only 82 miles (130 kilometers) in sixteen days. On the expedition of 1905–1906, they came within 175 miles (280 kilometers) of the North Pole before blizzards and cracking ice sheets forced them to quit.

Peary and Henson set out once again on March 1, 1909, leaving Ellesmere Island in northern Canada accompanied by four Inuits. On April 3, Henson and his dog team hit thin ice. He fell into the frigid ocean but was saved by one of the Inuits. Peary, who could no longer continue on foot, completed the journey on dogsled. Friction between the two men devel-oped in the latter part of the expedition, most likely over who had reached the North Pole first. The two men apparently had agreed that Peary would arrive first, but Henson and his Inuit companions inadvertently traveled ahead and arrived some forty-five minutes before Peary—who seethed.

From that point on, Peary said little to Henson and kept him at a dis-tance. On the three-week return trip to New York, Henson later wrote,

Matthew Henson, who accompanied Robert Peary on the first success-ful expedition to the North Pole in 1909, had a falling out with his fellow explorer over who arrived first. It took years for Henson to win recognition for his crucial role in the mission. (Granger Collection, New York)


Peary said little to him: “Not a word about the North Pole or anything con-nected with it.” At a special ceremony in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society awarded medals to Peary and his white colleagues but ignored Henson (and, for that matter, the Inuits).

Ultimately, however, Henson received the recognition he was due. The prestigious Explorers Club invited him to join in 1937, and the National Geographic Society awarded him the Hubbard Medal in 2000. Peary him-self offered words of praise in the foreword to Henson’s autobiography, A Negro Explorer at the North Pole, which was published in 1912.

Matthew Henson died in New York City on March 10, 1955. His body was removed to Arlington National Cemetery in 1988 and interred near the monument to Peary there. Although some have claimed that Peary and Henson never reached the North Pole, but got lost en route and missed it by hundreds of miles, most historians accept their claim to being the first there. And clearly, Henson’s contribution was essential. Peary’s comments before their final assault on the North Pole proved correct. “Henson must go with me,” Peary said. “I cannot make it without him.”

Further ReadingCounter, Allen S. North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.Henson, Matthew. A Negro Explorer at the North Pole. New York: Cooper

Square, 2001.

HEYERDAHL, THOR 19142002

A Norwegian anthropologist, ethnologist, and adventurer, Thor Heyerdahl challenged conventional wisdom by asserting—and attempting to dem-onstrate—that ancient civilizations spread through extended transoce-anic expeditions. Heyerdahl gained international fame for his 4,300-mile (6,900-kilometer) raft voyage from South America to the Polynesian

See also: Peary, Robert E.

1914: Born on October 6 in Larvik, Norway1936: Travels to the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific1939: Makes archaeological discoveries in British Columbia1947: Sails on the balsa raft Kon-Tiki from Peru to Polynesia1950: Publishes best-selling account of the journey, Kon-Tiki1970: Sails the Sumerian-style papyrus boat Ra II from Morocco to

Barbados1977–1978: Journeys aboard the Tigris, a reed boat, from Iraq to Pakistan2002: Dies on April 17 in Italy


Islands in 1947 to support his theory that na-tive South Americans could have settled the South Pacific.

Thor Heyerdahl was born on October 6, 1914, in Larvik, Norway. His father, also named Thor, owned a brewery; his mother, Alison Lyng, studied anthropology, enthu-siastically endorsed Darwinism, and was the chairwoman of the Larvik Museum. She encouraged Thor to read books about the South Sea Islands and animals, and often took him on trips to an isolated cabin in the mountains above Lillehammer. Whether acquainting him with the outdoors or direct-ing his reading, his mother was a dominating force; according to one biographer, she “took charge of his upbringing.”

Interestingly, Heyerdahl grew up fearing water after the drowning death of a schoolmate. He did not overcome his fear until age 22, when he fell into a raging river in Tahiti and swam to safety.

At the University of Oslo from 1933 to 1936, Heyerdahl studied zool-ogy and geography. He also made friends with Bjarne Kroepelin, a wealthy Oslo wine merchant who had once lived on Tahiti and had compiled a large library. Heyerdahl pored over Kroepelin’s books and papers on native soci-ety and culture on the island.

A New Theory

In 1936, Heyerdahl decided to leave the University of Oslo before graduat-ing so he could undertake a study of the Marquesas Islands in the South Pacific. His goal was to investigate indigenous animal species to determine their origins and methods of survival.

Shortly after arriving with his bride, Liv Coucheron, on Fatu Hiva, Heyerdahl found himself more interested in the native human culture than in animal life. He learned the local language and legends, including the story of an ancient god-king named Tiki who was said to have brought the set-tlers of the Marquesas from “the east.”

Heyerdahl began to consider how the Polynesian people might have ar-rived on the remote Pacific islands. His research, including a study of stone monuments, suggested that the islands had been settled by people from pre-Inca Peru. In 1937, after spending a year with Liv on Fatu Hiva—“living as Adam and Eve,” as he put it—she and Heyerdahl returned to Norway where he published a book about his experience, On the Hunt for Paradise (1938). With his work now heavily oriented toward anthropology, in 1939

Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl gained international renown for a series of transoceanic ex-peditions to support his theory—based on myths, language, and archaeologcal re-mains—that ancient civilizations spread by long-distance sea travel. (ullstein bild/Granger Collection, New York)


Heyerdahl discovered rock carvings made by prehistoric Pacific Northwest Indian tribes in British Columbia that bore a striking resemblance to those of the ancient Polynesians. The discovery lent support to a theory he had been working on: that members of these Indian tribes had settled in Polynesia. Heyerdahl had hypothesized that Polynesia had been settled partly by people from pre-Inca Peru and partly by Indian fishing people from the Pacific Coast of North America.

Heyerdahl’s emerging theory ran counter to the prevailing scientific view, according to which Polynesia had been settled by Asians who had journeyed slowly—island by island—from west to east across the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. As he put it in a manuscript written shortly before he traveled to British Columbia,

Only in the islands farthest to the east—Easter Island and the Marquesas group—were they [the Northwest Indians] forced to conquer an earlier culture—people, probably offshoots from the highly civilized Indo-American branch in Peru.

Heyerdahl next conducted research in Peru and found more evidence to support his theory. He heard the legend of a fair-skinned people who, in the time before the Incas, had worshipped a sun god named Kon-Tiki. A competing tribe was said to have killed most of the fair-skinned people in about 500 c.e., though a few of the latter escaped. Heyerdahl surmised that it was these fair-skinned survivors who set out west across the ocean and colonized several uninhabited Polynesian islands. He theorized that they sailed on rafts made of balsa logs and, after arriving, carved stone statues (such as the ones he had seen in the Marquesas) similar to those found in Peru.

When the Spanish arrived in Peru in the sixteenth century, Heyerdahl learned, the Incas told them that colossal monuments there had been built by “white gods” who once had lived in the region. And when Europeans ar-rived in the Polynesian Islands in the mid-1700s, Heyerdahl was told, they were shocked to find fair-skinned people living among those with golden brown skin. Indeed, when Jakob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island in 1722 he was surprised to find fair-skinned natives.

Voyage of the Kon-Tiki

With the outbreak of World War II, Heyerdahl served as a parachutist for the free Norwegian forces. When the war ended, he tried to get a publisher interested in his manuscript about the connection between Polynesian so-ciety and the Americas, but found no interest. He resolved to demonstrate how ancient peoples could have made just such a connection.


K O N - T I K I

The 45-foot (14-meter) balsa raft Kon-Tiki, modeled after sailing vessels used by the ancient Inca, carried its six-member crew across the Pacific Ocean from Peru to Polynesia in 101 days. (Keystone/Stringer/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


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To do so, Heyerdahl and his team built a raft like those known to have been used by pre-Inca Indians and determined to sail it west from Peru across the Pacific Ocean. Coconut juice in hand, he christened the raft Kon-Tiki and set sail on April 28, 1947, from Callao, Peru, with five fellow ad-venturers. On August 7, having sailed 4,300 miles (6,900 kilometers) in 101 days, the team landed safely on a reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands.

Their exercise in what has come to be called “experimental archaeology” thus proved that ancient peoples could have made just such a journey and dispelled the long-held notion that a balsa-log raft would absorb too much water on an extended voyage and sink. Based on the expedition, Heyerdahl wrote a book titled Kon-Tiki (1950), which became a best seller and was printed in fifty languages. A documentary film of the same name, compiled from footage shot by the crew, won an Academy Award in 1951.

With the end of the Kon-Tiki expedition, Heyerdahl reiterated and ex-panded his thesis about the settlement of Polynesia. The region, he claimed, was settled by a people who had sailed from Peru aboard rafts like the Kon-Tiki. Sometime around 1100 b.c.e., he surmised, they were overrun by American Indians from the Pacific Northwest.

Heyerdahl’s research into the oral history of people on Easter Island was said to support his view, as did archaeological evidence. Moreover, he stressed, ocean currents lent further support, sweeping from the Pacific Northwest, along the coasts of the Americas, and into the South Pacific. Contrary to the claims of some scientists, Heyerdahl never denied that Polynesians came from Asia. But they did so, he said, via the Pacific Northwest—first sailing east across the far Northern Pacific, following the ocean currents to North America, and then following the ocean currents south and west into the South Pacific.

In 1953, Heyerdahl journeyed with two anthropologists to the Galápagos Islands, located in the Pacific Ocean some 600 miles (950 ki-lometers) off the coast of South America. There they found nearly 2,000 ceramic sherds from pottery created before the arrival of the Spanish and resembling pottery made in South America before the Incas.

Easter Island and Voyages of the Ra and Ra II

From 1955 to 1956, Heyerdahl organized and led a team called the Norwegian Archaeological Expedition to Easter Island, where they en - gaged in excavations that led to three massive scientific reports and a popular book by Heyerdahl titled Aku-Aku (1958). One anthropologist described the new book as “science, adventure, human warmth, excitement, drama on a high level.”

From his research, Heyerdahl theorized that Easter Island was original-ly settled by the “Long Ears” from South America, who were later displaced


by the “Short Ears,” or Polynesians. According to Heyerdahl, this explains why Roggeveen found fair-skinned people living among the Polynesians, but when James Cook arrived in 1774 he found almost all Polynesians.

In 1969, Heyerdahl built another ancient-style vessel, a papyrus ship called the Ra, which he intended to sail across the Atlantic Ocean from Morocco to the Americas. The purpose was to demonstrate the seaworthi-ness of reed boats and thereby show how ancient mariners, such as those from Egypt, could have crossed the ocean, settled the Americas, and found-ed the Aztec and Inca civilizations. Such a migration, Heyerdahl believed, could explain why the temples of ancient Peru resemble those of ancient Egypt.

Although the Ra collapsed about 600 miles (950 kilometers) short of its destination of Barbados, a sturdier vessel the following year, the Ra II, successfully completed the journey. While in the Atlantic, Heyerdahl sam-pled the ocean waters for signs of pollution. He became an outspoken critic of the industrial pollution of the world’s oceans, especially from oil. “We seem to believe the ocean is endless,” he said, “but we use it like a sewer.” Heyerdahl recounted the reed boat voyage in Ra Expeditions (1971).

Aboard the Tigris

In late 1977, Heyerdahl undertook another expedition, this one to show how the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia could have engaged in trade and migration with the civilizations of the Indus River Valley. In another reed boat, the Tigris, he made his way from Iraq to Pakistan through the Persian Gulf and then headed southwest across the Arabian Sea toward the African coast. In April 1978, however, entry into the Red Sea was blocked due to wars in the Horn of Africa. Heyerdahl declared the expedition over, burned the Tigris at Djibouti in an act of protest, and wrote an open letter to the secretary-general of the United Nations “against the inhumane ele-ments in the world.”

In his book Early Man and the Ocean (1978), Heyerdahl directly chal-lenged the assumptions of mainstream academics about early sea travel. A watertight hull, he wrote, was in fact less secure than a wash-through bot-tom, a feature on the Kon-Tiki. Moreover, he contended, a bigger ship with greater height above sea level was not necessarily more secure than a small one, and coastal travel was more dangerous than sailing across the open ocean.

Heyerdahl later investigated mounds on the Maldive Islands and theorized that people from Sri Lanka had settled there. He stirred contro-versy yet again in 2002, claiming in his book Jaketen pa Odin (The Search for Odin) that a tribe from Azov in Russia had migrated to Denmark and


settled Sweden in the first century c.e. This conclusion was based on an ar-chaeological expedition he conducted in 2001, but critics called the research “pseudoscience.”

Thor Heyerdahl died of cancer on April 17, 2002, while vacationing in Italy. His findings remain controversial, and modern genetic research has called into question his theory regarding American Indian settlement of Polynesia. According to Heyerdahl, though, his expeditions proved that early human beings could have traveled thousands of miles across open oceans with the vessels they had at hand. He said, “I feel that the burden of proof now rests with those who claim the oceans were . . . a factor in isolat-ing civilizations.”

Further ReadingEvensberget, Snorre. Thor Heyerdahl: The Explorer. Oslo, Norway: J.M.

Stenersens Forlag A/S, 1994.Heyerdahl, Thor. Green Was the Earth on the Seventh Day. New York: Random

House, 1996.Kon-Tiki Museum. http://www.kon-tiki.no.Ralling, Christopher. The Kon-Tiki Man: Thor Heyerdahl. London: BBC

Books, 1990.


HORNER, JOHN R. 1946

The American paleontologist John R. “Jack” Horner has revolutionized his field with a massive number of fossil discoveries and the conclusions he has drawn from them. Among other breakthrough accomplishments, he dis-covered a new dinosaur genus, Maiasaura, and was the first to suggest that some dinosaurs cared for and fed their young.

Horner was born on June 15, 1946, in Shelby, Montana, to John and Miriam Horner. He did poorly in school because of dyslexia, a condition undiagnosed until after his childhood. As Horner later recalled,

No one had any expectations of me becoming a scientist on account of my being so bad in school. Every year my mother called the teachers to see if I was passing to the next grade. I really don’t think anyone had any expectation that I would be anything more than a gas station attendant.

At any early age, however, he had a strong interest in dinosaurs. “My mother took me on trips to visit areas where dinosaurs came from because she just liked to sightsee,” he later wrote. At age eight, he discovered his first dinosaur bone.

Horner was drafted into the U.S. Marines in 1966 and spent the next two years in Vietnam. Upon his return, he attended the University of Montana for seven years, attempting to complete a college degree in geology and zool-ogy. Having a hard time maintaining his grades, he finally gave up on college in 1973 and entered the family gravel and sand business. Two years later, however, largely on the strength of his senior thesis in college, the Museum of Natural History at Princeton University hired Horner to clean and as-semble fossils collected from digs. That job turned out to be a crucial turning point in Horner’s life because it allowed his talent for paleontology to be rec-ognized and provided him with an important entry into the field of science.

Then, in 1977, while back in Montana, Horner found what his col-leagues at the museum confirmed to be a dinosaur egg. The following year, he and a friend, Bob Makela, made a monumental discovery. While searching the Two Medicine Formation at Willow Creek in Montana, they

1946: Born in Shelby, Montana, on June 151977: Finds a dinosaur egg in Montana1978: Finds a nest at Willow Creek, Montana, that contains eggshell

fragments and 3 foot-long (1-meter-long) dinosaur bones1986: Receives a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation2000: Finds the largest collection of T. Rex fossils to date at Fort Peck

Reservoir in Montana


unearthed a bowl-shaped nest complete with eggshell fragments and 3 foot-long (1-meter-long) dinosaur bones. This was the first such nest, or egg clutch, ever found in the Americas, and the fossils turned out to be a new species of hadrosaurs, a duck-billed dinosaur from about 75 million years ago. With funding from the Princeton museum, Horner resumed his ex-ploration at Willow Creek, where he found more nests and the remains of numerous adult hadrosaurs. He then received additional funding from the National Science Foundation.

While Horner was adept at finding fossils, he also proved skillful at interpreting them. He concluded that hadrosaurs stayed in their nests for several months and that their movement within the nests explained the crushed shells. Furthermore, Horner maintained, the young hadrosaurs were raised and fed by one or both parents, 30-foot-long (9-meter-long) creatures he designated Maiasaura peeblesorum.

At the same site, which he called Egg Mountain, Horner also found intact hypsilophodontid eggs with fully formed fetuses in them.


Hypsilophodontids were small, gazelle-like dinosaurs, possibly the ances-tors of hadrosaurs. This discovery was another first in the annals of paleon-tology. Horner called this new species Orodromeus makelai.

In 1986, Horner received a “genius grant” from the MacArthur Foundation and an honorary doctorate from the University of Montana. In 2000–2001, work ing at Fort Peck Reservoir in Montana, Horner found the largest Tyrannosaurus Rex to date. The giant meat eater is estimated to have weighed between 10 and 13 tons (9 and 12 metric tons). Since then, Horner has joined with French paleontologists in studying fossilized dinosaur tis-sue. His findings have helped confirm the theory of some paleontologists, beginning with John Ostrom, that certain dinosaurs were warm-blooded. Horner has become especially known for his research on dinosaur growth. He has been trying to figure out how quickly dinosaurs grew and how long they lived.

Horner has published more than 100 professional papers, six popu-lar books, and numerous articles. He was the technical advisor for three Hollywood movies: Jurassic Park, The Lost World ( Jurassic Park II), and Jurassic Park III, ensuring that the dinosaurs looked as accurate as possible based on the scientific evidence of the time. He teaches at Montana State University in Bozeman and is the curator of paleontology at the Museum of the Rockies. In fact, Horner has compiled an impressive list of accomplish-ments for someone who said of his early years, “When I was a kid I thought I was a real idiot, and I’m sure everybody else thought so, too.”

Further ReadingHorner, John, and Edwin Dobb. Dinosaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary

Saga. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1998.Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. In Search of the Maiasaurs. New York: Benchmark

Books, 1999.

HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER VON 17691859

1769: Born in Berlin, Germany, on September 141790: Travels to England with George Forster, who had sailed the Pacific

with British explorer James Cook1792: Hired by the Prussian government as a mine inspector1799: With botanist Aimé Bonpland, sets sail for South America1800: Explores the Orinoco River in Venezuela1804: Returns to Paris and begins work on a thirty-volume account of his

expedition1827: Becomes an advisor to the king of Prussia


A giant in the field of natural history, the German scientist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt made notable contributions to a variety of dis-ciplines and, at the same time, pioneered a holistic view of nature. He was also an active advocate of the popularization of science and among the first to represent rigorous scientific data in graphic form.

Alexander von Humboldt was born in Berlin on September 14, 1769, to Alexander George von Humboldt and Maria Elizabeth von Colomb, who had inherited considerable wealth from a previous marriage. His father was a major in the Prussian army and died when the youngster was only nine years old. As a child, Alexander liked to collect plants, shells, and insects but was frail and showed little indication he would be able to withstand the rigorous expeditions he would engage in as an adult.

As a student at Göttingen University beginning in 1789, Humboldt studied physics, chemistry, and geology. His interest in botany and explora-tion was piqued as well by his friendship with George Forster, who had sailed with British explorer Captain James Cook as the scientific illustrator on Cook’s second voyage to the South Pacific. The friendship with Forster only intensified Humboldt’s desire to travel, and in 1790 he traveled with Forster to England.

Mine Inspector

Two years later, Humboldt was hired as government mines inspector in Franconia, Prussia. This proved to be a life-defining event for the young man, helping to shape his scientific interests and expertise. In his capacity as an inspector, he traveled extensively, studied vegetation and geographic stratification, and designed improved breathing equipment for miners. In 1795, Humboldt traveled privately to the Swiss and French Alps, where he studied geomagnetism and the effects of altitude and climate on plant life.

In 1796, at age twenty-seven, Humboldt inherited a significant sum of money from his mother, which enabled him to quit his job and devote himself to scientific exploration. From the start, he set his sights on creating a science that would reflect the unity and diversity of nature. This type of study, he believed, required exploration.

Humboldt had come to believe that the distribution of plants in a particular location depends on environmental influences and that these, in turn, shape human life. To understand how plants grow, he maintained, they

1829: Travels to Russia for geological studies of Siberia and the Ural Mountains1845: Publishes his highly acclaimed five-volume work, Cosmos1859: Dies on May 6 in Berlin


have to be studied in their natural state. His research in plant geography, moreover, was to be based on a holistic perspective. He wrote,

[The] observation of individual parts of trees or grass is by no means to be considered plant geogra-phy. Rather plant geography traces connections and relations by which all plants are bound together among themselves, designates in what lands they are found, in what atmospheric conditions they live . . . and describes the surface of the earth in which humus is prepared.

Ultimately, Humboldt no longer classified plants merely on the basis of their outward ap-pearance, as had been the case since the time of Linnaeus. Instead, he followed the recommendation of German philosopher Immanuel Kant to classify plants based on their appearance in nature and how they relate to other plants.

Journey to the Americas

With French botanist Aimé Bonpland, Humboldt sailed to South America in 1799, equipped with the latest in scientific instruments. By the time they sailed, expeditions of discovery had become wedded with those of science, with an ever-greater emphasis on recording and measuring natural phe-nomena accurately and collecting specimens for study. In 1769, for example, the year of Humboldt’s birth, the French naval officer and explorer Louis-Antoine de Bougainville had brought discovery and science together in his voyage to the South Pacific. Such was the case, too, with James Cook, whose voyage was clearly a powerful inspiration to Humboldt.

As he and Bonpland readied to leave Europe, Humboldt wrote,

In a few hours we sail around Cape Finisterre. I shall collect plants and fossils and make astronomic observations. But that’s not the main purpose of my expedition—I shall try to find out how the forces of nature interact upon one another and how the geographic environment influences plant and animal life. In other words, I must find out about the unity of nature.

Humboldt and Bonpland reached Venezuela on July 16, 1799. From there they sailed to Havana, Cuba, then back to Venezuela and overland to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru in a journey of five years’ duration. While

The great German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt is portrayed on his five-year expedition to South America (1799–1804), col-lecting specimens along the Orinoco River. (Granger Collection, New York)


in South America in 1800, they traversed the Orinoco River and traveled through a remote inland delta called the Casiquiare Canal. It was a danger-ous trip through virtually unknown land teeming with alligators, jaguars, and biting insects. Humboldt nevertheless mapped some 1,700 miles (2,750 kilometers) of the river, and the two explorers showed that the Orinoco and the Amazon form a unified river system.

Humboldt climbed Mount Chimborazo (in modern-day Ecuador) to an elevation of about 19,000 feet (5,800 meters), and at Quito he studied several volcanoes, concluding that they were linked to subterranean fissures. When he and Bonpland sailed to Mexico in 1803, Humboldt discovered and traced the ocean current—which today bears his name—off the Peruvian coast. From Mexico, he traveled again to Havana and then to Washington, D.C., where he met President Thomas Jefferson, a fellow naturalist. He and Jefferson exchanged scientific views and became good friends.

Humboldt and Bonpland returned to Paris in 1804, carrying a vast amount of scientific information about the Americas. Humboldt had mea-surements of the geomagnetic field, temperatures, and barometric pressure; he had extensive maps; and he had a collection of 60,000 plants, many of them previously unknown. Not long after his return, Humboldt told the Paris Institute of his discovery that the earth’s magnetic force decreases in strength from the poles to the equator.

Scientific Publications and Journey to Russia

Humboldt’s house in Paris became a gathering place for intellectual dis-cussions. As much could be learned from a one-hour conversation with the German naturalist as from reading several books. His renown spread around the world, and he spent the next twenty-one years compiling thirty volumes of material from his expedition to the Americas. The work was published in sections between 1807 and 1825, under the title Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent. It was packed with tables, diagrams, maps, and measurements, testimony to his exacting attention to detail. The breadth and depth of his observations are reflected in these varied statements:

I have just given a list of more than 200 tribes spread over a space a little larger than France; these tribes believe themselves to be at least as foreign to each other as the English, the Danes, and the Germans.

Venezuela is one of the countries in which the parallelism of the strata of gneiss-granite, mica-slate and clay-slate, is most strongly marked. The general direction of these strata is N. 50º E., and the general inclination from 60º to 70º north-west.


The movement of the barometer at Bogotá is of surprising regularity. . . . [And] in the town of Mexico . . . the barometric heights scarcely differ from 2 to 21/2 millimeter during whole months.

Between 1814 and 1825, Humboldt also published a three-volume work on his expedition for popular audiences. At the same time, he pio-neered the use on maps of isothermal lines (or isolines), which connect places that have the same atmospheric pressure or temperature. This makes it possible to compare climates across regions.

Humboldt preferred living in Paris to Berlin, which he thought too provincial, but in 1827 he returned there to serve as an advisor to the king of Prussia. The position provided him with a much-needed income, as his travels and the expense of publishing his works had consumed much of his wealth. Berliners welcomed Humboldt enthusiastically, packing the halls where the scientist presented a series of lectures in 1827 and 1828. In the latter year, Humboldt organized an international scientific conference.

In 1829, at the invitation of the czar of Russia, Humboldt explored east into Siberia and followed up the trip with his three-volume Asie Centrale. He advised the Russian government to set up weather stations to gather climate data and data on magnetism. From the information collected, he


formulated his “principle of continentality,” in which he stated that the inte-riors of continents have more extreme climates than coastal regions because they are removed from the moderating influences of the oceans.

In 1845, at age seventy-six, Humboldt published the first book of his five-volume masterwork, Cosmos, which was critically acclaimed and trans-lated into nearly every European language. The first four volumes appeared during his lifetime (1845–1862) and the last posthumously. He coined the word cosmos to represent what he understood as the “ordered system of the global environment.” Thus, a recurring theme of Cosmos is the link among diverse environments; for example, he wrote, plants and animals are all affected by the same laws of temperature as they relate to altitude and latitude. In a letter to a friend before starting to write, Humboldt outlined his purpose:

I have the crazy notion to depict in a single work the entire material universe, all that we know of the phenomena of heaven and earth, from the nebulae of stars to the geography of mosses and granite rocks—and in a vivid style that will stimulate and elicit feelings.

Cosmos presented the universe as an orderly, natural world consisting of interconnected environments. This view made Humboldt, in many ways, an environmentalist. He warned about the implications of exploiting natu-ral resources and emphasized how effects on one part of the natural world can affect other parts. Even as a consummate scientist, however, Humboldt also allied himself with the Romantic movement of his time, recognizing a beauty in nature that science could never measure. Or, as he put it,

The stars as they sparkle in the firmament fill us with delight and ecstasy, and yet they all move in orbit marked out with mathematical precision.

An inspiration to the work of many later scientists—and a direct sup-porter of several, including Charles Darwin—Alexander von Humboldt died on May 6, 1859, in Berlin.

Although scientific research has become increasingly specialized since his time, Humboldt’s holistic approach reshaped modern thinking about the natural world. Perhaps his method was best represented by an engrav-ing he produced shortly after his return from South America. It was a cross-sectional profile of the Andes from the Atlantic to the Pacific at the latitude of Mount Chimborazo, showing where plant and animal species lived, the zone of vegetation, geological structure and rock types, temperatures, and other meteorological facts. In short, it was a visual tour de force of the mu-tual reliance in the natural world that complemented the tour de force of Humboldt’s own scientific life.


“What a man he is!” said the great German intellectual Johann Wolfgang von Goethe of Humboldt. “He is everywhere at home.”

Further ReadingBotting, Douglas. Humboldt and the Cosmos. New York: Harper and Row,

1973.De Terra, Helmut. The Life and Times of Alexander von Humboldt. New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.Helferich, Gerard. Humboldt’s Cosmos: Alexander von Humboldt and the Latin

American Journey That Changed the Way We See the World. New York: Gotham, 2004.

Sachs, Aaron. Humboldt Current: A European Explorer and His American Disciples. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2007.

INTERNATIONAL GEOPHYSICAL YEAR

The International Geophysical Year (IGY; 1957–1958) was a coordinated effort by countries around the world to scientifically study the Earth’s polar regions and equator.

The idea for the IGY came from a meeting of American scientists at Silver Spring, Maryland, in August 1950. In a discussion about recent methods and devices developed for geophysical studies, such as radar, rock-ets, and computers, the scientists began considering how an international effort could be launched to study physical phenomena on the planet. This led to a proposal to establish the IGY to coordinate with a series of eclipses and an expected upsurge in sunspot activity.

The IGY was formally sanctioned by the International Council of Scientific Unions and scheduled to run for eighteen months, from July 1, 1957, through December 31, 1958. Scientific organizations from more than seventy nations took part in IGY committees and activities. IGY re-

1950: The idea for the International Geophysical Year (IGY) is discussed at a meeting of American scientists

1957: The IGY begins on July 11957: The Soviet Union launches the world’s first artificial satellite, Sputnik,

on October 41958: The United States launches its first satellite, Explorer I, on January 311958: The IGY ends on December 31


search focused primarily on the polar regions and equator in such areas as geomagnetism, ionospheric physics (the study of the uppermost part of the Earth’s atmosphere), mapping, meteorology, oceanography, seismology, and solar studies.

As part of the program, a permanent research station was built at Antarctica and instruments were readied for use, along with the rockets and balloons that would carry them. Concerned that data from these explorations might be lost—as had happened when World War II dis-rupted the analysis of information from the International Polar Year of 1932–1933—participating countries established the World Data Center System to collect and store the data. One World Data Center was set up in the United States, a second in the Soviet Union, and a third was shared by Western Europe, Australia, and Japan. Arrangements also were made to make public any and all information collected as part of the initiative, an impressive commitment in a world divided by cold war suspicions.

As part of the IGY, on October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite to orbit the Earth. The launch raised considerable fear and controversy, as the satellite was carried into space aboard a military rocket, which seemed to violate the peaceful emphasis of the IGY. Despite these concerns, Sputnik contributed valuable information to the IGY data by detecting meteoroids and measuring the density of high atmospheric layers and the distribution of radio signals in the ionosphere. In late January 1958, the United States launched its own first satellite, Explorer I, which measured cosmic rays.

Among other notable accomplishments, IGY efforts included the dis-covery of the Van Allen radiation belts (based on Geiger counter data ob-

Space scientists William Pickering, James Van Allen, and Wernher von Braun (left to right) celebrate the success-ful launch of Explor-er I, America’s first Earth satellite, in January 1958. It was the signature U.S. accomplishment of the International Geophysical Year. (Rue des Archives/Granger Collection, New York)


tained from Explorer I), confirmed the existence of underwater mid-ocean ridges, charted ocean depths and currents, measured atmospheric winds, and studied Antarctica’s ice sheets. The work in Antarctica convinced sev-eral participating countries that continued scientific research there required peaceful cooperation; this, in turn, led to the signing of a treaty to keep the continent a military-free zone and to encourage additional scientific work.

Further ReadingMarshack, Alexander. The World in Space: The Story of the International

Geophysical Year. New York: Thomas Nelson, 1958.The National Academies, International Geophysical Year. http://www.nas.

edu/history/igy.Sullivan, Walter. Assault on the Unknown. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1961.

INTERNATIONAL POLAR YEAR

The International Polar Year (IPY) was a collaborative scientific effort to study the Arctic and Antarctic. Organized through the International Council for Science and the World Meteorological Organization, IPY 2007–2009 was the fourth polar year. It followed those in 1882–1883, 1932–1933, and 1957–1958; the latter was broadened in scope to become the International Geophysical Year.

Beginning in March 2007, IPY enlisted the efforts of an estimated 50,000 scientists from more than sixty nations, conducting more than 200 projects to investigate physical, biological, and social issues associated with the polar regions. In one project, scientists from the University of Dresden in Germany measured the Greenlandic mainland in 2008 to see how much the landmass was rising, as glaciers on it were melting. Another team of scientists sailed to the Orkney Islands in the North Atlantic to study the makeup of the toxins jellyfish release in attacking their prey.

Scientists working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in the United States researched the “Arctic haze.” This reddish-brown haze began appearing over the Arctic in the 1950s. Its origins were unknown at the time. It has now been determined that it is a mix of dust, black carbon, and chemical pollutants from factories, vehicles, and other sources in Europe and Western Asia.

See also: Space Exploration, Unmanned.

2007: The International Polar Year (IPY) begins in March2008: Scientists from the University of Dresden measure the effects of

glacial melting on Greenland2008: The research vessel Knorr investigates the Arctic haze2009: International Polar Year ends in March


In March and April 2008, the Knorr, a specially equipped re - search vessel operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, sailed nearly 7,400 nautical miles (13,700 kilometers) on expeditions to study Arctic air and water. On trips to the west coast of Norway and into the ice-free waters of the Arctic Ocean, researchers studied how industrial particles influence the destruction of the ozone and measured the air quality near smelters located in Norway and Russia. In all, the Knorr collected seventy sets of air filter samples to be analyzed by scientists.

For example, researchers measured particulate sulfate in the Arctic haze and found that the sulfate had originated in Eastern Europe, perhaps from the burning of crops. According to Patricia Quinn, a chief scientist of the project,

Our goal . . . will be to determine the climate impact of these pollutants and how they, in addition to greenhouse gases, are contributing to the warming of the Arctic.

The International Polar Foundation, headquartered in Belgium, was responsible for building the first zero-emission polar science station for use in Antarctica. The prefabricated station, which cost more than $16 million, was intended to contribute to data on climate change.

Finally, in an effort to involve laypersons, the IPY undertook a number of educational projects. These included interactive programs on the Internet and connections to blogs reporting on developments at the poles.

Further ReadingInternational Polar Year. http://www.ipy.org.

Heads of world envi-ronmental and mete-orological organiza-tions gather in Paris for the opening of International Polar Year in March 2007. This global scientific effort focused on the role and plight of the Arctic and Antarctic environ-ments. (Stephane de Sakutin/Stringer/AFP/Getty Images)


JONES, ALBERT JOSÉ CA. 1935

An African American scuba diver and marine scientist, José Jones has been called the “Black Jacques Cousteau” because of his accomplishments in un-dersea exploration.

Albert José Jones was born in Washington, D.C., about 1935. (He has refused to divulge the exact date of his birth to biographers.) Orphaned at an early age, he was raised by an aunt. As a teenager, he developed a strong interest in teaching, which remains central to his life’s work.

From 1950 to 1953, Jones served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and earned a Purple Heart. While in Korea, he was attracted to the martial art Tae Kwan Do. Over the years, he became an expert in it, earning a sixth-degree black belt and winning the U.S. heavyweight championship.

Jones’s interest in scuba diving and oceanography also began during his years in the service, when he took a combat swimming course at Fort Campbell in Kentucky. Returning to his native Washington, he obtained a B.S. degree in biology from the District of Columbia Teachers College in 1959 and began a career as a high school teacher. During his senior year in college, he founded an all-black dive club, the Underwater Adventure Seek - ers (UAS), training members at a swimming pool at Howard University; they became perennial champions in scuba rodeo and spearfishing tourna-ments. Jones twice won the Mid-Atlantic Scuba Diving Championship.

In 1960, Jones began two years of study at the University of Queensland in Australia as a Fulbright Scholar, devoting his efforts to photograph-ing and collecting marine specimens. Upon returning to Washington, he continued to teach high school and began working on a master’s degree in aquatic biology, which he obtained from Howard University in 1968.

Jones began teaching marine science at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) in 1972; he earned his doctorate in marine biology

1935: Born in Washington, D.C.1950: Begins service in U.S. Army, where he starts his diving career1959: Founds the all-black Underwater Adventure Seekers scuba diving

club in Washington, D.C.1972: Begins teaching at the University of the District of Columbia1973: Earns Ph.D. in marine biology from Georgetown University1989: Explores Moroccan coast in northern Africa1992: Studies marine life in the Red Sea as part of his research into marine

ecosystems

ca.


from Georgetown University the following year. In 1975, he was named one of the Outstanding Educators of America. During his more than twenty-five years at UDC, he served as chairman of the Environmental Science Department and held several administrative positions, including acting provost.

His research in the 1970s focused on reef fishes in the Caribbean Sea, including barracuda, and invertebrates such as sponges. In his ongoing ex-ploration of the world’s oceans, he noticed a decline in marine life, which he attributed largely to pollution. He began consulting with various nations on protecting their marine ecosystems.

In 1989, he explored the entire coast of Morocco, and, in 1992, he stud-ied marine life in the Red Sea. In 1993, he led a team of divers in exploring the Henrietta Marie, a slave ship from the 1600s, which sunk about 35 miles (55 kilometers) southwest of Key West, Florida. The divers placed a plaque at the underwater site to commemorate the many Africans who had been hauled across the Atlantic Ocean in bondage.

In the meantime, Jones, along with Ric Powell, founded the National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS) in 1991. Under Jones’s presi-dency and chairmanship, the NABS has formed more than fifty affiliated clubs in the United States and other countries.

Jones has published numerous scholarly articles and has made more than 6,000 dives around the world. He is married to Paula Cole Jones, who also is an accomplished diver.

Further ReadingNational Association of Black Scuba Divers. http://www.nabsdivers.org.Reef, Catherine. Black Explorers. New York: Facts On File, 1996.

KINGDONWARD, FRANK 18851958

English horticulturalist Francis (“Frank”) Kingdon-Ward is known for his explorations of the Far East, from which he brought back hundreds of pre-

1885: Born on November 6 in Manchester, England1908: Makes his first trip to the Far East, travels to western China1911: Collects 200 plant species in China and Tibet1924: Finds the blue poppy of Tibet, or Meconopsis betonicifolia1958: Dies April 8 in London


viously unseen varieties of plants and shrubs. He has been referred to as the “last of the great plant hunters.”

He was born on November 6, 1885, in Manchester, England, to Harry Marshall Ward, a distinguished botanist, and Selina Mary Kingdon, tak-ing his mother’s maiden name and his father’s surname as a hyphenated last name. In 1904, Kingdon-Ward began his higher education in Christ’s College at Cambridge, where his father was a professor of botany.

Two years later, after the death of his father, Frank left school to find work. In 1908, he was recruited for a zoological expedition to western China—the first of his more than twenty-five trips to the Far East. There, he discovered a new species of mouse and began collecting plant specimens.

Kingdon-Ward returned to China in 1911 under commission from a commercial seed company to collect plants. From his travels through Yunnan Province and Tibet, he brought back to England some 200 species, of which twenty-two had been unknown, along with seeds for cultivation. Two years later, he published a book, Land of the Blue Poppy, which recounted the expedition. In the account of his journey to the Yangtze River, he wrote,

Just below A-tun-tsi, I found a purple-flowered Morina . . . and growing on a limestone cliff at 13,000 feet [4,000 meters] was a small Pmguicula [an insect-eating plant known as the bog violet]. . . . I also came across a pretty twining Codonopsis convolvulacea with large mauve flower. . . . One day we made the complete circuit of the high mountainous ridge to the west, Kin [a guide] having discovered what he considered a practicable route. However, before I knew what was coming he had led me to the brink of a clear drop of some thirty feet high. . . . In my descent, I stuck half way down in fear of my life, while Kin, standing on the screes [broken rock] below, encouraged me with shouts of “Don’t be afraid! Don’t be afraid!” Finally I got down.

In 1924, Kingdon-Ward returned to Tibet to gather plants and to look for the falls of the Yarlung Zangbo River (the highest major river in the world); according to local folklore, the falls were large enough to hide all the people of Tibet. He did find a waterfall, Rainbow Falls, but at 40 feet high (10 meters) it was much less impressive than legend had it. (Years later an-other waterfall was found nearby; it combined with Rainbow Falls to form a cascade of about 120 feet, or 35 meters.)

More notably, Kingdon-Ward brought back with him the blue poppy, Meconopsis betonicifolia. The plant had been discovered in 1866, and a speci-men was collected by an Englishman in 1922 and pressed into a book. But Kingdon-Ward returned with the first seeds that were able to be cultivated. The poppy became a main attraction at horticultural shows in England. Its stunning beauty attracted botanists and gardeners alike: its large petals, measuring 3–4 inches (8–10 centimeters), displayed a vivid blue in a silky,


cup-shaped form, topped by golden anthers in the center. Kingdon-Ward said, “Never before have I seen a poppy which held out such hopes of being hardy, and of easy cultivation in Britain.”

In 1950, during an expedition to the Lohit gorge on the border of Assam (northeastern India) and Tibet, Kingdon-Ward experienced a massive earthquake. The rockslides trapped him and his wife, Jean Rasmussen, for several days. They escaped by crossing a flooded river on a temporary bridge. In the early 1950s, on a trip to Burma, he collected thirty-seven species of rhododendrons and found a honeysuckle called Lonicera hildebrandiana.

Kingdon-Ward wrote a total of twenty-five books, most of them ac-counts of his plant-hunting expeditions. He received numerous honors, including medals from the Royal Horticultural Society and the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.

He died in London on April 8, 1958, and was buried near Cambridge. At his gravestone was planted a flowering, evergreen shrub, Berberis callian-tha, a specimen he had collected during his Yarlung Zangbo expedition and a testament to his botanical contributions.

Further ReadingChristopher, Tom, ed. In the Land of the Blue Poppies: The Collected Plant

Hunting Writings of Frank Kingdon Ward. New York: Modern Library, 2003.

Lyte, Charles. Frank Kingdon-Ward: The Last of the Great Plant Hunters. London: J. Murray, 1989.

KINGSLEY, MARY 18621900

Taking part in two dangerous expeditions to West Africa, Mary Kingsley became the most famous English woman explorer of the late 1800s. Her writings and lectures on African culture, which she staunchly defended against Europeans who categorized it as inferior, proved highly popular and changed Western views.

Mary Henrietta Kingsley was born on October 13, 1862, in Islington, England. Her father, George Kingsley, was a wealthy physician and travel

1862: Born on October 13 in Islington, England1892: Undertakes an expedition to West Africa along the Gulf of Guinea1894: Journeys again to West Africa and studies the Bube people1895: Begins living with the Fang tribe in French Congo1897: Publishes Travels in West Africa1899: Publishes West African Studies1900: Dies on June 3 in Simonstown, Cape Colony (South Africa)


writer who tended to the ills of dukes and earls but spent most of his time globetrotting. Her mother, Mary Bailey, was a servant whom George mar-ried only because she was pregnant with their daughter. George never ac-cepted his wife into his circle of society, and she lived a largely isolated ex-istence, an invalid bedridden by psychological stress. Their daughter Mary was thus isolated as well, for she was expected to take care of her mother and did so from childhood until she was thirty years of age.

Mary saw her father only infrequently; he spent long periods overseas. She was educated by private tutors and sequestered herself in her father’s library, where she found her best friends to be books. There, she later wrote, “I had a great world of my own.”

She especially loved books about travel, adventure, and foreign lands. Notable among these was Two Trips to Gorilla Land (1876), by the explorer Richard Burton, which she found fascinating for his recollection of the Fang people in Africa—among whom Kingsley later lived. She also was attracted to stories about the English explorer David Livingstone and the respect he showed for African culture; the French-American explorer Paul Belloni Du Chaillu; and Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, sometimes called “the greatest French explorer of his time,” who wrote about his perilous forays into West and Central Africa.

She became increasingly interested in chemistry, ethnography, and anthropology, as well. When she moved with her family to Cambridge in 1884, she befriended and exchanged ideas with a number of university professors.

African Expeditions

Mary Kingsley’s father and mother died within weeks of each other in 1892. Freed from the lonely and stressful days under her parents and enriched by money inherited from her father, she decided to journey to West Africa.

The exact reasons for her decision remain obscure. At one point, Kingsley said that she wanted to finish a book on African culture begun by her father. At another point, she insisted that she wanted to go there to die but instead became interested in African society. If she wanted to die, it may well have been because of what she discovered shortly before leaving England: evidence among her father’s papers that she was conceived out of wedlock and born just four days after her parents married. The news embarrassed her.

In 1893, at the age of thirty-one, Mary Kingsley set sail aboard the Lagos and arrived first in Sierra Leone and then in Angola. From there, she traveled north, mostly by land, to several locations along the Gulf of Guinea: Cabinda, French Congo, Cameroon, and Calabar. Kingsley usually traveled alone and lived with the local tribes, from whom she learned about


the native culture and how to survive. Insects were a recurring problem; driver ants were especially nettlesome, traveling in vast armies, invading houses and tents, eating food supplies, and attacking people.

During her travels, she collected several specimens of exotic fish, which she later shared with Albert Charles Gunther, head of the zoological de-partment at the British Museum. He, in turn, advised her on methods of collecting and preserving her specimens.

Of all the places she visited, Kingsley was most attracted to the equato-rial forest of the French Congo. Of it, she wrote,

On first entering [its] . . . grim twilight regions you hardly see anything but the vast column-like grey tree stems in their countless thousands around you. . . . But day by day, as you get trained to your surroundings, you see more and more, and a whole world grows up gradually out of the gloom before your eyes. Snakes, beetles, bats, and beasts people the region that at first seemed lifeless.

Upon returning home later in 1893, Kingsley felt a deep emptiness; she felt unattached to life in London and began pining for Africa. The African continent, she said, gives pain “by calling you.” The following year, she lis-tened to the call and returned to West Africa.

On the island of Fernando Po in Equatorial Guinea she studied the Bube people, who lived in small villages. Then, she journeyed down the Ogowe River in the French Congo. Setting out on June 5, 1895, she became an expert canoeist and collected specimens of fish, shells, and insects along the way.

On two bold jour-neys to west-central Africa in the 1890s, Mary Kingsley lived with a variety of local tribes, became familiar with their customs, and returned to England with a unique col-lection of insights, artifacts, and natural history specimens. (Granger Collection, New York)


Entering a dangerous area of the lower Ogowe, Kingsley encountered the Fang tribe, with whom she lived for a time. To this day, it remains un-certain whether the Fang practiced cannibalism, but Kingsley believed they did. In any event, she admired them for holding on to their culture in the face of European influence, and she considered them smart and brave. She wrote of them,

I have been considerably chaffed . . . about my partiality for this tribe, but as . . . these Africans have more of the qualities I like than any other tribe I have met, it is but natural that I should prefer them. . . . It is in their mental characteristics that their difference from their lethargic, dying-out coast tribes is most marked. The Fang is full of fire, temper, intelligence and go.

Later in the expedition, Kingsley became the first woman to climb 13,760-foot (4,194-meter) Mount Cameroon, following a route not previ-ously taken by any European.

Books and the Status of Women

Kingsley returned to England in 1895. As news of her accomplishments spread, she became one of the most famous English explorers of her day. She traveled around the country giving lectures spiked with anecdotes in-tended to spellbind her listeners. She recollected,


Once a hippopotamus and I were on an island together, and I wanted one of us to leave. I preferred it should be myself, but the hippo was close to my canoe, and looked like staying, so I made cautious and timorous advances to him and finally scratched him behind the ear with my umbrella and we parted on good terms. But with the crocodile it was different.

In 1897, Kingsley published a book titled Travels in West Africa, which became a best seller, and followed it two years later with West African Studies. She stirred considerable controversy with statements criticizing missionar-ies for trying to change tribal culture. From her perspective, Africans were not inferior to Europeans, just different. Missionaries, she wrote, “have pro-duced results which all truly interested in West Africa must deplore.”

As women’s rights activists unsettled English society in the late 1800s, Kingsley opposed universal suffrage, declaring that women should stick to their own spheres of interest and that politics was not one of them. Struggling with her own contradictions, she believed that women were the equal of men but lacked the talent to participate in scientific societies. She also opposed those who were crusading to open learned groups, such as the Royal Geographical Society, to women; instead, she contended, women should pursue scientific interests on their own, and their accomplishments would prompt such societies to admit them.

Kingsley proposed the formation of a society to bring together those interested in the study of Africa, but she envisioned it as a men’s society. That organization, which would become the Royal African Society, was or-ganized in 1901, a year after her death.

On the issue of imperialism, Kingsley supported the projection of British power in Africa, but she believed this should be done by developing trade rather than through colonization. According to Kingsley, this approach would help the English economy while protecting indigenous cultures.

In 1899, Kingsley volunteered to serve as a nurse in the Second Boer War. She died from typhoid at Simonstown, in Cape Colony (present-day South Africa), while taking care of prisoners of war, on June 3, 1900.

As Kingsley saw it, Africans would be served best in their relations with Europeans by the application of scientific principles, such as ethnographic studies, that would encourage Europeans to understand Africans on their own terms. “I am not Science,” she once said, “but only one of her brick-makers, and I beg you to turn to her.”

Further ReadingBirkett, Dea. Mary Kingsley: Imperial Adventuress. New York: Macmillan,

1992.Brown, Don. Uncommon Traveler: Mary Kingsley in Africa. New York:

Houghton Mifflin, 2000.Frank, Katherine. A Voyager Out: The Life of Mary Kingsley. Boston: Houghton


Mifflin, 1986.Myer, Valerie Grosvenor. A Victorian Lady in Africa: The Story of Mary

Kingsley. Southampton, UK: Ashford, 1989.

LEAKEY FAMILY

Beginning with the work of Louis Leakey in the 1930s, the Leakey family has made a succession of major discoveries that have reshaped the scientific understanding of human origins and evolution.

Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey, the patriarch of three generations of an-thropologists, was born on August 7, 1903, in Kabete, Kenya (near Nairobi). His father, Harry Leakey, and his mother, Mary Bazett, were British mis-sionaries among the Kikuyu people, whose first contact with Europeans had occurred only a short time before Louis’s birth.

As a boy, Louis hunted and enjoyed bird-watching. He became inter-ested in anthropology and the question of human origins when, in 1915, he read the book Days Before History (1906), in which author Henry Rushton Hall discusses European Stone Age tools.

He also learned from the Kikuyu how to speak their language (he later said he did so before he spoke English) and learned about their customs and folklore. He was initiated into the tribe at age thirteen, and the tribal chief once said of him, “We call him the black man with the white face because he is more of an African than a European.”

Leakey entered Cambridge University in 1922. Two years later, he took a medical leave of absence after suffering an injury while playing rugby. The

1903: Louis Leakey is born on August 7 in Kabete, Kenya1913: Mary Leakey is born on February 6 in London1942: Meave Leakey is born on July 28 in London1944: Richard Leakey is born on December 19 in Nairobi, Kenya1948: Mary Leakey discovers Proconsul africanus1959: Mary Leakey discovers Australopithecus boisei1972: Louise Leakey is born in Kenya; Louis Leakey dies on October 11977: Richard Leakey presents a controversial thesis about the existence of

hominids1996: Mary Leakey dies on December 92001: A team led by Meave Leakey discovers Kenyanthropus platyops


mishap proved to be fortuitous, as it allowed him to participate in an ar-chaeological expedition to Tanganyika (today Tanzania) sponsored by the British Natural History Museum and led by the prominent Canadian pa-leontologist W.E. Cutler. As a part of the project, Leakey learned how to collect fossils and conduct field research.

Upon returning to Cambridge, Leakey studied under the renowned professor of anthropology Albert Cort Haddon and graduated in 1926. Two years later, he married Henrietta Avern; the couple would have two children. In 1930, Leakey obtained his doctorate from Cambridge.

Louis Leakey in East Africa

From 1926 to 1936, Leakey led four expeditions to East Africa to search for fossils he believed would provide evidence about human origins. He did so at a time when most scientists considered such a hunt in Africa to be fool-ish; the evidence, they said, pointed to Europe and Asia as the originating point for the human species.

In northern Tanganyika, however, the Olduvai (or Oldupai) Gorge al-ready had proved lucrative as a source for Stone Age artifacts. Leakey scaled the gorge’s sloping terrain in 110-degree-Fahrenheit (43-degree Celsius) temperatures, his eyes close to the ground as he searched and found more artifacts.

In 1936, Louis Leakey, recently divorced from Henrietta, married Mary Douglas Nicol, whom he previously had hired as a scientific illustrator. He had fallen in love with Mary while he still was married to Henrietta, and the affair caused a controversy that cost him his research fellowship at Cambridge.

Kenyan-born British paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey began the work of at least three generations of family members in the search for hominid fossils and the study of human ancestry. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


Louis found in Mary a scientific partner every bit his equal in talent and intellect. She was born in London on February 6, 1913, to Erskine Nicol, a landscape painter, and Cecilia Frere. Even as a child, Mary showed an interest in prehistory when she studied drawings made by cave dwellers in France. She audited university courses in archaeology and geology and became an accomplished scientific illustrator before she met Louis.

Mary Leakey at Lake Victoria

In 1945, Louis Leakey became the curator at Coryndon Memorial Museum in Nairobi. Three years later, as the Leakeys continued their search for fos-sils, Mary made an important discovery on the island of Rusinga in Lake Victoria: She found the skull of a hominid from the Miocene period (5 million to 24 million years ago).

Hominid refers to humans or their ancestors, who, as erect bipedal mammals, are more closely related to humans than to other species. In this case, the hominid, which Louis named Proconsul africanus, was an apelike creature who lived 14 million to 23 million years ago; it was likely a com-mon ancestor of humans and apes. Mary later recalled the discovery:

I was shouting for Louis as loud as I could and he was coming, running. This was a wildly exciting find which would delight human paleontologists all over the world, for the size and shape of a [hominid] skull of this age, so vital to evolutionary studies, could only hitherto be guessed at. Ours were the first eyes ever to see a Proconsul face.

Mary Leakey directed systematic excavations at two early hominid sites in East Africa and made numerous discoveries that shed new light on hominid evolu-tion. She was the wife of Louis Leakey, mother of Richard Leakey, and grand-mother of Louise Leakey. (Melville B. Grosvenor/National Geographic/Getty Images)


Louis and Mary Leakey at Olduvai Gorge

The Leakeys began their first major excavation of the Olduvai Gorge in 1952; they expanded their search in 1960 with funds from the National Geographic Society. Over time, Louis and Mary discovered more than 100 different forms of extinct animal life in the area, including a pig as large as a rhinoceros and a short-necked giraffe.

While working in the gorge on July 17, 1959, Mary discovered Zinjanthropus boisei, later called Australopithecus boisei, a primate species that lived about 1.7 million years ago. “Zinj,” as Louis called it, had a brain half the size of modern human beings.At first, Louis thought Zinj was an ancestor of human beings, but his ideas changed in 1964, when he and Mary made another discovery: a new species called Homo habilis, or “handy man.” This creature was less apelike than Australopithecus, and it had a larger cranial capacity, smaller teeth, a human-like foot, and hand bones that suggested an ability to hold and manipu-late objects. In all likelihood “handy man” hunted small prey; whether it acquired a language remains unclear.


Critics claimed that Homo habilis failed to meet the definition of a new species, that it resembled Australopithecus more than any type of Homo. Later evidence, however, seemed to support the Leakeys.

In addition, many scientists objected when Louis said that Homo habilis lived contemporaneously with Australopithecus (which eventually became extinct), as this challenged the concept of orderly evolution from one spe-cies to another; however, Louis considered Homo habilis to be the true an-cestor of modern human beings. Louis died of a heart attack in London on October 1, 1972.

Mary continued the research she and Louis had begun in and around Olduvai Gorge. In 1979, at a nearby site called Laetoli, she found a long trail of human footprints embedded in volcanic ash from 3.6 million years ago. The prints showed that human bipedalism (two-footed, upright move-ment) had begun much earlier than previously thought.

In 1983, Mary retired from fieldwork and moved to Nairobi, Kenya, where she concentrated on her writing. She died on December 9, 1996.

Richard and Meave Leakey

Richard Leakey, born to Louis and Mary Leakey on December 19, 1944, followed in his parent’s footsteps. As a boy, he participated in their digs, but as he got older, he preferred to be a safari guide.

In 1967, he discovered a geologic formation called Koobi Fora, located along the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya, which turned out to be rich in Stone Age tools and hominid fossils. From 1968 to 1989, as a field re-searcher for and director of the National Museums of Kenya, he coordi-nated several field expeditions to Koobi Fora. On one of these expeditions, a team led by the Kenyan paleoanthropologist Kamoya Kimeu discovered Stone Age tools dating to about 1.9 million years ago.

Perhaps the most important of the museum finds under Richard’s direc-tion was “Nariokotome Boy,” a nearly complete skeleton of a Homo erectus youngster dating from 1.6 million years ago. In two books cowritten with British anthropologist Roger Lewin, Origins (1977) and People of the Lake (1978), Leakey argued that about 3 million years ago three hominid forms coexisted: Australopithecus africanus, Australopithecus boisei, and Homo habi-lis. The first two, he said, became extinct, but the last one evolved into Homo erectus, the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens (modern human beings).

Richard Leakey ended his fieldwork in 1989, when he became head of the Kenya Wildlife Service and devoted his efforts to preventing ivory poaching. In 1994, following a plane accident in which he lost both legs below the knees, he left the wildlife service to enter politics.

In 1997, he was elected to the Kenyan parliament, and, in 1999, he was appointed head of the Kenyan civil service. He retired from that post in


2001, but remained active in fighting for the protection of plant and animal species under threat from human development.

Richard’s wife, born Meave Epps in London in 1942, first worked with him in 1969, when she joined the field expedition to Koobi Fora. Meave had obtained her doctorate in zoology the previous year and married Richard in 1970. She also served as head of the National Museums’ Division of Paleontology from 1982 to 2001, becoming coordinator of the museums’ field research at Lake Turkana in 1989. In 1994, she led a team that found a new species of Australopithecus anamensis that was bipedal, dating from 4.2 million years ago.

In 2001, Meave Leakey and her team discovered a new genus and species of human ancestor called Kenyanthropus platyops. The specimen challenged the prevailing scientific view that Australopithecus afarensis, a contemporary of the newfound species, was in the direct ancestral lineage of Homo sapiens. In 2002, Meave and her daughter, Louise, were named explorers in resi-dence by the National Geographic Society.

Louise Leakey was born in 1972 in Kenya to Richard and Meave. Her education included a doctorate from the University of London, after which she became head of the Koobi Fora Research Project. In that capacity, she has worked to make the research camp a year-round facility and has sur-veyed large areas east of Lake Turkana for future fieldwork.

Further ReadingBowman-Kruhm, Mary. The Leakeys: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood,

2005.Isaac, Glynn, and Elizabeth R. McCown, eds. Human Origins: Louis Leakey

and the East African Evidence. Menlo Park, CA: W.A. Benjamin, 1976.Leakey, L.S.B. By the Evidence: Memoirs, 1932–1951. New York: Harcourt,

Brace, Jovanovich, 1974.Morell, Virginia. Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for

Humankind’s Beginnings. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

LEWIS AND CLARK EXPEDITION 18041806

1803: President Thomas Jefferson completes the Louisiana Purchase and obtains congressional funding for an exploratory expedition through the territory

1804: Meriwether Lewis, William Clark, and the other expedition members, called the Corps of Discovery, begin their journey up the Missouri River on May 14

1805: The expedition reaches the Pacific Coast at Oregon on November 201806: The expedition returns to St. Louis, Missouri, on September 23


From May 1804 through September 1806, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led an expedition through the vast territory be-tween the Mississippi River and the Pacific Coast, much of which had been acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The expe-dition members came to be known as the Corps of Discovery. In completing the journey to the Pacific Ocean, the Lewis and Clark expedition gathered vast amounts of scientific information, as well as samples and drawings, about the terrain, native peoples, flora, and fauna they encountered along the way.

The idea for the Lewis and Clark expedition had originated with President Thomas Jefferson even before the Louisiana Purchase. It reflected his personal interest in natural science, his long-standing curiosity about the American West, and his fear that the British or another foreign power might gain control of the Pacific Northwest and block America’s westward expansion.

Indeed, in the late 1780s and again in the early 1790s, the Scottish-Canadian explorer Alexander Mackenzie had journeyed west to the Pacific. In 1793, he reached the Strait of Georgia (in present-day northwestern Washington and southwestern British Columbia), staking a British claim to a portion of the Pacific Northwest.

Although Mackenzie had failed to find a suitable route for overland trade, his effort posed a challenge to the United States. In 1802, Jefferson read Mackenzie’s Voyages from Montreal (1801) and decided to take action.

Planning

Jefferson began planning an expedition that would begin in Missouri, proceed across the northern Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean, find the Northwest Passage, and, in the process, establish U.S. control over the future of the region. Then, on July 4, 1803, Jefferson announced the pur-chase of the Louisiana Territory—an area of nearly 830,000 square miles (2.15 million square kilometers)—from France. Now, the expedition would travel on American soil, at least until it reached the Pacific Northwest, and the explorers would be exerting U.S. sovereignty.

Jefferson chose Captain Meriwether Lewis, his private secretary and former neighbor, to head the expedition. Lewis was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 18, 1774, the son of William and Lucy Meriwether Lewis. He served in the U.S. Army beginning in 1795 and was promoted to captain in 1800. Jefferson later explained why he chose Lewis:

1809: Lewis dies on October 11 during a trip to Washington, D.C.1838: Clark dies on September 1 in St. Louis


It was impossible to find [anyone else] who to a compleat science in botany, natural history, mineralogy & astronomy, joined [together] the firmness of constitution & character, prudence, habits adapted to the woods, & a famil-iarity with the Indian manners & character, requisite for this undertaking.

Indeed, Lewis had studied extensively in the vast library at Jefferson’s home in Virginia, Monticello. He had pored over maps and learned as-tronomy, botany, ethnology, mineralogy, and the practical use of the sextant from Jefferson, who was an accomplished general scientist in his own right.

Jefferson’s formal instructions to Lewis, issued in June 1803, empha-sized scientific findings and commerce. The president wanted extensive maps drawn up so that he might trace prospective trade routes. He wrote,

Beginning at the mouth of the Missouri you will take careful observations of latitude & longitude, at all remarkable points on the river, & especially at the mouths of rivers, at rapids, at islands, & other places & objects distinguished by such natural marks & characters of a durable kind.

In addition, Jefferson instructed Lewis to try to establish good relations with any Native Americans the expedition might encounter and to learn about their lifeways. He also wanted Lewis to study the animals, plants, dinosaur bones, soil, minerals, and volcanoes and other natural phenomena.

Captain Lewis turned to William Clark to serve as co-commander of the expedition. (Clark had been named a captain, but his promotion was never approved by the War Department. Although he remained a second lieutenant, officially below Lewis in rank, Lewis always referred to him as “captain.”) The two men had become friends in the army, where Lewis had been impressed by Clark’s fortitude and trustworthiness.

William Clark was born in Caroline County, Virginia, on August 1, 1770. At the age of fourteen, he moved with his family to the Kentucky frontier, where they founded a plantation. Clark served as an infantry officer in the U.S. Army under General Anthony Wayne; in 1794, he took part in the Battle of Fallen Timbers in Ohio.

Two years later, Clark undertook a dangerous scouting mission and then resigned his commis-sion to return to the family plantation. After being

The expedition journal of Lewis and Clark provided ex-tensive descriptions of the land, people, plants, and ani-mals—including the sage grouse of the Western plains—in the vast, uncharted territory between the Mississippi River and Pacific Coast. (Granger Collection, New York)


chosen to help lead the expedition, he spent time in Philadelphia to gain as much knowledge and training as he could from naturalists and scientists, among them Charles Willson Peale and Benjamin Rush.

Into the West

Lewis and other members of the party left Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in August 1803, meeting Clark along the way in Indiana that October. The members of the Corps of Discovery set up winter camp at Hartford, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, and officially began their journey to the west the following spring.

On May 14, 1804, the party set out from Saint Charles, Missouri—just below St. Louis on the Mississippi River—and then headed west on the Missouri River. A crowd on the riverbank cheered the explorers as they departed. Their vessels, a keelboat (a long boat with a shallow draft) and two pirogues (similar to canoes), left civilization as they knew it behind and beat against the current into an uncertain future.

The original Corps of Discovery consisted of about thirty men, includ-ing French boatmen who would transport the keelboat, soldiers, and an interpreter to help communicate with Native Americans. The boatmen faced a backbreaking challenge. They sometimes used poles to move the heavy keelboat and at other times walked on the riverbanks and pulled the keelboat with ropes. On rare occasions, they were able to use a sail to take advantage of favorable winds.

On June 26, the expedition reached the Kansas River, and, on July 21, it reached the Platte River, some 640 miles (1,030 kilometers) up the Missouri. On August 18, Lewis and Clark caught ten species of fish. Along the way, they studied minerals and the lay of the land. They were the first Americans to analyze the Great Plains in detail. In his journal, Clark wrote,

The Plains of this countrey are covered with a Leek Green Grass, well calcu-lated for the sweetest and most nourishing hay—interspersed with [copses] of trees, Spreding their lofty branches over Pools Springs or Brook of fine water. . . . Nature appears to have exerted herself to butify the Senery by the variety of flours Delicately and highly flavered above the Grass, which Strikes & profumes the Sensation.

In November and December, the men built a log stockade they called Fort Mandan in central North Dakota near the Mandan Indian villages, and they settled in for the winter. While there, Lewis and Clark hired a French-Canadian trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, and his wife, Sacagawea, a Shoshone Indian, to serve as interpreters with the Shoshone and the Hidatsa.


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Until they reached the site of Fort Mandan, the Corps of Discovery had been traveling in territory that other Americans had explored. Still, Lewis and Clark had gathered much new information about Upper Louisiana (primarily Missouri and the Dakotas) based on their own obser-vations and their questioning of Native Americans and white traders.

While at Fort Mandan, Lewis and Clark recorded their findings. They sent President Jefferson a lengthy report about the rivers and the people along their shores, the local economies, the soil, and the climate. They also sent him Native American artifacts, such as bows and robes; 108 botanical specimens intended for the American Philosophical Society, each labeled


with a notation as to where and when the item had been collected and what medicinal properties it might have; sixty-eight mineral specimens, also with detailed labels; the skeletons and skins of animals; and even live animals—four magpies, a prairie dog, and a prairie grouse hen, although only one of the magpies and the prairie dog reached Jefferson alive.

Clark also sent a map he had drawn of lands west of the Mississippi River, which was highly accurate for the territory between St. Louis and Fort Mandan. All in all, they had gathered a treasure trove of scientific informa-tion, enough to make the expedition, even at this point, unprecedented in what it had learned about the American West.

To the Pacific

Lewis and Clark resumed the expedition in April 1805, with thirty-three people in the party. That September, Lewis noted in his journal several sig-nificant scientific findings, among them birds, such as the Steller’s jay, green jay, black woodpecker, and blue grouse; and vegetation, such as the moun-tain huckleberry, Sitka alder, and western red cedar. All had been unknown to American science until that time.

On June 13, 1805, Lewis, traveling ahead, reached the Great Falls of Montana. “The grandest sight I ever beheld,” he called it. He wrote,

The rocks seem to be most happily fixed to present a sheet of the whitest beaten froath for 200 yards in length and 80 feet perpendicular. The water after descending strikes against the butment . . . and seems to reverberate and being met by the more impetuous courant they roll and swell into half formed billows of great hight which rise and again appear in an instant.

The Great Falls required the explorers to portage, carrying their ca-noes and supplies across rocks and cactuses. They dodged grizzly bears and rattlesnakes and endured biting insects and drenching rains.

Then, they followed the Lolo Trail from Montana into present-day Idaho, through deep snow and treacherous terrain. Along one narrow path, a horse tumbled over a cliff with valuable equipment. Deprived of food, the explorers resorted to eating some of their packhorses. Finally, in Idaho, the Corps met the Nez Perce Indians, who helped guide them west.

By following the Clearwater and Snake rivers, the expedition reached the Columbia River on October 16, 1805. Another hazardous stretch, filled with rapids and waterfalls, still awaited them, but on November 20 they finally reached the Pacific Ocean. On the coast, near present-day Astoria, Oregon, they built Fort Clatsop, where they stayed until March.

While wintering at Fort Clatsop, Lewis wrote detailed descriptions about flora and fauna and sketched animal and plant species he had seen


during the trek. He also described the life of the native peoples of the Pacific region. For his part, Clark drew maps of the route west from Fort Mandan, as well as a large map, much improved over his earlier one, of the country west of the Missouri River.

The Return

The journey back from Fort Clatsop to St. Louis lasted from March to September 1806. At one point, Lewis divided the Corps of Discovery into

In an 1822 self-portrait, painter, naturalist, and collector Charles Willson Peale raises the curtain on his natural history museum in Philadelphia—the first of its kind in the United States. (Granger Collection, New York)


two smaller parties. Clark led one to explore the Yellowstone River; Lewis led the other to north-central Montana.

Lewis explored the Marias River from July 17 to July 28, 1806, and, near the Canadian border, established Camp Disappointment, where he stayed from July 21 to July 26. He was disappointed that the Marius failed to flow farther north, which would have provided a more extensive trade route and perhaps would have extended U.S. claims.

Given the small sizes of the two parties, and the possibility of encoun-tering hostile Native Americans, splitting the Corps was risky, but it was important to gather as much information as possible. In August, the mem-bers of the Corps of Discovery reunited along the Missouri River. The ex-pedition arrived in St. Louis on September 23, 1806.

Jefferson was ecstatic over the outcome. The expedition had discovered 122 animal species and subspecies previously unknown to science, includ-ing the grizzly bear, the California condor, and the pronghorn. In addition, it had found 178 new plant species, developed maps for the region, and opened contacts with several Native American tribes. Lewis, however, con-sidered himself a failure for not having found an overland water route con-necting the Missouri and Columbia rivers.

As for the zoological and ethnological specimens, nearly all were turned over to Charles Willson Peale’s Museum at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the only public natural history museum in the country at the time. Most were later destroyed in a fire at P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York, to which they had been transferred.

Lewis gave the plant specimens from the expedition to the botanist Frederick Pursh, and they now are housed at the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. The expedition’s collection of birds and mammals provided a major impetus to the study of zoology in America.

The Lewis and Clark journals appeared in paraphrased form in The History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, which was published in 1814. In 1904, the Wisconsin Historical Society published the complete journals, in eight volumes.

Meriwether Lewis went on to become governor of the Louisiana Territory in 1807. He died on October 11, 1809, while on a trip from St. Louis to Washington, D.C. Evidence indicates that, in a state of depression, he committed suicide.

As for William Clark, when Missouri became a state in 1821, he ran for governor but lost. He died in St. Louis on September 1, 1838.

Further ReadingAmbrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson,

and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.


Curtright, Paul Russell. Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.

Lavender, David Sievert. The Way to the Sea: Lewis and Clark Across the Continent. New York: Harper and Row, 1988.

Moulton, Gary E., ed. The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003.

LIVINGSTONE, DAVID 18131873, AND HENRY MORTON STANLEY 18411904

The careers of Scottish explorer and missionary David Livingstone and of British-American explorer Henry Morton Stanley have been fixed in popu-lar history by the meeting of the two men in Africa in 1871, when Stanley is said to have asked, “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?” Yet each man made im-portant contributions in his own right to the scientific study of Africa that far exceed that meeting or a single expedition.

David Livingstone was born on March 19, 1813, in Blantyre, Scotland, to Neil Livingstone, a traveling tea salesman, and Mary Hunter Livingstone. The elder Livingstone preferred distributing Christian religious tracts to selling tea, and the family struggled to make ends meet. David began work-ing in a cotton mill at age ten, but still attended school and read widely.

After working in the cotton mill into his twenties, Livingstone obtained a medical degree from the University of Glasgow in 1840. That same year, he was ordained as a minister in the Congregationalist Church and became a medical missionary under the London Missionary Society, serving in southern Africa.

1813: David Livingstone is born in Blantyre, Scotland, on March 191841: Henry Morton Stanley is born in Denbigh, Wales, on January 281849: Livingstone crosses the Kalahari Desert in southwestern Africa and

finds Lake Ngami1854: Livingstone reaches Luanda on Africa’s west coast1855: Livingstone journeys down the Zambezi River to the east coast of

Africa1859: Stanley immigrates to the United States1866: Livingstone begins searching for the source of the Nile River1871: Stanley meets Livingstone in Africa near Lake Tanganyika1873: Livingstone dies at Chitambo in Africa on May 11875: Stanley shows that Lake Victoria is the source for the Nile River1887: Stanley leads an expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, governor of

Equatoria in Egyptian Sudan1904: Stanley dies in London on May 10


Most English missionaries believed that Christianity alone could civi-lize Africa, but Livingstone thought differently: He believed it would take Christianity combined with commerce to change the continent, particularly to end what he called the “despicable” slave trade. Unless Africans learned to sell goods to Europeans for a profit, he maintained, they would be forever addicted to trafficking in human beings (trafficking that earlier had been encouraged by Europeans).

Livingstone thought it was his responsibility to open the interior of sub-Saharan Africa to European culture, and it was this commitment that led him to exploration. In 1845, he was married to Mary Moffat, the daugh-ter of Scottish missionaries, and the couple lived with their five children in Africa for extended periods.

Livingstone in Africa

On June 1, 1849, Livingstone left Kolobeng in Bechuanaland (present-day Botswana) and traveled northwest to reach the Makololo tribe, with whom he intended to engage in missionary work. The journey made Livingstone and the two friends who accompanied him the first Europeans to cross the Kalahari Desert (in southwestern Africa) and find Lake Ngami (in north-western Botswana), which he described as “shimmering.”

In 1851, Livingstone again crossed the Kalahari and reached the upper Zambezi River. He began to think of the river as a waterway to commerce, an artery for the ready and profitable exchange of goods between Europeans and central Africans.

On his next journey, accompanied by twenty-seven Makololo warriors, Livingstone traveled northwest through Portuguese Angola to Luanda on the Atlantic Coast, which he reached in May 1854. By this time, he was taking a more scientific approach to his exploration, tracking altitudes, lati-tudes, and longitudes as he went, measuring rainfall, and noting geographi-cal features. In doing so, he provided Europeans with valuable information about central and southern Africa.

In 1855, Livingstone headed a large expedition—with more than 100 porters—down the Zambezi River toward the east coast of Africa. During that journey, he became the first white person to see what the tribal people called “the smoke that thunders,” which he named Victoria Falls.

Continuing east, he left the Zambezi on a side excursion and failed to discover the Kebrabasa Rapids. Had he done so, he would have learned what he failed to understand until years later: With its treacherous features, the Zambezi could not serve as a viable water route for trade.

Nevertheless, Livingstone reached the Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Zambezi in May 1856. Combined with his trip to Luanda, this made him the first European to cross the width of southern Africa.


With this expedition completed, Livingstone returned to England a hero. The Royal Geographical Society honored him with a medal, Queen Victoria granted him a private audience, and crowds mobbed him on the streets. In 1857, Livingstone published an account of his exploits, Mission-ary Travels and Researches in South Africa, which sold 70,000 copies and made him wealthy.

In an expedition from 1858 to 1863 sponsored by the British govern-ment, Livingstone next explored the Zambezi, Shire, and Ruvuma rivers, along with Lake Malawi in southeast Africa. He subsequently obtained private funding to explore the watersheds of the Zambezi and to find the source of the White Nile. At that time, the origin of the White Nile was being debated by two other prominent British explorers, Richard Burton and John Hanning Speke.

Beginning in 1866, Livingstone explored lakes Malawi, Mweru, and Bangweulu. In 1871, he became the first European to reach the Lualaba River, which he thought might be the headwaters of the Nile. (In fact, it was the headwaters of the Congo River.)

Henry Morton Stanley

It was during the latter expedition that Livingstone met Henry Morton Stanley, an American journalist-explorer working as a special correspon-dent for the New York Herald.

Stanley was born John Rowlands on January 28, 1841, in Denbigh, Wales, the illegitimate son of Elizabeth Parry. His mother abandoned him while he was a baby, and he was raised by his maternal grandfather for the first years of his life.

Taken to a workhouse in 1847, he obtained a basic education before sailing for the United States as a cabin boy aboard the Windermere. Arriving in New Orleans in 1859, he is said to have taken the name Stanley from a wealthy American merchant who took him in and found him a job.

Stanley fought for the Confederacy in the American Civil War and was captured in the Battle of Shiloh in April 1862. After his release, he joined a Federal artillery regiment and then served in the U.S. Navy as a merchant marine. Traveling west after the war, he took up writing and became a news-paper reporter in 1867, first for the Missouri Democrat in St. Louis and, later, for the New York Herald.

When and where Stanley came up with the idea of searching for David Livingstone—little heard from after years in the African interior—is not known for certain. Stanley once said that the idea originated with the pub-lisher of the Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Jr. Evidence suggests that it was Stanley’s idea. In fact, as early as 1866, he had expressed an interest in traveling to Africa to find the famous Scottish explorer.


The Meeting

In 1868, Stanley traveled to Africa on an assignment to cover a showdown between British and Ethiopian troops. Two years later, Bennett agreed to send Stanley to search for Livingstone, whose last communication had been in the form of a letter the previous year from Ujiji on Lake Tanganyika. Bennett wanted a series of articles that would help to sell newspapers; Stanley wanted fame.

After arriving in Zanzibar in January 1871, Stanley departed Bagamoyo on the east coast of Africa on March 21. He rode a thoroughbred stallion and was accompa-nied by a phalanx of porters and soldiers carrying an American flag and singing as they went.

In November, Stanley finally made contact with an ailing David Livingstone near Lake Tanganyika. Perhaps he uttered the famous words “Dr. Livingstone, I pre -sume?” Or perhaps Stanley fabricated the phrase later to reflect what he thought was a proper greeting given the formalities of English society, at least as he perceived them. In any event, the statement first appeared in public in the New York Herald on July 2, 1872, in a story about the meeting between the two explorers.

Whatever words were spoken, Livingstone was overjoyed to see Stanley. In his search for the source of the White Nile, the Scotsman had returned to Ujiji suffering from dysentery and ulcerated feet. Moreover, the supplies he had left there, including medicine he needed, had been plundered. Stanley’s replenishments were thus welcome, and Livingstone was pleased with the opportunity to tell his stories in the Herald.

Stanley stayed with Livingstone in central Africa for four months. In his dispatches to the Herald, he portrayed the Scotsman as a benevolent, self-sacrificing missionary.

When his health returned, Livingstone invited Stanley to join him in exploring the northern coast of Lake Tanganyika, which they reached on November 28, 1871. In doing so, they discovered that the Rusizé River could not be the source of the Nile, because the Rusizé flowed into the lake. Livingstone had been hoping that Lake Tanganyika might be more impor-tant to the Nile than Lake Albert or Lake Victoria.

Stanley the Explorer

Stanley’s visit with Livingstone transformed him from a reporter into an African explorer. When Livingstone died at Chitambo on May 1, 1873, Stanley vowed to find the source of the Nile.

The heart of Scottish explorer David Livingstone was buried near Lake Bangweulu in present-day Zambia, south of his 1871 meeting place with Henry Morton Stanley. The inscribed section of the tree is now housed at the Royal Geographical Society in London. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


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-> Livingstone Expeditions, 1852-1856, 1866-1873 -► Stanley Expeditions, 1871-1872, 1874-1877

188 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. (c) 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

In 1875, Stanley spent eight months sailing on Lake Victoria and then circumnavigating it. Lake Victoria turned out to be one big body of water rather than a series of smaller ones, as many had assumed. Notably, its waters were found to flow toward the north, thereby confirming John Hanning Speke’s argument that Lake Victoria was the source of the White Nile.

From Lake Victoria, Stanley journeyed to Lake Tanganyika, which he also circumnavigated. From there, he traveled up the Lualaba River and discovered that it fed the Congo River, which he followed to the Atlantic Coast.

In 1887, Stanley returned to Africa, when he led an expedition to rescue Emin Pasha, whom the British had appointed governor of Equatoria in southern Egypt (now Sudan). Emin—in reality a Prussian physician and con man named Eduard Schnitzer—was under as-sault by Islamic revolutionaries under the Mahdi (a self-proclaimed Islamic redeemer). Stanley led the successful relief expedition, in the course of which he made notable contributions to exploration and endured great hardship.

With the Sudanese who accompanied him, Stanley became the first white man to cross the Ituri forest. There, he was attacked by natives with poisoned arrows and battled starvation; several of his men were reduced to mere skin and bones. He also explored the Ruwenzori Mountains, found that the Semliki River emptied into Lake Albert, and discovered and named Lake Edward, which he confirmed as the source of the Semliki.

Stanley supported colonialism of a benevolent kind, saying in his lat-ter years, “What we want now is to develop the country, not so much for the white man, but for the natives themselves.” He had wanted Britain to rule the Congo, but King Leopold II of Belgium gained control during the 1880s. Leopold intended to rule the region as a private estate, not as a colony of Belgium. Under Leopold, Belgian settlers committed numerous atrocities—such as cutting off the hands of reluctant workers—in extract-ing rubber from the land.

Unwittingly, Stanley had opened the door to harsh Belgian rule when, in 1879, he had undertaken the construction of a highway near the Congo River at King Leopold’s behest; he also established river stations, a small railway, and a steamboat operation. Indeed, he even had persuaded local chieftains to grant sovereignty over their land to Leopold.

When, in the 1890s, Stanley heard of the Belgian atrocities, he refused to believe them. As the evidence mounted, however, he became critical of the developments and tried to persuade Leopold to permit an international

On assignment for the New York Herald, Henry Morton Stan-ley traveled to central Africa in search of missing explorer Da-vid Livingstone. After the encounter, Stanley continued his own jungle exploration and made several major discoveries. (London Stereoscopic Company/Stringer/Hulton Ar-chive/Getty Images)


investigation—a proposal the monarch flatly rejected. (The Congo came under the direct control of Belgium in 1908 after Leopold suffered financial setbacks.)

A naturalized U.S. citizen, Stanley became a British subject again in 1892. He served in Parliament from 1895 to 1900, and was knighted in 1899. He wrote several books on his African expeditions, including How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa (1872), Through the Dark Continent (1878), and The Congo and the Founding of Its Free State (1885). He died on May 10, 1904, in London, following an attack of pleurisy.

Interestingly, Stanley had helped create the image of a “saintly” Livingstone, which made the Scotsman more esteemed than Stanley. Despite his accomplishments and intentions, Stanley was more often as-sociated with the brutal exploitation of the Congo. Whatever their real virtues and flaws, both men provided Europeans with previously unknown knowledge about the geography, people, and climate of central and south -ern Africa.


Further ReadingDugard, Martin. Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone.

New York: Doubleday, 2003.Jeal, Tim. Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. New Haven,

CT: Yale University Press, 2007.Newman, James L. Imperial Footprints: Henry Morton Stanley’s African

Journeys. Washington, DC: Brassey’s, 2004.

See also: Burton, Richard Francis; Speke, John Hanning.



and Expeditions

Volume Two


1764: Born in Stornoway, Scotland1779: Begins working for the Canadian trading firm Finlay, Gregory and Company1789: Travels the Mackenzie River in Canada to the Arctic Ocean1793: Reaches the Pacific Ocean by following the Bella Coola River from west of the

Mackenzie Pass1820: Dies on March 11 in Scotland

MACKENZIE, ALEXANDER CA. 17641820

A Scottish-Canadian explorer and fur trader, Alexander Mackenzie jour-neyed west across the Continental Divide in the 1790s and reached the Pacific Coast.

Alexander Mackenzie was born sometime around 1764, probably in the fishing village of Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. When Alexander was about ten years old, his father took him to America—most likely to escape the poverty of the Scottish islands. After living briefly in New York, he was raised by two aunts in Montreal, Canada.

As a young man, Mackenzie entered the fur trade, which was then im-portant to the British Canadian economy. At about age fifteen, he joined the firm of Finlay, Gregory and Company, which became Gregory, MacLeod and Company in 1783; he later worked for them as a trader in Detroit. The company came under increasing pressure from the two giants of the fur trade business, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company, and it finally merged with the latter. Mackenzie became acquainted with one of the company’s partners, Peter Pond, who believed that the Athabasca River could be followed west from the Cook Inlet to the Pacific Ocean. This northwest passage to the Pacific would provide a trade route to Asia.

Mackenzie resolved to test Pond’s theory. He left Fort Chipewyan (which he had built on Lake Athabasca the previous year) on June 3, 1789. He was accompanied by a Chipewyan chief; five native women who served as guides, interpreters, and cooks; four Canadian voyageurs; and a general trader.

The expedition traveled in three canoes, battling strong northwest winds and treacherous rapids that often forced them to portage (cross over-land with their canoes). The party reached Great Slave Lake on June 9 and found it still covered with ice. From there, beginning on June 29, they de-scended what Mackenzie called the River of Disappointment but was later renamed the Mackenzie River.

ca.


The trip took a total of 102 days. By the end of it, the expedition had reached not the Pacific Ocean but the Arctic Ocean. At Whale Island, where they stayed for four days, Mackenzie observed white whales and measured the tides.

Mackenzie began to think that the Peace River (in what is now western Alberta, Canada) was the most likely water route to the Pacific. Preparing for a journey to test that theory, he went to London in the winter of 1791 for training in navigation. He brought back a compass, a sextant, a chro-nometer, and a telescope, and set out in May 1793 with Alexander Mackay and eight other explorers in a 25-foot (7.6-meter) canoe.

As in the first expedition, the party encountered strong river rapids and engaged in arduous overland treks. Mackenzie had a difficult time convinc-ing the men to forge ahead; however, they persevered, traveling along the Peace and Parsnip rivers and crossing the Continental Divide farther north than any other white men had to that time. On the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains, they discovered the Fraser River, traversed it for a short distance, and then, advised by the local Native Americans, crossed the West Road Valley and reached the Mackenzie Pass at an altitude of 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) in the Cascade Mountains.

Next, the expedition headed down the Bella Coola River and finally reached the Pacific Ocean, at the mouth of the river, on July 20, 1793. There, Mackenzie mixed a mineral with melted grease and used the concoction to make the following inscription on a rock:

Alexander Mackenzie, from Canada, by land, the twenty-second of July, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-three.

It had taken the expedition seventy-four days to travel more than 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) to the coast. By the time Mackenzie returned home, the challenges of the journey had caused him to suffer from nervous exhaustion.

Although he failed to find the Northwest Passage, Mackenzie advanced British claims in the Pacific Northwest and added significantly to the geo-graphical knowledge of the region. Albeit inadvertently, his explorations also influenced U.S. President Thomas Jefferson, who read Mackenzie’s book, Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Lawrence Through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the Years 1789 and 1793, which was published in 1801. Already concerned about the growing British influence in the Pacific Northwest, President Jefferson became all the more determined to send an American expedition there, which he did under the leadership of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

From London, where he was hailed as a hero, Mackenzie founded and operated a trading firm called Alexander Mackenzie and Company, which


merged with the North West Company in 1804. He returned to Montreal and was elected to the legislature of Lower Canada in 1805.

Three years later, he retired to Scotland, where he married, raised three children, and lived the rest of his life on a large estate near Moray Firth. He died on March 11, 1820, near Pitlochry.

Further ReadingDaniells, Roy. Alexander Mackenzie and the North West. Toronto, Canada:

Oxford University Press, 1971.Gough, Barry. First Across the Continent: Sir Alexander Mackenzie. Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press, 1997.Hayes, Derek. First Crossing: Alexander Mackenzie, His Expedition Across

North America, and the Opening of the Continent. Seattle: Sasquatch, 2001.

MALINOWSKI, BRONISLAW 18841942

Best known for his research on the Trobriand Islanders of the southwest Pacific, Polish-born cultural anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski founded the functionalist approach to the study of culture, pioneered modern field-work techniques, and became known as one of the most influential anthro-pologists of the twentieth century.

Early Life and Studies

Bronislaw Malinowski was born on April 7, 1884, in Kraków, Austrian Poland, to Lucyan Malinowski, a professor of Slavic languages, and Jozefa Lacka. As a child he suffered from poor health, but he was an excellent student. In 1908, he obtained his first doctorate, in philosophy, physics, and mathematics, from Jagiellonian University in Kraków. After three semesters as a postgraduate student at the University of Leipzig, he received a scholar-ship to the London School of Economics.

See also: Lewis and Clark Expedition.

1884: Born on April 7 in Kraków, Poland1908: Obtains doctorate from Jagiellonian University in Kraków1915: Studies the Mailu people of New Guinea and begins studying the Trobriand

Islanders1916: Obtains doctor of science degree from the London School of Economics1922: Publishes Argonauts of the Western Pacific1927: Becomes chair of anthropology at the University of London1939: Becomes visiting professor at Yale University1942: Dies on May 16 at New Haven, Connecticut


During the course of his graduate studies, Malinowski became interested in anthropology when he read James Frazer’s The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (1890). Frazer, a Scottish anthropologist, discussed reli-gion in a cultural context rather than a theological one.

In 1914, Malinowski obtained a fellowship to conduct anthropological fieldwork in New Guinea. He arrived there the following year and began his investigation among the Mailu people, who lived on the southern part of the island.

Although his work in New Guinea led to his earn-ing a doctor of science degree from the London School of Economics in 1916, Malinowski discovered what he regarded as a weakness in his methodology. During his six months with the Mailu, he neither learned the native language nor spent much time living among the people. He determined to correct these faults in his future work.

In the Trobriand Islands

Malinowski decided to study the Trobriand Islanders, who lived on a coral archipelago (a group of islands) about 170 miles (275 kilometers) east of New Guinea in Melanesia, a subregion of the South Pacific. This time, adopting a new approach to his research, he immersed himself in Trobriand life and society. Rather than rely on occasional interviews with the natives—standard practice among anthropologists—he pitched a tent among them, learned their language, and took part in many of their cultural practices.

As he later advocated, “Each phenomenon ought to be studied through the broadest range possible of its concrete manifestations; each studied by an exhaustive survey of detailed examples.” Malinowski advised other anthropologists,

It is good for the Ethnographer to sometimes put aside camera, notebook and pencil and to join himself in what is going on. He can take part in the natives’ games, he can follow them on their visits and walks, sit down and listen and share in their conversations. . . . Out of such plunges into the life of the natives . . . I have carried away the distinct feeling that their behaviour, their manner of being, in all sorts of tribal transactions, became more trans-parent and easily understandable than it had [been] before.

Malinowski developed what he believed were three important tech-niques in ethnographic fieldwork. First, he said, “[t]he organization of the tribe, and the anatomy of its culture must be recorded in firm, clear outline.

Polish-born cultural anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski broke new ground in both methodology and theory with his years of fieldwork among the Trobriand Islanders of the southwest Pacific. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


The method of concrete, statistical documentation is the mean through which such an outline has to be given.” Second, he maintained, “[w]ithin this frame the imponderabilia of actual life, and the type of behaviour have to be filled in. They have to be collected through minute, detailed observations in the form of some sort of ethnographic diary, made possible by close contact with native life.” And third, “[a] collection of ethnographic statements, col-lective narratives, typical utterances, items of folk-lore and magical formulae has to be given . . . as documents of native mentality.”

On two expeditions—the first from June 1915 to May 1916, the second from October 1917 to October 1918—Malinowski studied the social prac-tices of the Trobriand Islanders. Based on his experiences and findings, he wrote several books that reshaped the field of cultural anthropology, among them Argonauts of the Western Pacific (1922), perhaps the most influential; Crime and Custom in Savage Society (1926); Myth in Primitive Psychology (1927); and The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia (1929). In addition, he wrote numerous works about fishing, war and weapons, and language in Trobriand society.

In his writings, Malinowski advanced a theory of culture and an ap-proach to its study known as functionalism. According to this view, “[t]he laws of behavior, in its technical, economic, legal, moral, and even magical aspects, form an integral whole which determines the actions of every in-dividual in the group.” Taken together, he believed, the social customs and


practices create and maintain social order. Thus, Malinowksi maintained, it is important to study the parts of society as they interrelate; that is, to study society holistically.

The social order in Trobriand society, he found, had no need of European-style courts or of police. And yet, he also observed, the islanders pushed boundaries of order and tested its limits. So what, then, kept the order from breaking?

According to Malinowksi, it was a factor that can be observed in almost any society: the “reciprocity” needed in carrying on social or economic func-tions in the pursuit of self-interest. For example, among the Trobrianders (as in other societies), marriage establishes a bond not only between husband and wife but also between the families of each. Similarly, burial ceremonies serve not only to take care of the dead but also to comfort the survivors.

Academic Life and Later Fieldwork

Shortly after his return from the Trobriand Islands in 1922, Malinowski was made full-time lecturer at the London School of Economics. In 1926, he visited several universities in the United States, and he also studied the Pueblo Indians of the American Southwest. The following year, he began teaching at the University of London and was appointed its first chair of anthropology. His seminars there shaped the interests, work, and careers of the next generation of British anthropologists.

Journeying to Africa in 1934, Malinowski conducted fieldwork among the Bantu tribes. In 1941–1942, he conducted an extensive study of native peoples in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico, focusing on the effects of outside influences on indigenous culture—a factor he had been criticized for un-dervaluing in anthropological research. In the meantime, Malinowski had become a visiting professor at Yale University in 1939. He held that post for the next three years.

An exiled member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences dur-ing Germany’s occupation of his home country, he was an outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. After attending the formal opening in New York City of the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences at the Morgan Library on May 16, 1942, Malinowski returned to New Haven, Connecticut, where he died of a heart attack.

Although many of his ideas have been challenged or revised since his death, Malinowski continues to be regarded as a giant in the fields of social and cultural anthropology.

Further ReadingThornton, Robert J., and Peter Skalnik, eds. The Early Writings of Bronislaw

Malinowski. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993.


Young, Michael W., ed. The Ethnography of Malinowski: The Trobriand Islanders, 1915–18. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1998.

———. Malinowski: Odyssey of an Anthropologist, 1884–1920. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.

MAPS AND MAPMAKING

The art and science of mapmaking, or cartography, has undergone tremen-dous change over the centuries, partly as a function of physical exploration and partly as a result of technological innovations and evolving scientific methods.

Mapmaking long predated the dawn of modern science in the fifteenth century. The first known maps date from ancient Babylonia (in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in present-day Iraq) in around 2300 b.c.e. Carved into clay tablets, these early diagrams showed the locations of towns, communities, and even property lines. One such map, from Nippur (near the Euphrates River in present-day Iraq) created circa 1300 b.c.e., depicts individual landholdings, along with irrigation canals and streams. In East Asia, maps drawn on silk dating to the second century b.c.e. have been found in China. In the Mediterranean, the Greek philosopher Anaximander drew a map showing all known lands around the Aegean Sea in the sixth century b.c.e.

A breakthrough came in about 240 b.c.e., when Eratosthenes of Cyrene made an important calculation. While serving as chief of the Alexandrian Museum in Egypt, he used a well and a vertical column to measure the angle of the sun and thereby determine the circumference of the Earth. Although his result was 16 percent too high, the calculation represented an impor-tant advance in human knowledge of the Earth. For that effort and others,

1154: Arabian geographer Mohammed al-Idrisi draws a map of the known world1311: Genoan cartographer Petrus Vesconte makes a navigation chart of the

Mediterranean Sea1507: German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produces a map that includes the

label “America”1569: Flemish cartographer Gerardus Mercator produces his first world map, a large

cylindrical projection that becomes the standard for ocean navigation1879: The United States begins a geological survey for the purpose of making large-

scale topographic maps1966: The Pageos satellite is launched by the United States to conduct a geodetic

survey of the Earth1999: The seventh Landsat satellite is launched as part of the American geodetic

survey program


including the invention of a system of latitude and longitude, Eratosthenes has been called the “father of geodesy,” the science of Earth measurement.

In about 150 b.c.e., the Alexandrian scholar Ptolemy defined cartogra-phy as “a representation in pictures of the whole known world together with the phenomena which are contained therein.” Most mapmakers today still hold with that basic definition.

Wanting cartographers “to survey the whole in its just proportions,” Ptolemy recommended that whenever a large-area map distorted the rep-resentation of large or small areas, more localized maps should be used to provide a more accurate view. In 1154, the Arabian geographer Mohammed al-Idrisi drew a map of the world excluding unknown regions, such as the Americas. As early as the twelfth century, the Mayas and the Incas were making maps of lands in Central America.

By the thirteenth century, navigators in the Mediterranean Sea were making charts with lines connecting various points, although these charts did not include meridians or parallels. The earliest dated navigation chart was made by a Genoan, Petrus Vesconte, in 1311. Some historians consider this the first work of professional cartography.

Cartography in the Era of Modern Science

The rise of modern science, coinciding as it did with the Age of Discovery, brought major advances in cartographic accuracy and the charting of previously unknown lands. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map that included the label “America” (after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian navigator and explorer off the Atlantic coast) for the newly discovered lands across the Atlantic Ocean. For the first time, North and South America were shown as separate from Asia. In 1570, Abraham Ortelius, a Flemish mapmaker who lived in Antwerp, published the first modern atlas, Orbis Terrarum, which contained seventy maps drawn by different cartographers.

More precise methods of measuring latitude improved the accuracy of maps. Notably, in 1525, French physician Jean Fernel calculated the length of a degree of latitude with such accuracy that he was able to determine the circumference of the Earth within one-tenth of 1 percent. Fenel’s was the first accurate measurement of a degree by a European; he performed this calculation in Paris using a quadrant and horse-drawn carriage.

Fenel used a quadrant to measure the angle of the noontime sun and the horizon; then he compared it to a published table in order to calculate his latitude. Based on the circumference of his carriage wheels and the num-ber of their revolutions, he measured the distance from Paris to Amiens (near his birthplace). Upon arriving, he again measured the angle of the sun, to determine his new latitude. Paris and Amiens, it turned out, were


almost exactly 1 degree arc apart; the distance be-tween them, therefore, was equal to the distance of latitude. It would be another hundred years be-fore better instruments allowed for more accurate measurements.

Perhaps the most famous name in cartogra-phy is that of Gerardus Mercator (1512–1594), a Flemish instrument maker whose charts helped generations of sailors make safer journeys across the oceans. Mercator’s great innovation was a way to represent the spherical shape of the Earth on flat parchment. It is not clear how he came up with the idea, but, in 1569, he presented a world map based on a “new proportion and a new ar-rangement of the meridians with reference to the parallels.”

To do this, Mercator took the rhumb lines from the globe—the straight lines between two points used by navigators—made them perpen-dicular to the equator, and drew them so they would not converge at the poles. Consequently, the meridians of longitude and the parallels of latitude intersected at right angles. To accomplish this, he had to increase the spacing of the parallels of latitude as they moved away from the equator toward the poles so that they would match the spreading of the meridians of longitude. One effect of this projection technique was to distort the shape of landmasses near the poles. Thus, for example, Greenland appeared to be the same size as South America.

Mercator’s 1569 map reflected the growing knowledge of world geog-raphy during the Age of Discovery—at least to that time. It showed the west coasts of South and Central America, depicted Baja California as part of North America, and provided a more accurate outline of Asia. But the map showed nothing of the North American interior, as Europeans had yet to explore it; it also showed a landmass called Terra Australis where Antarctica is located, which was believed to be connected to the southern tips of Australia and South America.

Mercator’s projection is referred to today as a “conformal map,” meaning that the depiction of smaller surface areas are relatively accurate, but larger areas, such as continents, tend to be distorted. In a subsequent innovation, called “equal-area maps,” 1 square inch (or square centimeter, depending on the scale used) on the surface of a map represents the same number of square miles (or square kilometers) of physical terrain as any other square inch (or square kilometer).

The great break-through in global cartography—which became a mainstay of ocean naviga-tion—was a projec-tion of the spherical world using straight lines to indicate lati-tude and longitude. The system took the name of its creator, Gerardus Mercator. (Stringer/Hulton Ar-chive /Getty Images)


While it does provide greater accuracy in one respect, an equal-area map still distorts shapes and distances in areas near the poles. Indeed, any flat map of a spherical planet necessarily distorts the representation of shapes and distances. The question for any cartographer or map reader is which projection to use. (There are many variations within both the confor-mal and equal-area categories.)

The science of surveying—measuring distances and angles across three-dimensional space—matured significantly in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with advances in instrumentation. No longer was sur-veying confined to the measurement of small areas such as property lines. With improved instruments and more advanced mathematical techniques, surveyors could measure larger areas with greater accuracy.

Further improvements in cartography came as a result of a new scien-tific theory developed at about the same time. In the 1680s, Isaac Newton advanced the theory of centrifugal force, which had major implications for cartography because it held that the Earth was not perfectly round, but bulged at the equator. To test Newton’s theory, the French Royal Academy of Sciences sponsored two expeditions, one bound for Peru in 1735 and one for the Arctic in 1736.

The Arctic explorers trekked into the wilderness of Lapland, where they battled giant, biting mosquitoes and foul weather. After calculating an arc of meridian from Tornio to Kittis (two Finnish towns), they measured a base line from the Torne River to Avasaksa by walking across the frozen river and placing 33-foot (10-meter) rods in their path. The leader of the expedition, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, wrote,

Judge what it must be to walk in the Snow two feet deep, with heavy Poles in our hands, which we must be continually laying upon the Snow and lifting again: In a Cold so extreme, that whenever we would taste a little Brandy, the only thing that could be kept liquid, our Tongues and lips froze to the Cup, and came away bloody; In a Cold that congealed the Fingers of some of us, and threatened us with yet more dismal Accidents.

The results of that Arctic expedition, along with the one to Peru, con-firmed Newton’s theory about the bulge in the Earth and marked a land-mark event in the science of mapmaking. Cartographers were moving out of their workshops and libraries, and going out as explorers to survey land and sea.

New Horizons

If the more precise methods of measuring latitude that emerged in the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries improved the accuracy of maps, so, too,


did the measuring of longitude. This awaited the development of an acu-rate mechanical clock—or marine chronometer—that could be carried on board a ship and continue to function. The device would keep the time of the prime meridian (Greenwich Mean Time). By comparing this time with the local time at sea, it was possible to determine a ship’s longitudinal posi-tion relative to the prime meridian.

The problem was making a clock capable of withstanding the humidity, temperature, and barometric pressure of a long sea voyage. The solution came from John Harrison, an English clockmaker, who developed and built increasingly durable and accurate marine chronometers. Finally, in 1761, his H-4 timepiece, which was about the size of a soup plate, made it possible to gauge one’s longitude at sea reliably and accurately. James Cook used a copy of the H-4, called the K-1, on his voyages to the Pacific Ocean and praised its accuracy. It proved invaluable in compiling the maps of his expeditions.

In another key development, topographic surveys intended to show the surface features of a place or region on a map (hills, valleys, rivers, and

Satellite imagery has revolutionized the field of cartography, providing real-time views of the Earth’s surface in unprec-edented resolution and detail. This view of the Chesapeake Bay was captured by one of the U.S. Landsat observa-tion satellites in the 1990s. (Science & So-ciety Picture Library/Getty Images)


the like) were undertaken by European countries by the late eighteenth century, adding a new dimension to cartographic science. In 1793, the French completed a topographic survey of their entire nation; this was followed by similar national surveys in Austria, Great Britain, Spain, and Switzerland.

In the United States, the Geological Survey was begun in 1879 to survey and make large-scale topographic maps. In 1891, the International Geographical Congress proposed mapping the entire world, a project still under way today. Meanwhile, at sea, in the mid-nineteenth century, Matthew Maury of the U.S. Hydrographic Office began collecting data on winds, currents, ocean floors, and related phenomena—an effort regarded by some as the beginning of modern oceanography.

Mapmaking has undergone rapid change in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries as a result of modern technology. Aerial photography, which began during World War I, was used extensively in World War II. In the decades since, satellites have brought major advances in the collection and digital dissemination of detailed, real-time geographic information.

The United States began a geodetic survey of the Earth in 1966 with cameras mounted inside a balloon-launched satellite called Pageos (which circled the Earth in a polar orbit) and in three Landsat satellites launched in the 1970s. Landsat 1 was rocketed into space on July 23, 1972, to an alti-tude of 560 miles (900 kilometers); its nearly circular orbit provided a clear perspective of the Earth’s surface with little distortion. A single image from Landsat was equivalent to 1,000 pictures taken from an airplane. In 1999, the seventh in the series of Landsat satellites was launched; it continues to transmit images of the Earth from space.

With all the improvement of modern technology, however, cartography still requires expeditions on the ground. As one cartographer recently put it,

You have to steep yourself in the place, its trails and rocks and vegetation if you are to produce a map with more authenticity, one that has the right feel as well as the right mathematics.

Further ReadingSchwartz, Seymour I. Putting “America” on the Map: The Story of the Most

Important Graphic Document in the History of the United States. Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 2007.

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Landsat Program: http://landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov.

Whitfield, Peter. The Charting of the Oceans: Ten Centuries of Maritime Maps. Rohnert Park, CA: Pomegranate Artbooks, 1996.

Wilford, John Noble. The Mapmakers. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1981.

See also: Space Exploration, Unmanned.


MARSH, OTHNIEL CHARLES 18311899

American paleontologist, curator, and professor Othniel Charles Marsh led hundreds of fossil-finding expeditions to the western United States, discovered and named hundreds of fossil species, and provided strong cor-roborating evidence for Darwin’s theory of evolution in its infancy. An early specialist in the field of vertebrate paleontology, Marsh also was known for his rivalry regarding fossil discoveries with Edward Drinker Cope.

Othniel Charles Marsh was born on October 29, 1831, in Lockport, New York. His father, Caleb Marsh, was a struggling farmer; his mother, Mary, died when Othniel was just three years old. Caleb Marsh expected his son to work on the farm, but as a boy Othniel liked to roam the fields and hunt in the woods. He became friends with geologist Ezekiel Jewett and through him became interested in natural history.

Financially strapped, Marsh was unable to enter Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, until he was twenty-one years old. He continued his studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1856, sup-ported largely by money from his uncle, George Peabody, who had become a successful banker. After earning his bachelor’s degree in 1860, Marsh began graduate studies at Yale’s Sheffield Scientific School, where he took courses in chemistry, physics, geology, botany, modern languages, and the history of science.

In 1861, he published his first paper, on the Nova Scotia goldfields. By this time, his collection of rocks and minerals had grown so large that it almost broke through the floor of the room where he was living. Fellow students considered him hard to get to know and called him “Daddy” be-cause of his age.

With his interests shifting from geology to paleontology, Marsh studied at several German universities in the mid-1860s. Upon returning to America, he was named professor of vertebrate paleontology at Yale in 1866. Later that year, he persuaded his uncle to found the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale, of which Marsh was named cura-tor in 1867. With money inherited from his uncle, Marsh built a large house in New Haven, where he entertained guests and stored his collec-

1831: Born on October 29 in Lockport, New York1867: Becomes curator at the Peabody Museum of Natural History at Yale

University1870: Begins exploring the American West in search of fossils when he

leads a party of explorers from Fort McPherson, Nebraska1899: Dies on March 18 in New Haven, Connecticut


tion of fossils. (In 1898, he donated his collection to the Peabody, where it is still housed today.)

In 1870, Marsh departed with a small group of as-sistants from Fort McPherson, Nebraska, on the first of several expeditions he would lead to the West in search of fossils. One observer described him as “preeminently an outdoor man . . . a crack shot, a fisherman of repute, a seasoned camper.” Marsh believed that the Nebraska plains had once been a lake bed and the Rocky Mountains a shallow sea, a theory confirmed by his discovery of a number of fish fossils as well as several remains of small mammals.

One fossil in particular, which Marsh discovered while he was riding along a buffalo trail, was the first of its kind to be found in North America—a bone from a flying reptile called the pterodactyl. From this evidence,

along with a number of smaller bones collected by others, Marsh could esti-mate the size of the creature, the first vertebrate species known to have been capable of flying:

I . . . made a careful calculation of how large a Pterodactyl must be to have a wing finger corresponding to the fragment I had found, and ascertained that its spread of wings would be about twenty feet.

Marsh found proof for his theory on a second Western expedition in 1871, when he uncovered additional bones. Based on that evidence, he wrote,

I was soon able to determine that my calculations based on the original frag-ments were essentially correct, and that my first found American dragon was as large as my fancy had painted him.

Other Western expeditions followed in 1872, 1873, and 1874. During the last of these, Marsh collected more than 2 tons of fossils.

Collectors working for Marsh unearthed yet more fossil remains, from which he acquired specimens of other dinosaur species. Among these was the toothed Cretaceous bird Hesperornis, which he had identified previ-ously. Based on the new evidence, about fifty fragments in all, Marsh was the first to show that birds had evolved from reptiles.

According to one contemporary, Marsh’s discovery “removed Mr. Darwin’s proposition . . . from the region of hypothesis to that of demon-strable fact.” Indeed, Marsh fully supported Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection.

A pioneer of verte-brate paleontology, Othniel Charles Marsh discovered hundreds of fossils on expeditions to the American West in the late 1800s. His findings lent strong support for Darwin’s controversial new theory of evolution. (Granger Collection, New York)


As early as the 1860s, meanwhile, an intense rivalry—referred to as the Great Bone Wars—had developed between Marsh and the Philadelphia-based paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope. Each tried to outdo the other in collecting fossils, publishing papers, and advancing scientific theories. The competition resulted, in part, from Marsh’s revelation, in 1869, that Cope had incorrectly reconstructed the skeleton of the Elasmosaurus, a long-neck reptile. (Cope had placed the skull on the skeleton’s tail rather than its neck.)

The rivalry exploded into public view in 1890 when the New York Herald published a claim by Cope that Marsh was trying to take over the U.S. Geological Survey. The controversy drew widespread interest at a time when new findings and theories in natural science had captured the imagi-nation of ordinary Americans.

Marsh died of pneumonia on March 18, 1899, in New Haven, where he had been teaching at Yale. In his lifetime, he had published some 300 sci-entific papers and books, named several hundred new species of fossil ver-tebrates, and, from 1883 to 1895, had served as president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Further ReadingCohen, I. Bernard, ed. The Life and Scientific Work of Othniel Charles Marsh:

An Original Anthology. New York: Arno, 1980.Ostrom, John H., and John S. McIntosh. Marsh’s Dinosaurs: The Collection

from Como Bluff. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.Wallace, David Rains. The Bonehunters’ Revenge: Dinosaurs, Greed, and the

Greatest Scientific Feud of the Gilded Age. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.

MEXIA, YNES 18701938

A Mexican American botanist and explorer, Ynes Mexia collected an esti-mated 150,000 plant specimens—hundreds of them previously unknown species—on expeditions to Mexico, South America, and Alaska. A former social worker, she did not begin studying botany until she was in her fifties.

See also: Cope, Edward Drinker.

1870: Born on May 24 in Washington, D.C.1925: Collects plant specimens at Mazatlán in Mexico1928: Studies plants at Mt. McKinley National Park in Alaska1929: Explores Brazil, Peru, and the Amazon River and collects 65,000 plant

specimens1935: Collects 15,000 specimens of plants and animals in South America1938: Dies in Berkeley, California on July 12


She was born Ynes Enriquetta Julietta Mexia on May 24, 1870, in Washington, D.C., to Enrique Antonio Mexia, who was serving as a dip-lomatic envoy at the Mexican consulate, and Sarah Wilmer Mexia. From infancy to the age of nine, she lived in Mexia, Texas, a town in Limestone County named for her grandfather. Thereafter, upon her parents’ separa-tion, she moved to Philadelphia to live with her mother and then to Mexico City to live with her father.

After the death of her first husband in 1904, Mexia remarried. She later suffered a nervous breakdown and not long after that divorced her sec-ond husband. She moved back to the United States, became an American citizen, and pursued a career as a social worker in San Francisco.

In 1921, at the age of fifty-one, Mexia began studying natural history at the University of California at Berkeley. Four years later, she took a summer course on flowering plants at Hopkins Marines Station in Pacific Grove, California, before joining a botanical expedition to Mexico.

At Mazatlán, Mexico, Mexia became a tireless collector and catalog-er of plant specimens, continuing her activities despite a fall from a cliff in which she fractured her ribs. She took detailed field notes and pho-tographed everything of potential importance. During the course of the expedition, Mexia displayed a preference for camping out in the field on her own. Although she established contacts with several leading scientists, she did not form any close relationships and sometimes complained of depression.

In the next twelve years, Mexia made a total of seven more collect-ing trips. In 1926 and 1927, she collected botanical specimens in western Mexico for the Department of Botany at the University of California at Berkeley. Near the end of that trip, she traveled over the Sierra Madre Mountains to collect local oak and plant samples. In all, she brought back hundreds of specimens to California, among them lichens, mosses, ferns, grasses, herbs, shrubs, and trees. The collection included fifty new species.

In 1928, on an expedition to Alaska, Mexia collected more than 6,000 species and studied plant life at Mount McKinley National Park (today Denali National Park), while living in complete solitude. The following year, she explored Brazil and Peru and traveled the Amazon River. She spent two months in the jungle and returned to the United States with 65,000 specimens. On an expedition to Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile in 1935, she collected another 15,000 specimens of plants and animals.

Mexia undertook her last expedition in 1937, to Guerrero and Oaxaca in Mexico. After falling ill the following year, she returned to California, where doctors told her she had lung cancer. She died at Berkeley on July 12, 1938.

A fellow botanist said of Mexia, “She was the true explorer type and happiest when independent and far from civilization.”


Further ReadingBonta, Marcia M. Women in the Field: America’s Pioneering Woman Naturalists.

College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991.Goodspeed, Thomas Harper. Plant Hunters in the Andes. New York: Farrar

and Rinehart, 1941.

MOUHOT, HENRI 18261861

The French naturalist and explorer Henri Mouhot explored Southeast Asia in the mid-nineteenth century. Through his writings, he encouraged the ar-chaeological exploration of the ancient Khmer capital of Angkor and called Western attention to the marvels of the temple complex located there.

Henri Mouhot was born on May 15, 1826, in Montbéliard, France, near the Swiss border. As a young professor of philology in the 1840s and 1850s, he traveled to Russia to teach and then toured Europe while studying photography. In 1856, he arrived in England and began studying zoology.

It was during this time that he read John Bowring’s The Kingdom and the People of Siam (1857), whose vivid descriptions of Siam (present-day Thailand) made Mouhot want to visit. Bowring wrote,

The appearance of the river is beautiful. Now and then a bamboo hut is seen amidst the foliage, whose varieties of bright and beautiful green no art could copy. Fruits and flowers hang by thousands on the branches.

With support from the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London, Mouhot set out for Indochina in 1858. In the course of the next three years, he made four trips into the interior of Southeast Asia.

On his first expedition from Bangkok, he sailed up the Chao Phraya River to Ayuthaya, the former capital of Siam, and reported a discovery. He noted,

I found animal footprints, mainly of tiger and elephant, everywhere up to the top of the mountain, in the valleys, caves, fissures. I have reached the conclu-sion that some of these footprints had been made by unknown antediluvian animals.

1826: Born on May 15 in Montbéliard, France1858: Begins exploring Indochina on a journey up the Chao Phraya River from

Bangkok to Ayuthaya1860: Explores Angkor, including the Angkor Wat temple complex, in Cambodia1861: Dies on November 10 in Luang Prabang, Laos


Other archaeologists have since determined that it is more likely that the marks were made by erosion in the limestone.

In December 1858, Mouhot began his second expedition, which lasted until April 1860. Surviving largely on rice and dried fish, and fighting mos-quitoes every step of the way, he reached the ancient city of Angkor and explored its impressive Hindu temples. He took detailed measurements of Angkor Wat, the largest temple complex in the world, and marveled at its bas-relief artistry depicting warriors riding tigers, people entering paradise, and scenes of daily Khmer life. Mouhot wrote,

At [Angkor], there are . . . ruins of such grandeur . . . that, at the first view, one is filled with profound admiration, and cannot but ask what has become of this powerful race, so civilized, so enlightened, the authors of these gigan-tic works?

Made of sandstone and laterite (a red, porous, clay-like soil), the Angkor Wat temple complex comprises five lotus-shaped towers, a large central tower, and other smaller towers. A series of terraces surrounds the central tower, and the entire structure is, in turn, surrounded by a moat.

The capital of the Khmer Empire, Angkor had been inhabited from the early ninth to the early fifteenth centuries, though Mouhot thought that it dated from a much earlier period. In addition to exploring the temples, he collected hundreds of insect specimens and shipped them back to Europe. All were lost when the steamer carrying them sank in Singapore harbor. Other items from his natural history collections later were received by the British Museum.

An English engrav-ing of 1868 depicts Angkor Wat, the great temple of the ancient Khmer Empire in Cambo-dia. The historic site became an object of fascination among Europeans after firsthand descrip-tions by Frenchman Henri Mouhot. (Granger Collection, New York)


Contrary to popular accounts, Mouhot did not “discover” Angkor Wat. Western explorers and missionaries had visited the temple, and other near-by temples, as early as the 1500s. Yet Mouhot’s descriptions and detailed sketches attracted considerable interest in Europe and encouraged archae-ologists to explore the buildings.

Mouhot undertook a third expedition, to Petchaburi, in 1860, and a fourth one, to Laos, later that year. He died on November 10, 1861, in Luang Prabang, Laos, likely from a jungle fever.

Mouhot’s travel notes appeared in a French magazine in 1863. And book editions of his writings were published in French and English in suc-ceeding years.

Further ReadingMouhot, Henri. Travels in Siam, Cambodia, Laos, and Annam. Bangkok,

Thailand: White Lotus, 2000.

See also: Royal Geographical Society.

NANSEN, FRIDTJOF 18611930

A Norwegian explorer, oceanographer, diplomat, and humanitarian, Fridtjof Nansen fell short of his goal to reach the North Pole in the late 1800s but collected extensive scientific information about the Arctic. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922 for his work as high commissioner of refu-gees for the League of Nations.

Fridtjof Nansen was born on October 10, 1861, in Store Froen, Norway, near Oslo (then named Christiania). His father, Baldur Nansen, was a prosperous attorney, and his mother, Adelaide Nansen, came from a well-to-do family. Fridtjof lived in a large farmhouse with a younger brother and five older half-brothers and half-sisters.

1861: Born on October 10 in Store Froen, Norway1888: Walks across Greenland from east to west, arriving at the Inuit village of

Godthaab in early October1893: Begins his attempt to reach the North Pole aboard the Fram, a ship specially

built to withstand ice floes1906: Begins two-year term as Norway’s ambassador to Great Britain1921: Leads an international effort to save lives during a famine in Russia1922: Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize1930: Dies on May 13 in Oslo, Norway


As a young man, Nansen spent much time in the Norwegian forests skiing, hiking, and camp-ing. In 1880, at age eighteen, he enrolled at the University of Oslo (then called the University of Christiania) and studied zoology. Two years later, he sailed to the Arctic as a crew member on the seal-hunting ship Viking, bringing with him equipment for collecting and investigat-ing specimens. The Viking sailed to the coast of Greenland, where the beauty of the frozen land, which Nansen viewed from the crow’s nest, in-spired him with the idea of crossing the Arctic island on foot.

Back from his trip later that year, he was appointed curator of the Bergen Museum in Norway under zoologist Daniel Cornelius Danielssen. In 1888, Nansen received his doc-torate from the University of Oslo upon comple-tion of his dissertation, which was titled “The Structure and Combination of the Histological Elements of the Central Nervous System.”

To the Arctic

Having received his degree, Nansen set about planning to trek across Greenland with five companions. The group decided to begin the journey from an ice floe along the east coast of the island, a dangerous plan, because the eastern region was devoid of villages from which help could be obtained if needed.

Nansen and his fellow explorers arrived on the east coast of Greenland in July 1888 and promptly encountered a setback. As they prepared to de-part, the ice floe they were on broke apart, and on one of the pieces the explorers sailed south for ten days, which forced them to return north a considerable distance before beginning the trek across Greenland. All to-gether, the incident cost them three weeks.

The purpose of the expedition was not purely adventure, and the ex-plorers carried with them various scientific instruments, such as a sextant, barometers, theodolites, and three compasses—the last “for the testing of magnetic deviation,” said Nansen, “as well as for trigonometrical observa-tions.” The party covered about 250 miles (400 kilometers), traversing hills and mountains and forging through blizzards, which put them ever farther behind schedule.

Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen poses for a photo in his cabin on the Fram, while the ship was lodged in the Arctic ice cap in early 1895. Though the expedition failed to reach the North Pole, Nansen trav-eled farther north than any person to that time. (Imagno/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


They finally reached Greenland’s west coast and the Inuit village of Godthaab in early October, just as the harsh winter weather began setting in. Spending the winter there, Nansen used the time to learn more about Arctic travel from the villagers. He also learned their language and shared their meals of seal and whale blubber.

During this expedition, Nansen made extensive scientific observations, including descriptions of Inuit life, the geography, and weather conditions. He found that the inland ice and deep snows never melted. And, from his detailed meteorological observations, he concluded,

The great difference between sun and shade temperature is plainly due to the excessive radiation in the dry, thin air of this high plateau. . . . The scale of our sling thermometers only read as low as -220 Fahr. (-300 Cent.), as no one had expected such cold at this time of the year in the interior of Greenland.

Upon his return to Norway in 1889, Nansen was hailed by his country-men for his feat and was named curator of the zoological collection at the University of Oslo. Shortly thereafter, he published two books about his adventure, The First Crossing of Greenland (1890) and Eskimo Life (1891).

Nansen next determined to become the first person to reach the North Pole. With backing from the Norwegian government, he directed construc-tion of the Fram, a ship with a rounded hull and pointed bow and stern that enabled ice floes to slip underneath it rather than crush it.

For the expedition itself, Nansen developed a bold plan: to freeze the Fram in the ice along the east coast of Siberia and then allow the ocean current to push it north. He derived this idea from having seen debris from Siberia wash up along the shores of Greenland. For his crew, Nansen re-cruited twelve Norwegians, later explaining: “Two Norwegians, alone of all other nationals, could sit face to face on a cake of ice for three years without hating each other.”

After settling into the Siberian ice pack in September 1893, the Fram drifted across the polar ice cap, as planned. After two winters, however, it became clear to Nansen that the ship would pass hundreds of miles south of the North Pole. In March 1895, therefore, he decided to set out overland to complete the expedition.

Packing dogsleds with 100 days of rations, Nansen departed the vessel with fellow explorer Hjalmar Johanssen, and they began a grueling journey. Time and again, their sleds capsized on the treacherous terrain. The tra-vail of having to carry their sleds “over hummocks and inequalities of the ground,” as Nansen described it, exhausted them:


Sometimes we were so sleepy in the evenings that our eyes shut and we fell asleep as we went along. My head would drop, and I would be awakened by suddenly falling forward on my snowshoes.

Although Nansen and Johanssen ultimately failed to reach the North Pole, on April 8, 1895, they reached 86º 14' north latitude (at what is now called the Nansen Cordillera)—the farthest north anyone had ever traveled on the face of the Earth. In his diary, Nansen wrote about the decision to turn back:

The ice grew worse and worse, and we got no way. Ridge after ridge, and nothing but rubble to travel over. . . . I went on a good way ahead on snow-shoes, but saw no reasonable prospect of advance, and from the highest hummocks only the same kind of ice was to be seen. It was a veritable chaos of ice-blocks, stretching as far as the horizon. There is not much sense in keeping on longer.

To make matters worse, Nansen and Johanssen lost track of the Fram. On their return trip, therefore, they headed south for Franz Josef Land, lo-cated some 400 miles (640 kilometers) away. In late July 1895, however, bad


weather prevented them from proceeding. The two explorers prepared for winter by hunting and storing polar bear, walrus, and seal meat; for shelter, they dug a pit in the ground and covered it with walrus skins.

The following May, they resumed their journey, now all but lost. Then came a stroke of good fortune. In June 1896, on an island just south of Franz Josef Land, they happened upon another explorer, Frederick Jackson of Great Britain. In August, they returned to Norway on board Jackson’s ship a few days ahead of the Fram, which had just reached open water at Spitsbergen.

During the course of the expedition, the Norwegians aboard the Fram set up special weather stations and made numerous observations. They measured wind speeds, temperatures, and other meteorological events; re-corded water temperatures; and found that the Arctic Ocean was a deep ba-sin rather than a shallow sea. Around 1900, Nansen published six volumes of scientific information obtained on his Arctic expedition.

Scientist, Diplomat, Humanitarian

Back in Norway, Nansen was named professor of oceanography and zo-ology at the University of Oslo, where he did notable work in the fields of fluid dynamics and neurology. He also helped found the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea in 1902, advised scientists who wanted to explore the Arctic, and went on several oceanographic expedi-tions (1910–1914).

Increasingly, however, Nansen focused his attention on politics. A strong supporter of Norway’s independence from Sweden, he served from 1906 to 1908 as his country’s first ambassador to Great Britain. During World War I, he negotiated an agreement with the United States to receive supplies, and in 1920 he headed the Norwegian delegation to the League of Nations.

As high commissioner of refugees for the league, Nansen was instru-mental in arranging the repatriation of 500,000 German and Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war from Russia. When famine swept that country in 1921, he led an international appeal for help that saved hundreds of thousands of lives. For his humanitarian efforts, Nansen was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1922.

Nansen’s other diplomatic accomplishments include a measure he proposed to alleviate tension between Greece and Turkey. It called for the “exchange of Turkish nationals of the Greek Orthodox religion [in Turkey] and of Greek nationals of the Moslem religion [in Greece]”; this measure was enacted at the Convention of Lausanne in 1923.

Nansen died in Oslo on May 13, 1930, likely as the result of overexer-tion on a skiing trip. He once said, “Our object is to investigate the great


unknown regions that surround the pole, and these investigations will be equally important from a scientific view.”

Further ReadingGreve, Tim. Fridtjof Nansen. 2 vols. Oslo, Norway: Gyldendal, 1973.Huntford, Roland. Nansen: The Explorer as Hero. New York: Barnes and

Noble, 1998.Nansen, Fridtjof. Farthest North. New York: Modern Library, 1999.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY

From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., the National Geographic Society has promoted geographical knowledge for more than 120 years through thousands of scientific expeditions and research projects, a popular consumer magazine, books, television shows, movies, traveling exhibitions, multimedia presentations, games, and toys.

The society was organized on January 13, 1888, when thirty-three men gathered at the Cosmos Club in Washington with the idea of forming an as-sociation dedicated to exploring the world and publicizing findings gathered from global expeditions. Among those in attendance were a teacher, a geolo-gist, a lawyer, a topographer, a banker, a military officer, and a naturalist.

At the time, large areas of the world remained unmapped, despite nu-merous expeditions that had plied the seas and explored the continents since the beginning of the Age of Discovery in the fifteenth century. Those gathered in Washington resolved to establish a society dedicated to “the in-crease and diffusion of geographic knowledge.”

The National Geographic Society was formally incorporated two weeks later, on January 27, 1888. Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer and finan-cier who had organized the Bell Telephone Company, was elected as the group’s first president. Upon his death in 1898, Hubbard was succeeded by his son-in-law, inventor Alexander Graham Bell, who declared, “The world and all that is in it is our theme.”

See also: Arctic.

1888: Founded in January in Washington, D.C., as a nonprofit scientific and educational organization; the first edition of National Geographic Magazine appears in October

1890: The society sponsors its first scientific expedition, which maps large areas of the Alaskan wilderness

1905: Eleven pages of photographs appear in the society’s magazine1965: The first National Geographic television special is aired2002: The society’s motion picture March of the Penguins wins an Academy

Award


The inaugural edition of the society’s official journal, National Geographic Magazine (later shortened to National Geographic), appeared in October 1888. Under its first full-time editor, Gilbert H. Grosvenor, who served in the post beginning in 1903, the magazine pioneered the use of numerous photographs to enhance its stories, earning Grosvenor the title “father of photojournalism.” In 1905, he filled eleven pages of the magazine with photographs. In another innovative move the following year, he published photographs of animals taken at night with the use of flash lighting. Despite the positive response of readers, the increasing number of photographs caused two of the society’s board members to re-sign because, they claimed, he was turning the publication into a “picture book.”

In 1910, the magazine opened one of the nation’s leading color photo laboratories under Charles Martin and Edwin “Buddy” Wisherd. In the 1930s, it pioneered the use of Kodachrome, a color film known for its clar-ity. And in 1962, the magazine published its first all-color issue. Meanwhile, the maps that appeared in National Geographic elevated the standards of popular cartography.

Today, the total monthly circulation of National Geographic is nearly 9 million, and it is issued in thirty-two language editions. Subscribers are regarded as members of the society.

In 1975, the society also began publishing a magazine for children, National Geographic World, whose name was changed in 2001 to National Geographic Kids. Other magazines followed, including National Geographic Traveler in 1984 and National Geographic Adventure in 1999.

Over the years, the National Geographic Society has produced numer-ous television documentaries. Its first special, Americans on Everest, ap-peared on the CBS network in 1965. The society launched its own TV network, the National Geographic Channel, in several European countries and Australia in 1997, and in the United States in 2001.

The society produces motion pictures through its National Geographic Films subsidiary, which released its first feature film, K-19: The Widow-maker, in 2002. In 2006, its March of the Penguins (produced in partnership with Warner Independent Pictures) received an Academy Award for best documentary.

In addition to the acclaimed Web site nationalgeographic.com, which includes a wealth of multimedia content, the society has developed a num-ber of other projects specifically in support of its mission to educate and inform. The Geography Education Program, begun in 1985, seeks to im-prove geography instruction in schools. And the society has funded and sponsored traveling exhibits, such as the treasures of the tomb of the an-cient Egyptian King Tutankhamen in the 1980s, and one in 2008 titled “The Cultural Treasures of Afghanistan.”


At the same time, the organization has supported some 7,000 scientific ac-tivities and expeditions in the decades since its founding. It sponsored its first expedition in 1890, a mission led by Israel C. Russell and including explor-ers from the U.S. Geological Survey that mapped 600 square miles (1,550 square kilometers) of wilderness in Alaska and discovered the second-highest moun-tain in North America, Mount Logan. In 1902, after the volcanic eruption of Mount Pelée on the Caribbean island of Martinique, the society sent an expe-dition to collect data—thus beginning another regular endeavor: the study of major natural disasters.

On more than one occasion, society explorers have met with tragedy, ranging from serious injury to death. In 1980,

when Mount St. Helens erupted in Washington State, Reid Blackburn, a twenty-seven-year-old photographer working for National Geographic, died under 4 feet (1.22 meters) of ash.

Expeditions sponsored or supported by the society have included some of the most notable in the modern history of exploration. In the early 1900s, it sponsored the expeditions of Robert E. Peary to the North Pole and Richard E. Byrd to Antarctica. In 1912, it supported expeditions led by Hiram Bingham to excavate Machu Picchu, the ancient Inca city in the Peruvian Andes. And, in the 1920s, it supported Howard Carter’s quest for the tomb of Tutankhamen.

Beginning in the 1960s, the society supported such projects as the work of anthropologists Louis Leakey and Mary Leakey at the Olduvai Gorge in East Africa; the undersea explorations conducted by Jacques Cousteau; the research of chimpanzees by Jane Goodall and of gorillas by zoologist Dian Fossey; and the efforts by Robert Ballard to find the remains of the Titanic.

Former society president (until 1996) and chairman of the board of trustees since 1987, Gilbert Melville Grosvenor (grandson of Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor) received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2004 for the society’s work in advancing geography education.

As stated by Peter H. Raven, chairman of the society’s Committee for Research and Exploration, in National Geographic Expeditions Atlas (2000),

Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor served as the longtime editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine (1899–1954) and president of the National Geo graphic Society (1920–1954), establishing both as respected scien-tific and cultural institutions. ( James Whitmore/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


From the depths of the seas to the tops of the highest mountains; from tropical rain forests . . . to the most severe deserts; from the history of ancient civilizations to the wonderful ways humans have adapted to diverse habitats; the National Geographic has sponsored many key scientists and explorers who have helped build our basic knowledge of the world today.

Further ReadingNational Geographic Society. http://www.nationalgeographic.com.———. National Geographic Expeditions Atlas. Washington, DC: National

Geographic Society, 2000.Poole, Robert M. Explorers House: National Geographic and the World It Made.

New York: Penguin, 2004.

NORDENSKJÖLD, ADOLF ERIK 18321901

A Finnish-Swedish geologist, mineralogist, and explorer, Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld explored Spitsbergen (the largest island of the Svalbard ar-chipelago in the Arctic Ocean) and Greenland before becoming the first person to make a continuous journey along the northern coast of Eurasia, through the Northeast Passage.

Nils Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld was born on November 18, 1832, in Helsinki, Finland (then called Helsingfors) to Nils Nordenskjöld, a super-intendent of mining and a naturalist, and Sofia Margareta von Haartman, the daughter of a doctor. He was educated by a private tutor before enroll-ing in a grammar school at Porvoo, the town his family had moved to on the southern coast of Finland.

As a young man, Adolf liked to collect rocks and insects, and he ex-plored part of the Ural Mountains with his father. As he later wrote, “I had been allowed to accompany my father in mineralogical excursions and had acquired from him a skill in recognizing and collecting minerals.”

Nordenskjöld entered the University of Helsinki in 1849, earning a master’s degree there in 1853 and a doctorate in 1855. He studied chem-istry and geology and wrote a description of minerals found in Finland, along with several short papers on mineralogy. After receiving his doctorate,

See also: Byrd, Richard E.; Carter, Howard; Leakey Family; Peary, Robert E.

1832: Born on November 18 in Helsinki, Finland1855: Obtains doctorate from the University of Helsinki1857: Banished from Finland for criticizing Russian control of his homeland1858: Undertakes first expedition to Spitsbergen1878: Begins navigation of the Northeast Passage1881: Publishes The Voyage of the Vega1901: Dies on August 12 in Stockholm, Sweden


he became a mining engineer and was appointed to the university’s faculty. In 1857, however, he lost his university position and was banished from Finland for his liberal politics and public criticism of czarist rule.

Emigrating to Stockholm, Sweden, in 1857, he became superinten-dent of the mineralogical department of the Swedish Museum of Natural History. He held that position for the rest of his working life, greatly ex-panding the museum’s mineralogical and geological collection and adding a collection of meteorites.

Nordenskjöld undertook his first scientific expedition to Spitsbergen in 1858 under Otto Torell, a leading geologist of the time; he returned with Torell in 1861. Three years later, Nordenskjöld led his own expedition un-der the sponsorship of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. In 1868, he traveled farther north in Spitsbergen than anyone to that time, exploring the island’s northern coast as well as nearby North East Land.

He explored the inland ice sheet of Greenland in 1870 and led an ex-pedition to try to reach the North Pole two years later. But severe weather

Finnish-born Swedish explorer Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld, the first to navigate the Northeast Passage (1878–1879), was hailed as a national hero upon his return home. He spent his latter years writing about geog-raphy, cartography, and history. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


forced him to spend the winter of 1872–1873 in Spitsbergen, where he col-lected geological specimens with other scientists before crossing North East Land. Among the results of this expedition, he later wrote, were,

[T]he discovery on the Polar ice itself of a dust of cosmic origin, contain-ing metallic nickel-iron; . . . researches on the aurora and its spectrum; . . . a complete series of meteorological and magnetic observations in the most northerly latitude where such observations had up to this time been carried on; . . . the discovery of numerous new contributions to a knowledge of the flora of the Polar countries during former geological epochs; a sledge excur-sion . . . whereby the north part of the North East Land was surveyed; and a journey, very instructive on a scientific point of view, made over the inland ice of North East Land.

After leading expeditions to the Kara Sea in 1875 and the Yenisei River in 1876, Nordenskjöld decided to traverse the entire Northeast Passage from Scandinavia along the length of the Russian Arctic coast to the Bering Sea. He began his journey on June 22, 1878, at Karlskrona, in southern Sweden on the Baltic Sea, aboard a steam-powered whaling ship called the Vega. In addition to the ship’s captain, Louis Palander, and the crew, several other scientists accompanied Nordenskjöld. He was confi-dent that the Vega could make the voyage that so many others had failed to complete.

On August 1, the expedition reached the Yugor Strait (the entry to the Kara Sea), where the scientists collected zoological and botanical speci-mens. Nordenskjöld worried that they would encounter the severe ice and fog in the Kara Sea that had forced other expeditions to turn back, but the weather proved favorable. At Preobraschenie Island (near the Taymyr Peninsula in Siberia, the northernmost area on the Asian continent), the scientists collected and labeled numerous mineral and botanical specimens. Nordenskjöld reported that the island was “free of snow and covered with a carpet of mosses mixed with grass.”

Then came worsening winter and dangerous ice, forcing the expedition to a halt in the Bering Strait in late September. The ice threatened to crash against the ship and tear it apart. To guard against catastrophe, the explor-ers built a depot on shore and stocked it with supplies. As they waited out the winter, the scientists in the party built a magnetic observatory.

When the weather broke, Nordenskjöld and his men resumed the journey. They finally reached their goal, the Bering Sea, in the summer of 1879. From there, they sailed south along the Asian coast, west through the Indian Ocean to the Suez Canal, and then on to Europe, thereby complet-ing a circumnavigation of all of Eurasia.


Back in Sweden in 1880, Nordenskjöld was hailed as a national hero; he was named a baron. His book on the expedition, The Voyage of the Vega, appeared the following year.

In 1883, Nordenskjöld again journeyed to Greenland. On this voyage, he succeeded in taking his ship through the island’s great ice barrier, a feat no one else had accomplished to date.

Appointed to the Swedish Academy in 1893, Nordenskjöld spent his later years writing books on geography, cartography, and history. His ex-peditions and writings served as an inspiration to other Arctic explorers, including Norwegian Fridtjof Nansen and American Robert E. Peary.

Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld died on August 12, 1901, at Stockholm, Sweden. One observer wrote of him in 1882,

The most striking characteristics of his various expeditions have been the small expense at which they were conducted, their modest but carefully-considered equipment, the clear and scientific methods on which they were planned, and the wealth and high value of the results obtained.

Further ReadingHäkli, Esko. A.E. Nordenskiold: A Scientist and His Library. Helsinki, Finland:

Helsinki University Library, 1980.Kish, George. North-East Passage: Adolf Erik Nordenskiold, His Life and Times.

Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Nico Israel, 1973.

See also: Arctic; Nansen, Fridtjof; Peary, Robert E.

OCEANOGRAPHY, HISTORY OF

1841: Edward Forbes publishes History of British Starfishes1855: Matthew Maury publishes The Physical Geography of the Sea1872: The British ship Challenger begins a worldwide oceanographic

expedition1910: Prince Albert I founds the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco1925: The German Meteor expedition begins in the South Atlantic1960: An American bathyscaphe, the Trieste, explores the Mariana Trench1968: The JOIDES program is begun to engage in deep-sea drilling2004: The ship Resolution begins its journey of 28,000 miles to collect

sample cores


Since the dawn of the Age of Discovery in the fifteenth century, oceanog-raphy—the exploration and study of the ocean and its phenomena—has emerged as a full-fledged scientific discipline. The means of oceanographic exploration and information gathering have evolved from sailing ships troll-ing the ocean surface for aquatic life to deep-sea diving vessels and drills that penetrate far beneath the ocean floor.

Oceanographers study the entire system of the world’s oceans and seas. The discipline entails a number of scientific fields—especially geology, chemistry, geophysics, botany, zoology, meteorology, astronomy, and math-ematics—which together form a detailed picture of the world’s oceans, how they behave, and what lives in them.

The science of oceanography includes a number of subdivisions. Physical oceanography studies and describes the causes of the winds, currents, tides, and other water movements, along with temperature, salinity, and pressure. Chemical oceanography maps the chemical content of the seas. This involves organic chemistry, primarily the study of plants and animals, and inorganic chemistry, the study of compounds other than the carbon-based ones found in plants and animals. Biological oceanography explores the ways in which organisms interact with their environment and with each other. Geological oceanography examines the makeup of rocks, minerals, and fossils and the forces that bring about changes in the Earth’s structure.

In addition, ocean engineers devise methods of controlling beach ero-sion, develop oceanographic instruments, and invent ways to retrieve natu-ral resources without destroying animal and plant habitats. Meteorologists study weather conditions as related to the world’s oceans, as well as how the oceans affect climate and vice-versa.

Nineteenth Century

In the fifteenth century, as Europeans explorers set out in search of new lands, their interest in the ocean expanded beyond the purview of the clas-sical world, which had been largely confined to the Mediterranean Sea. The new interest was sparked by a variety of interwoven motivations, with intellectual curiosity generally taking a back seat to political and economic gain.

There was no single founder of modern oceanographic science. But Scottish naturalist Edward Forbes (1815–1854) and American naval of-ficer Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873) often are cited as pioneers.

After several scientific expeditions and years of academic research, Forbes published History of British Starfishes and other Animals of the Class Echinodermata in 1841; the work included 120 of his own illustrations. Forbes also is associated with the since-discredited azoic theory, according


to which the deep sea is completely devoid of life. As severely misguided as that notion now seems, it at least was based on firsthand observation: the deeper Forbes cast his net, the fewer aquatic creatures he caught.

Meanwhile, in the United States, Maury—sometimes referred to as the father of oceanography—had been analyzing ocean currents and winds while serving in the armed forces as a midshipman in the U.S. Navy. He published his findings in A New Theoretical and Practical Treatise on Navigation (1836), which became a standard navy manual. Three years later, Maury was forced to retire from active service due to an injury suf -fered in a stagecoach accident.

In 1842, Maury was named superintendent of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at the U.S. Navy Department in Washington, D.C., where he began collecting oceanographic and meteorological data from old and current ship logs. Maury was the first person to conduct a systematic study of the world’s oceans. By the early 1850s, he had become internationally recognized for his work.

His comprehensive, systematic mapping of the winds, cur-rents, and physical geography of the world’s seas in the mid-nineteenth century earned Matthew Fontaine Maury a reputation as the father of mod-ern oceanography. (Granger Collection, New York)


In 1855, Maury published what is widely regarded as the first textbook in the field of oceanography, The Physical Geography of the Sea. Reprinted five times in its first year and eventually published in several foreign languages, the work provided detailed information about winds and currents to guide sailing ships, extensive charts that reduced the sailing times for numerous voyages, and a kind of primer on methodology. In addition, Maury showed himself to be an adept writer who offered vivid descriptions of conditions at sea. For example, he wrote:

There is a river in the ocean. In the severest droughts it never fails, and in the mightiest floods it never overflows. Its banks and its bottom are of cold water, while its current is of warm. The Gulf of Mexico is its fountain, and its mouth is in the Arctic Seas. It is the Gulf Stream. There is in the world no other such majestic flow of waters.

Even as seminal works in the field were being published, oceanog-raphy was being advanced by several nineteenth-century expeditions. In the 1830s, the British naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) added to the knowledge of the seas and the islands in them on his famous journey aboard the Beagle. From 1839 to 1842, Lieutenant Charles Wilkes (1798–1877) of the U.S. Navy led an exploratory fleet of six ships in charting 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of the Antarctic coast and taking deep soundings in its waters.

The first scientific oceanographic expedition is said to have been that of the British ship Challenger, whose team was headed by the Scottish natu-ralist Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–1882). Sailing from Portsmouth, England, in December 1872, the Challenger was equipped with more than 770,000 feet (235,000 meters) of line for measuring depth and 65,600 feet (20,000 meters) of cable for collecting sediment samples and marine or-ganisms. Over the next three-and-a-half years, it sailed around the globe and made 362 oceanographic soundings. Thomson and his crew measured ocean depths of up to 26,000 feet (940 meters) and discovered 4,017 new marine species.

From the sediment samples gathered on the Challenger, the Scottish-Canadian marine biologist John Murray (1841–1914), who assisted Thomson on the expedition, began the study of underwater geology. He also edited and published some fifty volumes of Challenger reports.

Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), the great Swiss-American naturalist, laid the foundation for the study of marine biology in America. Since the 1840s and 1850s, professional naturalists had been dredging shallow seawater on the eastern coast of the United States to obtain marine specimens for teach-ing and research. In 1873, Agassiz established a summer marine station for


teachers on Penikese Island, Massachusetts. A number of his former stu-dents established other marine laboratories in nearby locations. These led to the creation in 1888 of the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Agassiz’s son, Alexander Agassiz (1835–1910), made further break-throughs, developing various devices to sample the ocean waters and floors. In 1877 and 1895, he made voyages to study seafloor sediments in the Pacific Ocean and marine biology in the Caribbean Sea.

Twentieth Century to the Present

Prince Albert I of Monaco (1848–1922), the ruler of that principality be-ginning in 1889, made notable contributions to the field, working with some of the world’s leading oceanographers and marine scientists. His research on ocean currents showed that the Gulf Stream split in the northeastern Atlantic, with one branch flowing toward Ireland and Britain and another toward Spain and Africa before turning back west. In 1910, Prince Albert founded the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco, which houses equipment

The topography of the ocean floor in the southwest Pacific is rendered in unprecedented detail using altimeter data from the SEASAT oceanographic satel-lite. SEASAT was launched in 1978 to study the features and dynamics of the Earth’s oceans. (Science & Society Picture Library/ Getty Images)


he used in his research, specimens he collected, a scientific library, and an aquarium with species from the Mediterranean.

From 1925 to 1927, the German Meteor expedition, organized by the Institute of Marine Research in Berlin, traversed the South Atlantic to measure ocean depths, analyze temperatures and salinity, and study cur-rent patterns. Scientists on board showed for the first time that the ocean bottom consists of mountains, valleys, plateaus, and plains. Using sonar, the expedition discovered the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a mountain range running down the middle of that ocean.

In the Pacific, an American bathyscaphe called the Trieste, carrying Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh of the U.S. Navy, reached the ocean floor on January 23, 1960, at a site called Challenger Deep, the deepest known point in the Mariana Trench. Challenger Deep later was measured at 35,800 feet (10,900 meters).

In 1968, a program called Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling, or JOIDES, was begun under an agreement by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, the Woods Hole Oceano-graphic Institute, and the Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science at the University of Miami. As part of JOIDES, the specially equipped research vessel Glomar Challenger began drilling and coring the floors of the world’s oceans in March 1968. Along an oceanic ridge between South America and Africa, the Glomar Challenger drilled seventeen holes


at ten different sites; core samples provided solid evidence to support the theory of continental drift.

From August 1968 to November 1983, the Glomar Challenger took part in a total of ninety-six expeditions, covered 375,632 nautical miles (696,000 kilometers), recovered 19,119 cores, and drilled as deep as 5,712 feet (1,740 meters) beneath the ocean floor. The successor to the Glomar Challenger, the JOIDES Resolution, drilled cores in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea, and Ross Sea. In 2004–2005 alone, it trav-eled nearly 28,000 nautical miles (52,000 kilometers), drilled 104 holes in the ocean floor, and recovered 1,826 cores.

Scientists also have found new ways to study seafloor topography. Advances came with the use of echo sounding to measure depths and ob jects. In the early 1950s, Maurice Ewing of the Lamont Geological Observatory, assisted by Bruce Heezen and Marie Tharp, used sound-ing profiles of the Atlantic to put together the first detailed maps of the ocean floor. These maps were updated in 1996 by Walter Smith and David Sandwell of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

The scientific investigation of the world’s oceans is today assisted by new technology, including satellites designed to provide data on surface wa-ter temperatures, along with the movements of waves and currents. Ellen J. Prager and Sylvia A. Earle write in their book The Oceans (2000),


Our understanding of the oceans has progressed immensely over the last century. Yet we have explored only a fraction of the ocean’s depths. We are just beginning to understand the interactions between the ocean, the underlying Earth, and the climate and we still know precious little about the creatures that live in the sea’s salty waters.

Further ReadingBascom, Willard. The Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography. New

York: Harper and Row, 1988.Mills, Eric L. Biological Oceanography: An Early History. Ithaca, NY: Cornell

University Press, 1989.Prager, Ellen J., and Sylvia A. Earle. The Oceans. New York: McGraw-Hill,

2000.

OSTROM, JOHN H. 19282005

American paleontologist John Ostrom revived lagging scientific interest in dinosaurs when he made a famous fossil discovery in 1964, on the basis of which he maintained that many dinosaurs were warm-blooded. He also is known for establishing the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds.

John H. Ostrom was born in New York City on February 18, 1928. Upon entering Union College in Schenectady, New York, in the late 1940s, he intended to become a doctor. While in college, however, he read The Meaning of Evolution (1949) by George Gaylord Simpson, a professor at Columbia University in New York City, and was drawn to the field of pa-leontology. Upon receiving his B.S. degree in 1951, Ostrom worked with Simpson as a field assistant on a fossil expedition in the San Juan Basin of New Mexico.

From 1951 to 1956, Ostrom served as a research assistant to Edwin H. Colbert at the American Museum of Natural History. He then enrolled at Columbia for graduate studies; in 1960, he received his doctorate in ver-tebrate paleontology. In 1961, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, hired him as an assistant professor in the Department of Geology and

See also: Darwin, Charles; Wilkes Expedition.

1928: Born on February 18 in New York City1951: Begins job as research assistant at the American Museum of Natural History in

New York City1960: Receives doctorate in vertebrate paleontology from Columbia University1964: Discovers Deinonychus while excavating fossils in Montana; shortly thereafter,

he argues that some dinosaurs were warm-blooded1970: Uncovers new specimen of the primitive bird species Archaeopteryx2005: Dies on July 16 in Litchfield, Connecticut


Geophysics and as assistant curator of vertebrate paleontology at the uni-versity’s Peabody Museum of Natural History.

Three years later, Ostrom made a discovery that proved critical to the modern study of paleontology. At an excavation site in Montana’s Cloverly Formation, he and an assistant, Grant Meyer, were walking along a slope when they saw an animal’s claws and hand bones protruding from the ground. “At that moment of discovery,” Ostrom later wrote, “it was evident from the few fragments exposed on the surface that we had stumbled across something very unusual and quite unlike any previously reported dinosaur.” He dubbed the site “The Shrine.” Over the next two years, he and his field-workers excavated more than 1,000 bones from the site, dating from about 125 million years ago.

The fossil remains included those of what Ostrom concluded was a carnivorous dinosaur that walked on two legs and had claws, talons, and a long tail. He called it Deinonychus, meaning “terrible claw.” Measuring about 3.5 feet tall (1.07 meters) and 9 feet long (2.75 meters), Deinonychus slashed with its claws and likely hunted in packs.

According to Ostrom, Deinonychus was fleet-footed and very active, characteristics associated with a high metabolic rate and, therefore, warm-bloodedness. Moreover, the foot bones of Deinonychus resembled those of modern-day emus and ostriches, meaning that it had more in common with mammals and birds than with reptiles. Ostrom further insisted that many dinosaur species had narrow foot placement and kept their legs under their bodies, giving them an erect posture. All of these characteristics suggested a warm-blooded animal.

Ostrom’s interest in the connection between dinosaurs and birds was triggered by a 1970 visit to a museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands, where he found that a fossil that had been discovered in 1855 was mislabeled as a pterosaur, or flying reptile. Ostrom recognized that the fossil actually was a new specimen of Archaeopteryx, the earliest and most primitive known bird, dating from about 150 million years ago. He also recognized that it bore similarities to Deinonychus.

As a result of his discoveries, Ostrom wrote a succession of scientific papers from 1970 to 1976 arguing that birds were descended from dino-saurs. It was a revolutionary theory that shook up the world of paleontol-ogy. In fact, some scientists resisted it for decades.

In 1971, Ostrom had been made full professor at Yale and curator of vertebrate fossils at the Peabody Museum, where he oversaw one of the most important collections in the world. In the decades that followed, John Horner and others made fossil discoveries—such as dinosaur nests and eggs—that helped confirm Ostrom’s theory of an evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds. In 1997, Ostrom was part of an expedition to China that pro-vided further evidence yet: the discovery of new feathered dinosaurs.


Ostrom died on July 16, 2005, in Litchfield, Connecticut. “John is basically responsible for the way we view dinosaurs,” said Horner. “He is probably the most influential person in dinosaur paleontology in the last century.”

Further ReadingOstrom, John H. The Strange World of Dinosaurs. New York: G.P. Putnam’s

Sons, 1964.

PACIFIC EXPLORATION

The vast Pacific Ocean has been the scene of explorations both above the sea and beneath it as nations have pursued territory, riches, and scientific knowledge. The largest body of water in the world, the Pacific covers ap-proximately 64 million square miles (165 million square kilometers), dou-ble the area of the Atlantic Ocean and larger than that of the planet’s entire landmass. In stretching from the Bering Strait in the north to the Antarctic in the south, it encompasses climate zones ranging from frigid to temperate to tropical.

Deep trenches cut through the ocean’s floor, resulting from the colli-sion of tectonic plates that cause one to be pushed under the other. In the East Pacific Rise, a submerged volcanic range parallels the South American coast. This range runs continuously through all of the Earth’s ocean basins, for roughly 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers); in the Pacific, it juts above the water to form Easter Island and the Galápagos.

Geologic formation is ongoing in the Pacific Ocean. In the north - eastern ocean, the American Plate and the Pacific Plate continue to slip

1567: Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira discovers the Solomon Islands1642: Abel Janszoon Tasman discovers Tasmania off the southern coast of Australia1767: Samuel Wallis discovers Tahiti; Louis Antoine de Bougainville journeys to

Samoa and the New Hebrides1769: Captain James Cook explores New Zealand1773: Cook crosses the Antarctic Circle1872: The Challenger expedition begins the first oceanographic study of the Pacific1960: The Trieste dives to the deepest point in the Mariana Trench2006: The Integrated Ocean Drilling Program begins exploring beneath the Pacific

floor


past each other and produce new fracture zones. Meanwhile, the seafloor continues to spread (the extension occurs as sea plates move apart) at a rate of about 1.2 to 4 inches (3 to 10 centimeters) per year.

Early Exploration

The Age of Discovery resulted in the crisscrossing of the Pacific Ocean by sailing ships from Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and France from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Most of these expedi-tions were propelled by the desire for wealth and conquest; however, over time, more were inspired by the spirit of scientific discovery.

Spain sponsored several notable expeditions. In 1519, Ferdinand Magellan (ca. 1480–1521), a Portuguese navigator in the service of Spain, set sail in pursuit of a westward route to the Spice Islands of Asia. Magellan sailed around South America and into the Pacific. He was killed in a skir-mish with an indigenous tribe in the Philippines in 1521. Nevertheless, the following September, one of the five original ships that had set out on the expedition reached Spain with a crew of just eighteen men, completing the first successful circumnavigation of the Earth.

In 1567 and again in 1595, the Spanish maritime explorer Álvaro de Mendaña de Neira led two expeditions into the Pacific in search of an undis-covered continent, gold, and natives who could be converted to Catholicism. On his first voyage, he discovered the Solomon Islands in Melanesia; on his second, he discovered the Marquesas Islands in Polynesia. Mendaña de Neira’s missions were beset with illness and clashes with the islanders, and he found no gold.

The four-year voy-age of the British corvette Challenger in the 1870s marked the beginning of modern oceano-graphic survey. The Challenger was the namesake of the second U.S. space shuttle, launched in 1983. (Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


Another Spanish navigator, Luis Váez de Torres (birth and death dates unknown), also set sail in search of the elusive southern continent. In 1606, Váez de Torres approached the southern coast of New Guinea, thus show-ing that the island was not attached to some great landmass to the south. The strait located between New Guinea and the Australian continent to the south later took his name—the Torres Strait.

In November 1642, Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603–1659), considered the greatest of the early Dutch navigators, discovered an island off the southeast coast of Australia that he named Van Diemen’s Land, after the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, Anthony van Diemen. The is-land was later renamed Tasmania in his honor. From there, he sailed east, sighting the northwest coast of New Zealand’s South Island in December and reaching the northeastern Fiji Islands in January 1643.

On Tasman’s second voyage, in 1644, he mapped the northern coast of Australia and was able to observe the people who lived there. After that, however, there was no further exploration of the continent to any significant degree until the voyages of Captain James Cook in the 1770s.

Among the notable early British explorers, Vice-Admiral John Byron (1723–1786) circumnavigated the globe from 1764 to 1766, discovering several islands in the Pacific along the way. Among these were the Tuamotu Archipelago in central Polynesia, Tokelau near the Samoan Islands, and Tinian in the northern Mariana Islands.

Samuel Wallis (1728–1795), captain of the HMS Dolphin, set sail in 1766 with secret instructions from the British Admiralty “to discover and obtain a complete knowledge of the Land or Islands supposed to be situated in the Southern Hemisphere.” In June 1767, Wallis thought he had found the tip of a mysterious continent, but it turned out that he had discovered the island of Tahiti. He wrote in his log,

At two in the morning, it being very clear, we made sail again; at day-break we saw the land, at about five leagues distant, and steered directly for it; but at eight o’clock, when we were close under it, the fog obliged us again to lie to, and when it cleared away, we were much surprised to find ourselves sur-rounded by hundreds of canoes. . . . When they came within pistol shot of the ship, they lay by, gazing at us with great astonishment.

Of the island they had discovered, George Robinson, the master of the Dolphin, wrote,

The country hade the most Beautiful appearance its posabel to Imagin, from the shore side one two and three miles Back there is a fine Leavel country that appears to be all laid out in plantations.


Philip Carteret (1733–1796) sailed with Wallis’s expedition as com-mander of the Swallow, but he became separated from the Dolphin in the Strait of Magellan and continued on his own. In July 1767, Carteret and his crew discovered Pitcairn Island, a volcanic island in the south-central Pacific. The island promptly was named for the fifteen-year-old midship-man who first spotted it, Robert Pitcairn. Carteret explained,

It is so high, that we saw it at a distance of more than fifteen leagues, and it having been discovered by a young gentleman, son to Major Pitcairn of the marines, we called it Pitcairn’s Island.

Captain James Cook (1728–1779) made his first voyage to the Pacific as captain of the Endeavor in 1768. With him was botanist Joseph Banks. At Tahiti the following year, Cook observed the transit of Venus across the sun. In October 1769, he arrived at New Zealand and spent the next six months exploring its coasts; he discovered that New Zealand consisted of two islands and was not a part of Antarctica. On April 19, 1770, Cook sighted the east coast of Australia; he named and explored Botany Bay. Banks, meanwhile, collected about 800 specimens of Australian flora.

In 1772, Cook began a second expedition to the South Pacific, this time with two ships, the Resolution and the Adventure. In December 1773, he crossed the Antarctic Circle, the southernmost point ever reached by a European explorer until then. By the time he returned home to England in July 1775—with only one sailor lost on the entire expedition—Cook had explored vast expanses of the previously unknown Pacific, had proved that there was no large continent in the temperate regions of the ocean, and had produced accurate maps of far-flung lands.

For the French, Louis Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) under-took a voyage of discovery around the globe in 1766. In the Pacific, he sailed to the Samoan and New Hebrides islands in 1767, continuing on to the Solomon Islands. He named Bougainville Island, to the northeast of Australia, for himself, before continuing on to the Moluccan Islands (in Indonesia).

In the nineteenth century, English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) added to the knowledge of the Pacific with his voyage to the west coast of South America and the Galápagos Islands aboard the Beagle in the 1830s. In addition to his groundbreaking insights into animal and plant life, he also gathered important information on the natural history of the sea and the geology of the islands.

The modern era of oceanographic expeditions is said to have begun with the voyage of the British Challenger from 1872 to 1876. Under the di-rection of Scottish naturalist Charles Wyville Thomson (1830–1882) and Canadian scientist John Murray (1841–1914), it was the first major sea


expedition organized to gather extensive data on ocean features, including temperature, seawater chemistry, currents, marine life, and the geology of the seafloor.

Murray wrote,

Our knowledge of the ocean was, literally speaking, superficial. No system-atic attempts had been made to ascertain the physical and biological condi-tions of that vast region of the earth’s surface occupied by the deeper waters of the ocean.

To fill that void, the Challenger sailed almost 69,000 nautical miles (130,000 kilometers) in the Atlantic, Pacific, and Antarctic oceans with a full staff of scientists on board. One of the outcomes of the expedition was the publication of the Report of the Scientific Results of the Exploring Voyage of H.M.S. Challenger During the Years 1873–1876, which Murray called “the greatest advance in the knowledge of our planet since the celebrated discoveries of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.”


T R I E S T E

The deep-sea bathyscaphe Trieste is retrieved from the western Pacific Ocean after its record dive to the floor of the Mariana Trench— the deepest point on the Earth’s surface—in 1960. (Thomas J. Abercrombie/National Geographic/Getty Images)


Indeed, the Challenger expedition engaged in nearly 500 deep-sea soundings, more than 100 bottom dredges, 151 open-water trawls, and 263 water temperature observations. Among its discoveries were 4,715 new species of marine life and the Mariana Trench—later shown to contain the deepest point on the Earth’s surface—in the western Pacific.

Modern Exploration

In the latter part of the twentieth century, with space satellites photograph-ing and collecting data on geographic features across the Earth, scientists turned their attention to the depths of the world’s oceans—especially the Pacific—and the seabed beneath.

In 1958, the U.S. Navy bought a Swiss-designed deep-sea submers-ible called the Trieste, which on January 23, 1960, reached the ocean floor at a site in the Mariana Trench called Challenger Deep. At a depth of about 35,800 feet (nearly 7 miles), or 10,900 meters (nearly 11 kilome-ters), Challenger Deep was—and remains—the deepest known point on the Earth’s surface. On board the Trieste were the Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard and Lieutenant Don Walsh of the U.S. Navy, who reported seeing a kind of flatfish on the ocean floor. Sediment samples identified various simple organisms, confirming that life could be sustained under the enor-mous pressure found at such depths.

In 1964, the United States began exploring beneath the Pacific Ocean, as part of its Deep Sea Drilling Project, with the goal of penetrating the sediment and crust to learn more about how the ocean evolved. In 1984, that project was succeeded by the Ocean Drilling Program, and, in 2006, by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), an American-led consor-tium of twenty-three nations cooperating to explore the Pacific and other seas. Within the structure of the IODP, the United States operates the drilling vessel JOIDES Resolution, Japan operates the drilling vessel Chikyu, and the European Union operates stationary platforms capable of drilling in environments unsuitable for ships.

In 2008–2009, drilling expeditions in the Pacific were conducted near the equator at Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, in New Zealand’s Canterbury Basin, near Antarctica’s Wilkes Land, and off the southeast coast of Japan. According to a report by the IODP,

Core sediments from the Pacific show evidence of 90 billion tons of microbi-al organisms living in the deep biosphere. For a long time, scientists believed that extreme conditions such as high pressure, lack of oxygen, and low supply of nutrients and energy would make deep, sub-seafloor environments unin-habitable for any life form. Nonetheless, sea-going investigations have proven the existence of the deep biosphere.


Thus, findings from the IODP added to a long line of discoveries both above and beneath the Pacific Ocean that enhance our understanding of the Earth and the processes shaping it.

Further ReadingDoubilet, David. Pacific: An Undersea Journey. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.Lambert, David. The Pacific Ocean. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn,

1997.

PARK, MUNGO 17711806

A Scottish explorer trained in medicine, Mungo Park led two expeditions to West Africa, where he explored the Niger River and collected numerous plant specimens, along with valuable ethnographic and geographic informa-tion. On his second expedition, he died while trying to escape an attacking tribe.

Born on September 11, 1771, in Selkirkshire, Scotland, Mungo Park was raised in a large family of twelve or thirteen children (accounts vary). His father, also named Mungo Park, was a tenant farmer of modest means who worked on an estate called Foulshiels; his mother, Elspeth Hislop, was the daughter of another tenant farmer. The younger Mungo was first edu-cated by a private tutor and then attended the local grammar school.

In 1788, Park entered the University of Edinburgh, where he studied medicine and botany as he trained to become a surgeon. In 1792, however, he left the university before completing his final oral examinations. Later that year, he toured the Scottish Highlands with his brother-in-law, James Dickson, a prominent botanist.

Through Dickson, Park met the great botanist Joseph Banks, then president of the Royal Society. In 1793, after Park passed his exam at the Company of Surgeons in London, Banks appointed him assistant sur-geon aboard the Worcester, which set sail in February 1793 for Sumatra in Southeast Asia. After returning to London the following spring, Park presented Banks with several exotic Sumatran plants and watercolors he had painted of twenty species of fish.

See also: Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de; Cook, James; Darwin, Charles.

1771: Born on September 11 in Selkirkshire, Scotland1793: Journeys to Sumatra in Southeast Asia1795: Leads an expedition into the African interior via the Niger River

for the purposes of geographical exploration and trade1805: Leads a second expedition to explore the Niger River1806: Drowns in the Niger River during an attack by natives


Excited by his experiences on the journey to Sumatra, Park began con-templating a scientific expedition to Africa. His desire dovetailed with the plans of the African Association, which, in 1790, had sponsored an expedi-tion up the Niger River by Major Daniel Houghton to learn about this unknown (at least to Europeans) territory and to open a new trade route for Britain into the African interior. Houghton died before he could complete the mission.

Park now offered to lead a new expedition, for reasons that he later ex plained in his book, Travels in the Interior of Africa (1799):

I had a passionate desire to examine into the productions of a country so little known; and to become experimentally acquainted with the modes of life, and character of the natives. . . . If I should succeed in rendering the geography of Africa more familiar to my countrymen, and in opening to their ambition and industry new sources of wealth, and new channels of com-merce, I knew that I was in the hands of men of honour.

The African Association instructed Park to follow the Niger River, to find out where the river began and ended, and to visit such settlements as Timbuktu and Houssa.

Park sailed from Portsmouth on May 22, 1795, and reached the north bank of the Gambia River in June. He then journeyed from Pisania, a British trading station 200 miles (320 kilometers) inland, and headed for the Niger

Scottish explorer Mungo Park recounted his West African adventures in a popular 1799 work titled Travels in the Interior of Africa. Engravings in the book included the Mandinka village of Kamalia, where Park recovered from a life-threatening fever. (Granger Collection, New York)


River. As he traveled, he kept detailed records of the geography and tribal cultures he encountered, noting how the people looked and describing their foods, languages, and societies.

Park encountered many troubles. In the spring of 1796, a band of Moors captured him and held him prisoner at Benowm, in the Ludamar region. He escaped in July and reached the Niger a few days later. By then, however, he was overwhelmed with hunger and fatigue and had been robbed of all his gold, so he made the decision to forgo trying to reach Timbuktu and instead turned back to Pisania. On the return trip, he followed the Niger for 300 miles (480 kilometers) to Bamako. At the settlement of Kamalia, he had to stop in order to recover from a serious fever.

On June 10, 1797, Park finally reached Pisania, where he obtained pas-sage on an American slave ship headed for South Carolina. At the West Indies, he transferred to a British ship and arrived back in England that December. He brought with him a wealth of information and eighty plant specimens.


Park was married to Allison Anderson in 1799, and he began practicing medicine two years later in the Scottish town of Peebles. Then, in the fall of 1803, the British government invited him to lead another expedition to trace the Niger River. Park, who at this time thought the Niger and Congo rivers were one, agreed to go.

He left Portsmouth on January 31, 1805, arrived at the Gambia River a few weeks later, and led his expedition inland in April. Battling 100-degree Fahrenheit (38-degree Celsius) heat and muddy terrain, he reached Pisania on May 4 and Badoo on May 28. As the party traveled farther inland, the rains grew heavier and the hordes of mosquitoes grew worse. Fevers and dysentery ravaged the Europeans.

Park reached the Niger River in August 1805, but, by then, his party of forty-four had been reduced to twelve, the rest having fallen victim to disease. The fatalities included Park’s brother-in-law, Alexander Anderson, who was stricken by dysentery at Sansanding. Park wrote several letters in mid-November, including one to his wife, in which he said,

I do not intend to stop or land anywhere, till we reach the coast; which I sup-pose will be sometime in the end of January.

Through it all, Park remained focused on a single objective, namely “the fixed resolution to discover the termination of the Niger or perish in the attempt.” His resolve proved reckless, however, as it made him attempt to overcome obstacles that neither he nor his remaining party was in any con-dition to face. Indeed, he was never heard from again.

In 1812, searchers from England finally uncovered what had happened to the determined explorer. Apparently, by early 1806, Park’s party had dwindled to just five Europeans, including himself and one man who had gone insane. After leaving Sansanding, the party encountered the Bussa Rapids on the Niger River below its confluence with the Sokoto River, in what is now western Nigeria. At that point, their boat became stuck, and native tribesmen attacked them with arrows and spears.

In an attempt to escape, Park and his men jumped into the river. They drowned in the swift current. One of the expedition’s slaves survived the incident and later recounted what had happened.

Further ReadingHudson, Peter. Two Rivers: Travels in West Africa on the Trail of Mungo Park.

London: Chapmans, 1991.Lupton, Kenneth. Mungo Park: The African Traveler. New York: Oxford

University Press, 1979.Park, Mungo, with Kate Ferguson Marsters, ed. Travels Into the Interior of

Africa. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.

See also: African Association; Banks, Joseph.


PEARY, ROBERT E. 18561920

The American Arctic explorer and U.S. Navy engineer Robert Peary generally is credited as the first person to reach the North Pole, in April 1908—though some doubt and controversy continue to surround the accomplishment.

Robert Edwin Peary was born on May 6, 1856, in Cresson, Pennsyl-vania, to Charles Nutter Peary and Mary Webster Wiley. His father died when he was still a young child, and he moved with his mother to Portland, Maine. As a youngster, he preferred the outdoors and enjoyed hiking in the woods with friends.

After graduating from Bowdoin College in 1877, Peary worked as a draftsman in the Office of Coast Survey. In 1881, he joined the U.S. Navy as a civil engineer with the rank of lieutenant. In 1884–1885, he served in Nicaragua, helping survey the land for a possible canal through Central America, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Peary made his first two trips to Greenland in 1886 and 1891 and be-came determined to reach the North Pole. In 1892, he traveled across the extreme northern part of the Greenland ice cap from Bowdoin Bay, on the west coast, through what came to be called Peary Land, and then on to Independence Fjord, on the east coast. (His expeditions were well north of where the Swedish-Norwegian explorer Fridtjof Nansen had crossed Greenland in 1888.) Other Peary-led expeditions to the Arctic, from 1893 to 1895, proved notable for the collection of meteorites he brought back to the United States.

From 1898 to 1902, Peary mapped large parts of the Greenland coast, although he got no closer than 340 miles (550 kilometers) from the North Pole. During one of these expeditions, in 1900, he reached the northern-most point of Greenland and named it Cape Morris Jesup in honor of the president of the American Museum of Natural History at that time. He also discovered the northernmost point of land in the world, a small island called Oodaaq Qeqertaag, also in Greenland (situated 438 miles, or 705 kilometers, south of the North Pole). The trip proved that the Greenland ice cap ended at 82° north latitude, well short of the North Pole.

1856: Born on May 6 in Cresson, Pennsylvania1881: Joins the U.S. Navy as a civil engineer1886: Makes his first journey to Greenland and resolves to reach the

North Pole one day1900: Reaches the northernmost point of the Greenland ice cap1908: On April 6, leads the first team to reach the North Pole1920: Dies on February 20 in Washington, D.C.


Aside from the lands explored and the knowledge obtained, Peary’s journeys to the Arctic provided valu-able information for his ultimate goal of reaching the North Pole. To endure the harsh conditions, he relied heavily on the Inuits, the native peoples of the region. Peary and his companions studied their way of life and learned essential skills for surviving in the frigid north. The Inuits taught them how to build an igloo and how to dress warmly in animal fur. Some even traveled with Peary, helping him hunt for game, drive the dogsleds, and navigate the land. These natives proved indispens-able to the success of his expeditions.

In his next push for the pole, Peary and his men reached 87º 6' north latitude in April 1906, leaving him less than 175 miles (280 kilometers) from his goal. Although cold and hunger forced Peary to turn back, it was the farthest north anyone had ever traveled.

His next attempt began in July 1908. He left New York City with twenty-three men aboard the Roosevelt, bound for the Arctic. The party arrived at Ellesmere Island (in northern Canada) and spent the winter there preparing for the final assault. Peary and his men left the island on February 28, 1909, with nineteen sleds and 133 dogs. The men were organized into teams, each team moving north in stages and setting up supply depots. This technique was subsequently called the Peary System.

The expedition was fraught with danger. Blankets of snow fed by fierce winds pounded the explorers, glare made vision difficult, and the ice proved unpredictable. One night, while he was trying to sleep, Peary wrote, he heard “thundering noises” and “felt the ice floor on which I lay quivering.” He went on:

In an instant it was clear what had happened. A crevasse had suddenly opened through our igloo, directly under the spot whereupon I slept; and I . . . with tumbling snow blocks and ice and snow crashing about and crushing me, with the temperature 48º below zero, was floundering in the open sea!

Fortunately, two of Peary’s Inuit companions saved him.Peary, along with his African American colleague, Matthew Henson,

and four Inuits, made the final push to the North Pole, reaching the site on April 6, 1909. From that point on, Peary said little to Henson and kept him at a distance, apparently because Henson had reached the pole several minutes ahead of him.

Commander Robert E. Peary returns home aboard the USS Roosevelt in September 1909, five months after reaching the North Pole. En route home, Peary learned of Frederick Cook’s claim to have beaten him to the pole—an enduring source of controversy. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


In any event, that September, Peary sent a telegram from Newfoundland to The New York Times to announce his triumph. He wired,

I have the pole, April sixth. Expect arrive Chateau Bay, September seventh. Secure wire control for me there and arrange expedite transmission big story.

Peary’s claim proved controversial from the outset, not least because the American explorer Frederick Cook had announced days earlier that he had reached the North Pole in April 1908, a full year earlier. Despite the dubious aspects of Cook’s claim—and of his reputation—Peary’s doubters maintained that he had not made it to the pole but had purposefully or unknowingly miscalculated his location. They said that he could not have returned to his base camp as soon as he did if he had traveled from the true location of the North Pole.

Photographic evidence, however, suggests that Peary indeed made it all the way to the pole, or at least within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of it. Moreover, it was argued, he could have made the return trip as rapidly as he claimed for several reasons: The trail back already was familiar; his sleds were carry-ing fewer supplies and weighed less; the dogs were excited to be returning


and moved faster; there was a tailwind; and they were able to save time by using the camps they already had set up. That argument gained support in 2005, when a team of British adventurers repeated Peary’s return journey with replica equipment in less time than it had taken Peary. But none of this has definitively answered the objections of Cook’s supporters or proven the case on behalf of either explorer.

Upon his return to the United States, Peary was showered with honors and awards, including a gold medal from the National Geographic Society, a formal citation of thanks from Congress, and a promotion by the U.S. Navy to rear admiral in 1911.

Peary died in Washington, D.C., on February 20, 1920. Surviving him was his wife, Josephine Diebitach Peary, who had accompanied him on sev-eral expeditions and given birth to a daughter in the Arctic. The couple also had a son, and Peary fathered several children with Inuit women outside of marriage.

According to The New York Times (an ardent Peary supporter), his feat of reaching the North Pole had “crowned a life devoted to the exploration of the icy north and the advancement of science.”

Further ReadingBryce, Robert. Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved. Mechanicsville,

PA: Stackpole, 1997.Henderson, Bruce. True North: Peary, Cook and the Race to the Pole. New

York: W.W. Norton, 2005.Herbert, Wally. The Noose of Laurels: The Discovery of the North Pole. London:

Hodder and Stoughton, 1989.

POWELL EXPEDITIONS

In 1869 and 1871, Civil War veteran and geology professor John Wesley Powell led two daring expeditions down the Colorado River in pursuit of scientific information, to acquire plant and animal specimens, and to map the canyon country. Among his other accomplishments, he was the first to

See also: Arctic; Henson, Matthew.

1834: John Wesley Powell is born on March 24 in Mount Morris, New York1867: With his wife, Emma, Powell climbs Pike’s Peak in Colorado1869: Begins his exploration of the Colorado River system on May 241871: Leads a second expedition down the Colorado River1879: With Powell’s help, the Bureau of American Ethnology is founded1881: Becomes director of the United States Geological Survey1903: Dies on September 23 in Maine


explore the Colorado and Green River canyons, the first to pass through the Grand Canyon, and, later, the first to classify Native American languages.

John Wesley Powell had science and adventure in his blood long before he conquered the Colorado. He was born in Mount Morris, New York, on March 24, 1834, to Joseph Powell and May Dean; his family eventually settled on a farm in Boone County, Illinois. A tailor and lay preacher, Joseph Powell wanted his son to become a minister, but the young man resisted him. Instead, John Wesley Powell studied natural science at Illinois College, Wheaton College, and Oberlin College without taking a degree.

In 1855, Powell walked across Wisconsin for four months, and in 1856 he rowed down a portion of the Mississippi River. Over the next two years, he journeyed down the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to St. Louis and rowed portions of the Illinois, Mississippi, and Des Moines rivers.

With the outbreak of the Civil War, Powell served in the Union army. He lost most of his right arm when he was struck by a musket ball at the Battle of Shiloh in 1862. He rose to the rank of major before receiving a disability discharge in January 1865.

Upon leaving the army in 1865, he became professor of geology at Illinois Wesleyan University and then, in 1867, at Illinois State Normal University. At that time, he also helped found the Illinois Museum of Natural History at Bloomington and became its director.

Powell journeyed west for the first time in 1867, when he led an ex-pedition to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and, with his wife, Emma, climbed Pikes Peak. (She was the first woman known to scale the peak.) The trip gave Powell the idea to explore the Colorado River, to add what he called a “mite to the great sum of human knowledge.” Although there had been some previous exploration of the lower Colorado in the 1850s, the river was largely unknown.

Powell’s expedition party of ten men included his brother, Walter; O.G. Howland, a printer and editor; and William Dunn, a hunter and trapper. Powell assembled four boats for the journey, three of which were made of oak and contained a watertight compartment. The fourth, called the Emma Dean, was a 16-foot (4.9-meter) pilot boat made of pine. Powell brought along sextants, barometers, chronometers, compasses, and thermometers for mapping and for recording geographic and weather conditions. From conception, the journey was to be part adventure and part scientific expedi-tion, including a search for specimens, geologic studies, and detailed survey-ing and map work.

The canoes cast off on the Green River in the Wyoming Territory on May 24, 1869. By the end of the month, the expedition had entered the northeast corner of Utah, where they were dwarfed by red sandstone cliff walls that Powell named Red Canyon. As the party continued down the Green River, Powell studied geological formations and collected plants and


fossilized shells. He commanded the pilot boat, looking out for rapids and other dangers, often ordering it ashore so that the waters could be tested for depth and current before continuing on.

In early June, while still on the Green River, one of the oak boats got caught in a rapid and smashed into the rocks. The three men aboard were rescued, though some of the scientific instruments were lost; Powell later retrieved the barometers that had been swept downriver. Indeed, the Green River proved to be a considerable challenge. As one of the men wrote, “The river in this canyon is not a succession of rapids as we have found before, but a continuous rapid.”

On July 21, the expedition finally reached the Colorado River, with its more than 150 rapids, and soon entered a magnificent, winding sandstone chasm that Powell named Glen Canyon. He wrote,

Past these towering monuments, past these mounded billows of orange sand-stone, past the oak-set glens, past these fern-decked alcoves, past these mural curves, we glide hour after hour, stopping now and then, as our attention is arrested by some new wonder.

Then came the Grand Canyon, which the expedition reached on August 13. Powell described their arrival:

We are now ready to start our way down the Great Unknown. We have but a month’s rations remaining. . . . We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not.

Major John Wesley Powell and his party gather on the Green River in Wyoming in 1871 for a second expedition (retracing the first, two years earlier) to explore the Colorado River and Grand Canyon. The second trip yielded a map and scientific records. (Stringer/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


On August 28, three of the men, exhausted by the journey and con-cerned about the dangers ahead, quit the expedition. They later were killed by Native Americans.

Also on August 28, Powell and his party encountered—and survived—the most dangerous rapids of the entire trip. They completed their journey the following day at Grand Wash. Powell later wrote, “The first hours of convalescent freedom seem rich recompense for all pain and gloom and terror.”

Indeed, toward the end, the expedition had become a struggle for sur-vival. Little “science” was conducted, and much of the scientific data and all of the specimens the men had collected were lost.

Powell, though, became a national hero. He was able to recount much about a river system Americans knew nothing of. Moreover, his second ex-


pedition down the Colorado, in 1871, proved much more successful from a scientific point of view. He returned home with extensive scientific records, including a map, photographs, and drawings, as well as biological and geo-logical specimens.

Thereafter, Powell studied the rivers and rainfall of the West and the ways in which Native Americans, Spanish settlers, and Mormons used the land. Concluding that water was the region’s critical resource, in 1878, he issued a far-reaching land use plan that called for the sharing of scarce water reserves and advised the federal government to build dams. Settlers, Powell insisted, would have to learn to work with nature rather than fight it.

Powell’s experience with Native American tribes and culture made him an ideal director of the new Bureau of American Ethnology, which he helped found in 1879. As director, he led a group of linguists into the field to compile the first distributional map of Native American languages—a valuable resource in Native American studies for decades to come.

From 1881 to 1894, Powell served as only the second director of the United States Geological Survey. The government agency had been estab-lished in 1879 and charged with “classification of the public lands, and ex-amination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain.”

Powell died on September 23, 1902, in Maine. By then, he was a re-nowned geologist and ethnologist. Nevertheless, he is best remembered for his Colorado River expeditions of 1869 and 1871, and his explorations of the previously unknown river system and the natural world that sur-rounded it.

Further ReadingDeBuys, William, ed. Seeing Things Whole: The Essential John Wesley Powell.

Washington, DC: Island, 2001.Dolnick, Edward. Down the Great Unknown: John Wesley Powell’s 1869

Journey of Discovery and Tragedy Through the Grand Canyon. New York: HarperCollins, 2002.

Worster, Donald. A River Running West: The Life of John Wesley Powell. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.


ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY

A British learned society established in 1830 to “promote the advancement of geographical science,” the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) has pur-sued its mission by sponsoring numerous scientific expeditions, publishing journals and magazines, staging exhibits and lectures, and recognizing no-table achievements in the field.

The Royal Geographical Society evolved from a male-only dining club in London, an exclusive gathering whose members held informal dinner debates on current events and scientific issues. In 1830, a small group of members—including the Admiralty official and geographer John Barrow, naval officer and Arctic explorer John Franklin, and hydrographer Francis Beaufort—founded the society, which received its royal charter under Queen Victoria in 1859. Initially, members convened at the offices of the Horticultural Society on Regent Street.

By 1840, the RGS had about 700 members and was beginning to com-pile an impressive library, including some 380 books and 290 maps and charts. “No work relating to geography, no map or chart extant,” said the annual report, “should be wanting to the library of the Royal Geographical Society in London.”

From 1854, the RGS met at 15 Whitehall Place; it moved to Saville Row in 1870. The new venue provided a suitable place for explorers to dis-cuss their findings and projects, study in the library and map room, and present speeches to audiences. In 1913, the society moved to its present site, Lowther Lodge in Kensington Gore. It also ended its ban on women members at that time.

During the nineteenth century, the RGS sponsored expeditions to ad-vance scientific knowledge, especially of unknown or little-known regions. Integral to that mission, at least to some, was extending the reach of British power and influence. Many members supported the growth of the British

1830: The Royal Geographical Society is founded in London1832: The society publishes its first journal1892: The Geographical Journal begins publication1933: The Institute of British Geographers is formed when a splinter group

breaks away from the Royal Geographical Society1995: The Royal Geographical Society and the Institute of British

Geographers merge


Empire with the imperialistic attitude that this would bring civilization to those who they viewed as the “uncivilized” people of the world.

In addition, expeditions sponsored by the society often entailed the inventorying of resources to be exploited. For example, in an 1876 speech to the Royal Geographical Society, Lieutenant Verney Lovett Cameron ob-served of East Africa,

Most of the country from the Tanganyika to the West Coast is one of almost unspeakable richness. Of metals, there are iron, copper, silver and gold; coal also is to be found; the vegetable products are palm oil, cotton, nutmegs, besides several sorts of pepper and coffee, all growing wild.

Among the noteworthy expeditions sponsored by the RGS were those in Guyana by Robert Schomburgk; in Africa by David Livingstone, Richard Burton, John Hanning Speke, James Augustus Grant, and Joseph Thomson; and in the Arctic by John Franklin and George Strong Nares.

The society published its first journal in 1832, with news from its meet-ings recorded in the Proceedings beginning in 1855. This was succeeded in 1892 by the Geographical Journal, which the society has continued to publish on a quarterly basis to the present day. (Since 2000, the Geographic Journal has ceased reporting RGS news in order to fo-cus exclusively on original research papers.) From its inception, the society also has pro-moted geography as a discipline in British universities, funding the first geography fac-ulty positions at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The growth of the RGS has not been without turbulence. By the late 1920s, younger members were chafing at their in-ability to get their papers read before the society or to get them published. As a re-sult, several of them broke away in 1933 to form a splinter group called the Institute of British Geographers (IBG). The new soci-ety organized conferences and seminars sep-arate from the RGS, though the two groups ultimately cooperated in several endeavors. The RGS and IBG began discussing a merger in 1992, came to an agreement two years later, and formally merged in 1995.

In May 1890, at a reception organized by the Royal Geo-graphical Society at London’s Albert Hall, Henry Morton Stanley describes his successful search in Central Africa for the lost Scottish explorer David Livingstone. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


The official name of the society became the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers).Today, the society is headed by a president and governed by a board of trustees called the Council. The latter consists of twenty-five members, twenty-two of whom are elected by the fellowship and serve three-year terms; the three other members are honor-ary. To become a fellow requires five years of membership in the society and nomination by an existing fellow.

In addition to honorary members and fellowships, the society presents about a dozen awards and medals for “excellence in geographical research and fieldwork, teaching and public engagement.” The most prestigious are the Founder’s Medal and the Patron’s Medal. Recipients of these awards have included the Scottish missionary and African explorer David Livingstone in 1855 and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace in 1892.

The Royal Geographical Society is Europe’s largest learned society in the field and one of the largest in the world, with eight branches in the United Kingdom and one in Hong Kong. As of 2009, membership exceeded 15,000 from more than 100 countries—including academics, professional geographers, researchers, and adventurers—with an estimated 150,000 taking part in RGS events and activities.

Further ReadingCameron, Ian. To the Farthest Ends of the Earth: 150 Years of World Exploration

by the Royal Geographical Society. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980.Royal Geographical Society: http://www.rgs.org.

RUSSIAN EXPLORATION

See also: Arctic; Burton, Richard Francis; Livingstone, David, and Henry Morton Stanley; Speke, John Hanning.

1728: Vitus Bering, a Dane serving in the Russian navy, sails through the strait between eastern Siberia and Alaska

1733: Bering becomes the leader of the Great Northern Expedition1735: Vasili Pronchishchev journeys down the Lena River through Siberia1820: Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel begins exploring northern Siberia,

where he finds an open sea (the East Siberian Sea), rather than dry land, north of the Kolyma River and Cape Shelagski

1821: Count Fyodor Petrovich Litke begins his journey to map the west coast of Novaya Zemlya, an Arctic archipelago in northern Russia

1826: Litke collects specimens in the Bering Strait1854: Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravyov-Amursky journeys down the Amur

River between southeastern Siberia and northeastern China1884: Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov travels across the Ural

Mountains to Tobolsk in southwestern Russia


In addition to Western Europeans, a number of Russians—or explorers operating under the Russian flag—took part in scientific expeditions to in-vestigate Arctic Russia, Siberia, and points farther south and east.

While Western European nations during the Age of Discovery were searching for a Northwest Passage connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, Russia was seeking a Northeast Passage connecting its western lands and Asian ports, including those in China, India, Japan, and, eventu-ally, the Americas.

Vitus Bering and the Great Northern Expedition

At the turn of the eighteenth century, Czar Peter the Great was eager to find the Northeast Passage so as to establish a sea link with Asia. In addition, he wanted to spread Russian influence to North America and engage his nation in the kind of scientific research and exploration that had brought so much prestige to Western European nations.

To pursue those goals, Czar Peter turned to Vitus Bering (1681–1741), a Dane who had been serving in the Russian navy for years. In 1724, the czar appointed Bering leader of an expedition to determine whether Asia and America were connected by land.

The question had, in fact, been answered earlier. In 1648, Semyon Dezhnyov (ca. 1605–1672), a Cossack sailor, had guided seven ships through what later would be named the Bering Strait, which separated the two continents. Dezhnyov’s report, however, was lost until 1736.

Czar Peter’s instructions to Bering read:

I. At Kamchatka or somewhere else two decked boats are to be built. II. With these you are to sail northward along the coast, and as the end of the coast is not known this land is undoubtedly America. III. For this reason you are to inquire where the American coast begins, and go to some European colony; and when European ships are seen you are to ask what the coast is called, note it down, make a landing, obtain reliable information, and then, after having chartered the coast, return.

Bering sailed from the Siberian peninsula of Kamchatka in 1728 and, in the course of one month, entered the Bering Strait and journeyed north into the Arctic Ocean. Although fog kept him from seeing the North

1902: Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev begins exploring the forests of the Ussuri River near Manchuria

1913: Boris Vilkitsky leads a hydrographic expedition to study the Northeast Passage


American coast, his voyage, like Dezhnyov’s eighty years earlier, proved that there was no land bridge between Asia and America.

From 1733 to 1743, Bering was in charge of Russia’s Great Northern Expedition, which he conceived and proposed to Czarina Anna (Anna Ivanovna), who was then in power. Departing again from Kamchatka, the expedition would map the west coast of North America, sail west to Japan, and chart the Arctic coast of Siberia.

Czarina Anna accepted the proposal and, in the spirit of Czar Peter’s fondness for science and exploration, expanded it. The expedition would include nearly 1,000 seamen, divided into four squads. One squad was to travel from Archangel to the mouth of the Ob River, a second from the Ob to the mouth of the Yenisei River, a third from the mouth of the Lena River to the mouth of the Yenisei, and a fourth from the mouth of the Lena to the Chukchi Peninsula and Kamchatka.

Bering himself sailed from Kamchatka aboard the St. Peter in June 1741, accompanied by a second ship, the St. Paul, under the command of Aleksi Illich Chirikov (1703–1748). The two ships soon became separated in a thick fog.

In late July, Bering, aboard the St. Peter, landed in Alaska at Kayak Island. Accompanying him was German botanist Georg Wilhelm Steller (1709–1746), who studied the North American plant and animal species he found on the island.

In November, Bering sighted the Commander Islands east of Kamchatka. By then, however, disease had felled many of his crewmen.

The death of Danish navigator Vitus Bering, on an island near Siberia’s Kam-chatka Peninsula in 1741, is dramatized in this painting. The island, like the sea in which it is located, now bears his name. (Granger Collection, New York)


Shortly thereafter, the St. Peter was shipwrecked on the island that would bear Bering’s name. He died there in December 1741, a victim of scurvy, along with twenty-eight of his men.

The Great Northern Expedition continued, however, and forty-five of the seventy-seven officers and men on the St. Peter survived, arriving back in Siberia on a small ship they had built. Based on this expedition, Steller wrote De Bestiis Marinis (The Beasts of the Sea), published in 1751, in which he described the fauna of Bering Island, including the northern fur seal, the sea otter, and the northern sea lion.

Meanwhile, Chirikov and his crew continued to the east. In July 1741, they reached Prince of Wales Island in extreme southern Alaska. Chirikov anchored near Cape Addington and sent two parties inland to explore; nei-ther party was ever heard from again.

In October, Chirikov weighed anchor and sailed to Kamchatka. In spring 1742, he led an expedition to search for Bering but failed to find him. He later received the news of Bering’s death from the survivors of the St. Peter.

Vasili Pronchishchev (1702–1736), a lieutenant in the Russian impe-rial navy, headed one of the squads in the Great Northern Expedition, with the assignment to map the shores of the Arctic Ocean from the mouth of the Lena River to the mouth of the Yenisei River. In 1735, he journeyed down the Lena on the sloop Yakutska.

Although many of Pronchishchev’s crew became sick from scurvy, in 1736, he reached the eastern shore of the Taymyr Peninsula, where he discovered several islands. The expedition was notable for several firsts. Pronchishchev was the first person to map large parts of the Lena River,


and his wife, Maria, who sailed with him, is believed to have been the first European woman to explore the Arctic. Both Vasili and Maria died from scurvy during the journey.

The Great Northern Expedition’s detachments mapped much of Russia’s Arctic coast. On May 20, 1742, Semyon Chelyuskin (1700–1764) reached the northernmost point of Eurasia.

Other Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Expeditions

From 1817 to 1819, Count Fyodor Petrovich Litke (1797–1882), who had joined the imperial navy in 1812, took part in a voyage around the world aboard the Kamchatka. From 1821 to 1824, he mapped the west coast of Novaya Zemlya—an archipelago in the Russian Arctic—and studied the southwestern Barents Sea.

Litke took part in another around-the-world voyage from 1826 to 1829. This was a scientific expedition during which he collected specimens in the Bering Strait as well as on Bonin and Caroline islands in the western Pacific. Litke also journeyed to Alaska, arriving at Sitka in 1827, and surveyed the Pribilof Islands, St. Matthew Island, and the Commander Islands. From Petropavlovsk, he sailed the Siberian coast all the way to St. Lawrence Bay at Nova Scotia in northeastern Canada.

In addition to being known for his explorations, Litke is known as one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society (in 1845); he served as its first vice president. Also an inventor, he developed a device to record and


measure ocean tides that was installed along the Arctic and Pacific coasts in 1841.

Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel (1797–1870), who was born into a German noble family and graduated from a Russian naval cadet college in 1815, led an expedition from 1820 to 1824 to explore Siberia. He sailed into the Arctic Ocean and mapped the still largely obscure Siberian coast, where he found an open sea (the East Siberian Sea) north of the Kolyma River and Cape Shelagski, near latitude 70º north. “We beheld,” he wrote, “the wide, immeasurable ocean spread before our gaze, a fearful and mag-nificent, but to us a melancholy spectacle.”

In the course of this expedition, Wrangel collected information about glaciers, magnetic fields, and climatic conditions; he also tried but failed to find a large island he thought was in the Arctic Ocean. That island fi-nally was discovered in 1867 by an American, Thomas Long, who named it Wrangel Island.

Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravyov-Amursky (1809–1881) was a major general in the Russian army until he retired due to illness in 1841. Six years later, he was appointed governor-general of Irkutsk and Yeniseysk in east-ern Siberia. From 1854 to 1858, he led expeditions down the Amur River; the first one included the steamship Argun and seventy-seven barges and rafts. Muravyov-Amursky’s journeys expanded Russian knowledge of the region and led to a treaty with China that relocated the border between the two countries and added significant new territory to Russian Siberia.

In the late nineteenth century, Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Sibiryakov (1849–1893), a wealthy mine owner, financed several expeditions to

Russian hydrologists drill for samples in the frozen Amur River after explo-sions at a Chinese chemical plant in 2005. The river is named after Nikolay Nikolayevich Muravyov-Amursky, who explored the frontier between eastern Russia and China in the 1850s. (Viktor Drachev/AFP/Getty Images)


Siberia, including those of the Finn Adolf Erik Nordenskjöld (1832– 1901) and the Russian Alexander Mikhaylovich Grigoryev (1849–1933). In addition, Sibiryakov led expeditions of his own. In 1880, he journeyed to the Kara Sea on the north-central coast of Russia. And in 1884, he trav-eled by steamer to the mouth of the Pechora River on the Barents Sea, then overland east across the Ural Mountains and south along the Tobol River to Tobolsk, in Kazahkstan.

Twentieth-Century Expeditions

In the early 1900s, the Russian explorer Vladimir Klavdiyevich Arsenyev (1872–1930) described and documented the Ussuri River basin and the Sikhote-Alin mountain range in the Far East. From 1902 to 1907, he explored the forests, or taiga, of the Ussuri along the Sea of Japan to Vladivostok, collecting flora and fauna along the way. His account of three expeditions, Dersu Uzala (Dersu the Hunter), published in 1923, describes his relationship with his guide and teacher, Dersu Uzala of the Nanai tribe, and extols the practical knowledge and wisdom of the Ussurian native. Arsenyev also wrote several stories dedicated to the native people.

From 1913 to 1915, the hydrographer and surveyor Boris Vilkitsky (1885–1961) led an Arctic expedition to explore the Northeast Passage. On this trip, he discovered the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago, along with Vilkitsky Island, Maly Taymyr Island, and Starokadomsky Island. The later phase of the expedition included the first through voyage from Vladivostok to Archangel. Vilkitsky’s two ships were forced to winter on the west coast of Taymyr in 1914–1915 and completed their journey to Archangel the following summer.

All told, Russian explorations of the eighteenth to twentieth centuries added immeasurably to the knowledge of Siberia, other areas of the Arctic region, and the northern Far East. They also served to expand Russian territory to the North American continent in Alaska and southeast to Chinese Manchuria.

Further ReadingAlekseev, A.I. Fedor Petrovich Litke. Fairbanks: University of Alaska Press,

1996.Collins, David N., ed. Siberian Discovery. 12 vols. Surrey, UK: Curzon, 2000.Fisher, Raymond Henry. Bering’s Voyages: Whither and Why? Seattle:

University of Washington Press, 1994.Frost, Orcutt. Bering: The Russian Discovery of America. New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2003.See also: Arctic.


A German-born businessman and archaeologist whose work was sur-rounded by controversy, Heinrich Schliemann unearthed the site of the ancient city of Troy in Turkey and discovered rich artifacts at the ruins of Mycenae in Greece.

Heinrich Schliemann was born on January 6, 1822, in Neubuckow, Mecklenburg, Germany, to Ernst and Luise Schliemann. His father was a Protestant minister who enjoyed studying the classics. Heinrich later said that he first was attracted to studying ancient Troy when, at age eight, his father gave him a book containing Greek and Roman myths and legends. Many historians doubt this story, however, and trace his first interest in Troy to a much later time.

In any event, young Schliemann developed an intense interest in the Iliad and the Odyssey, the two epic poems by the ancient Greek poet Homer. These classics pertain to the Trojan War and its aftermath. This war is said by historians to have been fought in the twelfth century b.c.e. between the Greeks of Mycenae and the inhabitants of Troy, in Anatolia, part of present-day Turkey.

Schliemann received an erratic education. His schooling began at a pri-vate academy, but he was forced to leave it when his father was accused of embezzling church funds. The boy left public school at age fourteen and went to work for a grocer in Furstenburg, dedicating himself to making money and learning languages. He proved extraordinarily adept at both. He saved much of what he earned and taught himself six foreign languages

SCHLIEMANN, HEINRICH 18221890

1822: Born in Neubuckow, Germany, on January 61844: Begins working for an import-export company, traveling throughout

Europe1863: Retires from business a millionaire; devotes himself to archaeology1871: Begins excavation in search of ancient city of Troy at Hissarlik,

Turkey; uncovers several layers of ruins1873: Discovers a cache of gold and other artifacts, which he calls

“Priam’s Treasure”1874: Begins excavation at Mycenae, Greece1876: Inside the Lion Gate at Mycenae, discovers ancient royal grave shafts

and gold death masks1890: Dies on December 26 in Naples, Italy


within a two-year period: Dutch, English, French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese.

Schliemann’s proficiency in languages helped him secure a position in 1844 with a large import-export firm, B.H. Schroder, which sent him to St. Petersburg, Russia, two years later to act as an agent. Schliemann made considerable money for the company as an indigo trader, traveled through-out Europe, and eventually came to represent the interests of a number of trading firms. In 1848, he founded his own merchant house and continued to prosper.

In 1850, Schliemann set out for California to make his fortune in the gold rush. Once there, he started a bank in Sacramento that bought gold dust from prospectors and sold it on the open market, and soon he amassed a fortune. While Schliemann became a naturalized U.S. citizen when California became a U.S. state in 1850, two years later, he decided to sell his business and return to Russia. Later that year, he married Ekaterina Petrovna Lyshina. They had three children, but the marriage proved dif-ficult. The couple grew apart, lived separately, and eventually divorced.

In the meantime, Schliemann continued to pursue his interests in lan-guages and archaeology. He retired from business in 1863 as one of the wealthiest men of the time and traveled extensively—to India, Singapore, China, Japan, Cuba, Mexico, France, Italy, and Greece—before settling in Paris. Schliemann then devoted his energies to archaeological research and further language study. He undertook graduate studies in Paris and would become fluent in as many as sixteen languages during his lifetime.

In June 1868, Schliemann spent three days at Pompeii in southern Italy, where excavations led by Giuseppe Fiorelli were under way. In July, he vis-ited Mount Aetos, on the island of Ithaca in the Ionian Sea. This was be-lieved to be the location of the palace of Odysseus, king of Ithaca. At Mount Aetos, Schliemann participated in his first archaeological dig.

In 1869, Schliemann wrote a book in which he maintained that a mound at Hissarlik in Anatolia was the site of ancient Troy. That year, he also submitted a dissertation on this subject (in ancient Greek) to the University of Rostock in Germany and received a Ph.D.

His theory conflicted with those of archaeologists who believed ancient Troy was situated at Bunarbashi (also called Pinarbasi), or at Alexandria Troas, located on the northwest coast of Asia Minor, or what is today Turkey. Schliemann had done some excavating at Alexandria Troas in 1868; however, he turned his attention to Hissarlik when he met British ar-chaeologist Frank Calvert, who had dug trenches at Hissarlik and thought the site held valuable artifacts.

Also in 1869, Schliemann married Sophie Engastromenos. Her inter-est in the works of Homer and related history reinforced his.


Finding Troy

Schliemann began his excavation at Hissarlik in 1871. He soon uncovered several layers of ruins—a total of eleven cities of Troy from over the centu-ries. (Archaeologists have since found thirty levels of habitation dating back to 3000 b.c.e.) He called the bottom layer Troy I and the next layer Troy II. Since the latter showed evidence of having been burned, as had the city in the Iliad, Schliemann concluded that this was Homer’s Troy. He and his team then dug for the treasure said to belong to Priam, the ruler of Troy at the time of the war. During the course of the search, much of the second layer was inadvertently destroyed.

In June 1873, Schliemann noticed a copper jug protruding from an ex-cavation shaft. He later recounted the discovery:

In excavating this wall further and directly by the side of the palace of King Priam, I came upon a large copper article of the most remarkable form, which attracted my attention all the more as I thought I saw gold behind it. On top of this article lay a stratum of red and calcined ruins . . . as hard as stone, and above this . . . lay [a] . . . wall of . . . fortification . . . which was built of large stones and earth, and must have belonged to an early date after the destruction of Troy. In order to withdraw the Treasure from the greed of my workmen, and to save it for archaeology, I had to be most expeditious. . . . While the men were eating or resting, I cut out the Treasure with a large knife, which it was impossible to do without the very greatest exertion and the most fearful risk of my life, for the great fortification-wall beneath which I had to dig, threatened every moment to fall down upon me.

An engraving of 1873 depicts Hein-rich Schliemann’s excavations at Hissarlik, Turkey, the archaeologi-cal site of ancient Troy. That same year, Schliemann unearthed a cache of gold and other artifacts he dubbed “Priam’s Treasure.” (Rue des Archives/Granger Collection, New York)


To this, he added,

It would have been impossible for me to have removed the Treasure without the help of my dear wife, who stood by me ready to pack the things which I cut out in her shawl and to carry them away.

Among the items Schliemann found were golden earrings and neck-laces; a copper shield and copper lances and daggers; and a silver dish and goblet and silver vases. Breaking a promise he had made to the Turkish gov-ernment to turn over half of his findings, Schliemann smuggled the artifacts out of the country.

He eventually donated the treasure to a museum in Berlin. He pub - lished his findings in Trojan Antiquities (1874), Troy and Its Remains (1875), and Ilios: The City and Country of the Trojans (1880).

Mycenaean Tombs

With his mission accomplished at Hissarlik, Schliemann turned his attention to the site of Mycenae in Greece. Mycenae was the home of Agamemnon, the Greek king at the time of the Trojan War. In 1876, hav-ing received permission to dig inside the Lion Gate, the entrance to the royal citadel, Schliemann and his team discovered a grave circle measuring about 90 feet (27 meters) in diameter that contained five tombs. (In 1951, archaeologists found a second grave circle.)

Called the Dome Tombs, this was the burial sites of Mycenaean royalty, whose skeletons were adorned with gold death masks. Upon making his discovery, Schliemann sent a telegram to the king of Greece stating,

With great joy I announce to Your Majesty that I have discovered the tombs which the tradition proclaimed by Pausanias indicated to be the graves of Agamemnon, Cassandra, Eurymedon and their companions, all slain at a banquet by Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthos.

Upon uncovering a gold death mask in grave V, Schliemann is said to have declared, “I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.” He wrote this description of the mask:

Its features are altogether Hellenic, and I call attention to the long thin nose, running in a direct line with the forehead, which is but small. The eyes, which are shut, are large and well represented by the eyelids; very charac-teristic is also the large mouth with its well-proportioned lips. The beard is also well represented, and particularly the moustaches, whose extremities are turned upwards to a point, in the form of crescents.


A gold mask discovered by Heinrich Schliemann at Mycenae in 1876 continues to be debated among archaeologists today. Is it the death mask of King Ag-amemnon, the legendary Greek leader in the Trojan War, or a forgery? (Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images)


The artifact became the most famous of those uncovered at Mycenae. It has been referred to as “Agamemnon’s Mask,” despite questions regarding its authenticity and age.

Later Work and Legacy

In 1878, Schliemann discovered more treasures at Troy. The following year, he hired an assistant, Wilhelm Dörpfeld, to oversee further archaeological work at the location. (Dörpfeld concluded that Troy VI, not Troy II, was the Troy of Homer, but changed his view in 1932 when American archaeol-ogist Carl William Blegen found substantial evidence suggesting that Troy VII was the Homeric city.)

Schliemann went on to excavate other sites in Greece, including Ithaca, Orchomenus, and Tiryns. In the latter location, a dig in 1884 and 1885 uncovered the ruins of a great palace also referred to by Homer.

In 1886, Schliemann sailed down the Nile River with British Egyptologist E.A. Wallis Budge. Also that year, in the Mediterranean, he uncovered Aphrodite’s Temple on the island of Kíthira and found Spartan remains on the island of Sphacteria, which is located at the entrance to the bay of Pylos in the Peloponnese.

Suffering from chronic ear infections, Schliemann underwent surgery in August 1890. Following the operation, he became ill and died on December 26, in Naples, Italy.

Schliemann’s archaeological work remains controversial. Some experts have charged that he forged or altered some of his finds to make them seem to be more important. Others have suggested that he combined discoveries from different locations to make them appear as if they had come from a single archaeological site. Moreover, according to subsequent researchers, the treasure he found at Troy predated the Trojan War by more than 1,000 years, and the so-called Mask of Agamemnon has been the object of skepticism in some quarters. All things considered, however, businessman-turned-archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann contributed major discoveries about the classical age and the historical truth of ancient legend.

Further ReadingMoorehead, Caroline. Lost and Found: The 9,000 Treasures of Troy. New York:

Viking, 1996.Selden, George. Heinrich Schliemann: Discoverer of Buried Treasure. New

York: Macmillan, 2000.Traill, David A. Schliemann of Troy: Treasure and Deceit. New York: St.

Martin’s, 1995.


SCHULTES, RICHARD 19152001

American plant researcher, educator, and curator Richard Evans Schultes has been called the “father of ethnobotany” and the “last Victorian explorer” for his seminal studies of the relationship between plants and native socie-ties and for his prolonged field expeditions to remote regions of Mexico and the Amazon River basin. During the course of a career that spanned more than half a century, he documented hundreds of new plant species and cataloged the medicinal uses of thousands of plants.

Schultes was born on January 12, 1915, in Boston, where his father was a plumber and his mother a homemaker. He was inspired to become a scientist when, at age six, his parents read him Notes of a Botanist by English naturalist Richard Spruce. Published in 1908, Spruce’s book recounted a vivid story of hunting for plant life along the Amazon River and in the Andes Mountains in South America. About the Andes, Spruce wrote,

I have been much interested to meet here several tribes of plants which I had not seen since leaving England. I have got, for instance, a Poppy, Horsetail, a Bramble. . . . In a deep dell on the way to Moyobamba I was delighted to find a few specimens of that rare plant the Chickweed.

Schultes received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1937. For his senior thesis, he lived among the Kiowa Indians in Oklahoma and studied their use of peyote in religious ceremonies.

Working under botanist Oakes Ames at Harvard, Schultes received his Ph.D. in 1941, with a dissertation again based on fieldwork among indig-enous peoples. This time, he lived among the medicine men in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, detailing their use of psychedelic mushrooms in his dis-sertation, “Economic Aspects of the Flora of Northeastern Oaxaca.”

Later in 1941, Schultes made his first trip to the Upper Amazon, as a Harvard research associate. In Colombia, he studied curare, a plant deriva-

1915: Born on January 12 in Boston1941: Earns doctorate in botany with dissertation on the use of psychedelic

mushrooms by natives of Oaxaca, Mexico; makes his first trip to the Amazon River region in South America

1953: Becomes curator of the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium at Harvard University1979: Publishes Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use, with Albert

Hofmann1980: Named director of the Botanical Museum and Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of

Biology at Harvard2001: Dies in Waltham, Massachusetts, on April 10


tive used by shamans as a muscle relaxant. It also was used by other tribal people as a deadly substance on arrowheads.

Upon the outbreak of World War II in December of that year, Schultes’s efforts in Amazonia were redirected by the U.S. government, which asked him to search for a species of rubber tree that would be resistant to disease. Ultimately, it was believed, this would reduce U.S. dependence on rubber from Asia, which had come under the domination of Japan. Although his wartime efforts failed, Schultes later discovered a new species of rubber tree in Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

In the early 1950s, Schultes lived among the native people of the Amazon basin for extended periods. His work there triggered a lifelong concern for the environmental integrity of the region and ongoing efforts to help save the rain forest and the culture of the people who inhabited it. As one of his students later observed,

He believed ours would be the last generation fortunate enough to be able to live and work among these tribes as he had to experience their traditional way of life firsthand, and to record their vast ethnobotanical knowledge before the plant species—or the people who used them—succumbed to the march of progress.

Schultes made extended annual visits to the Amazon region; he even lived among native peoples who had never seen a white person before. He plied rivers in a simple aluminum canoe, carrying a single change of cloth-ing, a machete, a hammock, a camera, and clippers for cutting and collecting plants. His diet consisted of instant coffee, baked beans, and food provided by the local tribes. To preserve the plant specimens he collected, he soaked them in formaldehyde diluted with water and then pressed them between newspaper sheets.

In all, Schultes collected an estimated 24,000 plant specimens, 120 of which came to bear his name. Also named for him is a 2.2 million-acre (890,000-hectare) tract of protected rain forest, established by the govern-ment of Colombia in 1986. Schultes documented the use of more than 2,000 medicinal plants by a dozen tribes. His studies of plants with hal-lucinogenic properties would make his books cult favorites among young people in the United States who experimented with drugs during the 1960s. His findings also influenced such writers as Aldous Huxley and Carlos Castaneda, who used and promoted the use of such hallucinogens as a way to gain better understandings of the inner self.

In 1953, Schultes became curator of the Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium at Harvard, and in 1958 , he became curator of economic bota-ny at the same institution. In 1970, he was named director of the Botanical Museum and Edward C. Jeffrey Professor of Biology.


Writing into his eighties, Schultes published a total of ten books and more than 450 scientific articles. He also took thousands of photographs, many of which appeared in his published works. Richard Evans Schultes died in 2001 at age eighty-six in Waltham, Massachusetts, outside Boston.

Further ReadingDavis, Wade. One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain

Forest. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.Schultes, Richard. Hallucinogenic Plants. New York: Golden Press, 1976.Schultes, Richard, and Albert Hofmann. Plants of the Gods: Origins of

Hallucinogenic Use. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1979.Schultes, Richard, and Siri von Reis. Ethnobotany: Evolution of a Discipline.

Portland, OR: Dioscorides, 1995.

SCHWEINFURTH, GEORG AUGUST 18361925

Latvian-German explorer, ethnographer, and botanist Georg August Schweinfurth journeyed into the interior of eastern Africa during the 1860s and 1870s, making important discoveries about the geography, native peo-ples, and plant life of the region, and contributing as well to knowledge of North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula.

Schweinfurth was born on December 29, 1836, in Riga, Latvia. He was educated at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich, in Germany. He pursued interests in botany and paleontology and completed his studies in 1862.

Commissioned to organize collections recently brought from the Sudan, Schweinfurth resolved to carry out his own explorations of Africa. In 1863, he journeyed to the Red Sea and spent the next three years ex-ploring the region that bordered it, including Egypt, traveling inland to the Nile River and then to Khartoum, in the Sudan, and to the Abyssinian Highlands in present-day Ethiopia. Along the way, he collected numerous plant specimens.

1836: Born on December 29 in Riga, Latvia1856–1862: Educated at universities in Berlin, Heidelberg, and Munich, Germany1863–1866: Explores the Red Sea region and travels into Africa to Khartoum, Sudan1869–1871: Explores interior of eastern Africa, discovering the Uele (Welle) River

and the Akka pygmies1871: Writes The Heart of Africa, a book about his journey to Eastern Africa.1873–1876: Conducts expeditions into the Libyan and Arabian deserts1925: Dies on September 20 in Berlin


In 1868, Schweinfurth received funding from the German scientific re-search foundation Humboldt-Stiftung to return to Africa and explore the region known as the Bahr-al-Ghazal, in what is now southwestern Sudan. Leaving Khartoum in January 1869, Schweinfurth headed south (up-stream) on the White Nile River, studying the vegetation along the way. His journey took him into the midst of several indigenous tribes, namely the Bongo, Dinka, Diur, Niam-Niam, Mangbetu (Mombuttoo), and Shilluk. Only a few Europeans, mainly ivory traders, had encountered these peoples before.

While among the Mangbetu (in what is today the Democratic Republic of Congo), Schweinfurth discovered the Uele, or Welle, River. He concluded that it was connected to the Niger River rather than the Nile. In fact, it is a major tributary of the Ubangi River, which flows into the Congo River.

During the course of his travels in eastern Africa, as part of the ex-pedition that began in 1869, Schweinfurth became the first European to encounter the Akka pygmies, confirming centuries-old speculation about a dwarf race in Africa. He attempted to bring one of the Akka back with him to Europe, but the captured man died along the way. Schweinfurth collected numerous plants and insects, but nearly all of his specimens collected to that date were destroyed in a fire at his campsite in December 1870.

Returning to Khartoum in July 1871, Schweinfurth wrote a book about his expedition titled The Heart of Africa, which was published two years later. In the account, he offered a number of original and insightful ethnographic descriptions. About the Mangbetu, for example, he wrote,

My relationship with the natives became closer with each passing day. There was always a considerable crowd around my dwelling, avidly watching my slightest gesture. [The] . . . women, so cheeky when they are in a group, tend to be shy when they are on their own. I wanted to observe the details of their daily lives, but whenever they saw me coming they would scamper into their dwellings and shut the door in my face.

He also commented on the Niam-Niam, who filed their teeth to sharpen them and engaged in cannibalism. These were a people, reported Schweinfurth, “with whose name the Mohammedans of the Soudan were accustomed to associate all the savagery which could be conjured up by a fertile imagination.”

From 1873 to 1874, Schweinfurth journeyed through the Libyan Desert with Gerhard Rohlfs, a fellow German explorer. In 1875, he found-ed a geographic society in Cairo, Egypt, where he was appointed curator of museums. He undertook the first of a series of expeditions into the Arabian Desert in 1876 and in the early 1890s made several trips to Eritrea, then an Italian colony in eastern Africa.


Schweinfurth devoted the rest of his life to African and Arabian studies and published several more books, including Artes Africanae; Illustrations and Descriptions of Productions of the Industrial Arts of Central African Tribes (1875). He died in Berlin on September 20, 1925.

Further ReadingSchweinfurth, Georg. The Heart of Africa: Three Years’ Travels and Adventures

in the Unexplored Regions of Central Africa from 1868 to 1871. Trans. Ellen E. Frewer. 2 vols. Chicago: Afro-Am Books, 1969.

SCORESBY, WILLIAM 17891857

An English whaling ship captain, Arctic explorer, scientist, and clergyman, William Scoresby mapped the east coast of Greenland in the 1820s and re-searched magnetism to improve the performance of the mariner’s compass.

Scoresby was born on October 5, 1789, near Whitby in Yorkshire, on England’s northeast coast. His father, also named William Scoresby, was the captain of a whaling ship, on which the boy stowed away in 1799, at age ten, and took his first trip to sea. Three years later, William began an apprenticeship with his father, whaling near Greenland in the summer and attending school in the winter.

Arctic Scientist

In 1806, as first officer aboard the whaling ship Resolution, William Scoresby sailed to latitude 81º 30', the farthest north anyone had sailed in the eastern hemisphere to that time. Later that year, back on land, he began

1789: Born on October 5 near Whitby, England1799: Takes first whaling trip as a stowaway on his father’s ship1806: Begins studying chemistry and natural philosophy at the University of

Edinburgh in Scotland1811: Becomes the captain of a whaling ship; investigates atmospheric refraction

at sea1822: Surveys 400 miles (650 kilometers) of Greenland’s east coast; quits whaling to

become a clergyman1823: Publishes Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery1831: Helps found the British Association for the Advancement of Science1856: Sails to Australia; discovers that a ship’s polarity reverses in the southern

magnetic hemisphere, thus making an important discovery in the development of the mariners’ compass

1857: Dies on March 21, 1857 in England


studying chemistry and natural philosophy at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.

At Edinburgh, Scoresby became friends with Robert Jameson, a pro-fessor who encouraged him to undertake research in the northern seas. Scoresby later would provide Jameson with specimens from the Arctic, and the professor would present Scoresby’s papers to natural history societies.

In 1811, Scoresby took over command of the Resolution. That same year, he was married for the first time. (He would be married a total of three times.)

On successive whaling voyages, he made scientific studies of the atmo-sphere, the sea, wildlife, and the workings of the mariner’s compass. He compiled detailed weather reports made in the Greenland Sea, including comparisons of the temperature and humidity at the sea’s surface, at deck level, and at the masthead. Using a diving thermometer of his own inven-tion, he established that Arctic waters are warmer at lower depths than at the surface—the opposite of what is found in tropical waters. In another study, careful investigation of atmospheric refraction led him to conclude that mirages and fogs in the Arctic are caused by layers of air with contrast-ing temperatures.

With each whaling expedition, Scoresby undertook a new scientific investigation of Arctic conditions and natural phenomena. On one trip, he made a rigorous study of snowflakes, which he placed under a microscope. He drew pictures of the flakes and classified them according to the weather conditions in which he found them. He concluded that snowflakes were more varied in shape in the Arctic than those found in milder climates.

In 1819, Scoresby was elected to Britain’s Royal Society to which he presented an original paper, “On the Anomaly in the Variation of the Magnetic Needle.” The following year, he published An Account of the Arctic Regions, a two-volume work that brought together all of his own observa-tions and those of other Arctic explorers. It was a landmark work in the field of Arctic science.

In 1822, Scoresby surveyed and charted some 400 miles (650 kilome-ters) of Greenland’s east coast, designating place-names that, for the most part, still are used today. His exploration provided the first detailed infor-mation about the region.

Humphry Davy, a British scientist renowned for his work in chemistry, recognized the importance of Scoresby’s expedition in a letter to him:

I congratulate you on your safe return and on the success that has attended your researches. Your spirit of enterprise and your devotion to the cause of science amidst pursuits of so different a character entitle you to the warmest thanks of all those who are interested in the progress of natural knowledge and do honour to your country.


New Horizons

The journey to Greenland, as it turned out, would be Scoresby’s last voyage to the Arctic. Upon returning to England, he learned of his first wife’s death and quit whaling to study for the ministry in the Church of England. After two years of study at Cambridge University, he obtained his degree from Queen’s College and was ordained in 1825.

Scoresby’s decision to forsake the sea, however, did not deter him from his passion for science. In 1823, he had published Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery, Including Researches and Discoveries on the Eastern Coast of West Greenland, which earned him yet more recognition within the scientific community and helped him gain election as a fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1824.

Becoming the first chaplain at the Mariners’ Floating Church in Liverpool in 1827, Scoresby remarried the following year and moved on to the chaplaincy at Bedford Chapel in Exeter. As he carried out his clerical responsibilities, he remained heavily involved in the scientific community, helping to found the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1831.

In 1837, Scoresby became vicar at Bradford, and, in 1839, he obtained his doctor of divinity degree. At Bradford, he dedicated himself to helping the poor and founded five schools for the children of mill workers.

Exhausted by church work, Scoresby took a trip to the United States in 1844 to restore his health but returned to England some six months later. With his strength continuing to decline, in 1847 he resigned from the ministry.

Upon the death of his second wife, in 1848, he returned to America and, during the trip, compiled important data on the height of waves in the Atlantic Ocean. Back in England, he married for a third time, in 1849, and moved to Torquay (now part of Torbay) in coastal Devonshire.

During his years away from the sea, Scoresby engaged in a number of scientific investigations. The most prominent was his study of magne-tism and its effect on the mariner’s compass. In general, he believed, the compasses of the time were poorly constructed and rendered inaccurate by the iron used in ship construction. To solve the problem, he would need to identify the grade of steel that would be most accurate for the instrument, determine the optimal shape for the needle, and measure the degree of de-viation on ships with iron hulls or steam engines. After extensive research, he favored the use of compound magnets for additional strength and the best grade of steel to compensate for differences in bar quality.

In 1856, Scoresby sailed to Australia aboard the iron-hulled passenger ship Royal Charter with the goal of recording the ship’s magnetic effects and determining if its polarity reversed in the southern magnetic hemisphere.


He confirmed the reversal for all the iron on the ship and concluded that compasses on board should be positioned aloft to avoid distortion. In addi-tion, he advised, a ship’s compass could not be set just once on a long voyage but had to be regularly checked for accuracy and adjusted when needed.

Scoresby died on March 21, 1857, at his villa in Torquay. His Journal of a Voyage to Australia and Round the World, for Magnetical Research was published two years later.

Further ReadingScoresby, William, Jr. An Account of the Arctic Regions. 1820. New York:

Augustus M. Kelley, 1969.———. Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery. 1823. Whitby, UK:

Caedmon, 1980.Stamp, Tom, and Cordelia Stamp. William Scoresby, Arctic Scientist. Whitby,

UK: Caedmon, 1976.

SCOTT, ROBERT FALCON 18681912

An English naval officer and explorer, Captain Robert Falcon Scott led what turned out to be the second expedition to reach the South Pole. He arrived there in January 1912, a month and three days after the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Scott and four other men died on the trip back to their base camp.

Robert Falcon Scott was born on June 6, 1868, near Devonport, England, to John Edward Scott, a brewer and the owner of a small country estate, and Hannah Cunning, who came from a well-to-do family. At age thirteen, Robert, nicknamed “Con” by his parents, entered the British Royal Navy as a cadet. He attended naval school at Dartmouth and was made a midshipman in 1883. From 1887 to 1888, he attended the Royal Naval College at Greenwich.

See also: Arctic

1868: Born on June 6 near Devonport, England1883: Becomes a midshipman in the Royal Navy1900: Appointed commander of the British National Antarctic Expedition1901–1904: Explores Antarctica and becomes the first person to travel as

far south as the 80th parallel1910: Leaves England as commander of the Terra Nova in an attempt to

become the first person to reach the South Pole1911: Begins assault on the South Pole on October 241912: Learns that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen has reached the

South Pole; reaches the Pole himself on January 17; dies in late March on the return trek to base camp


British National Antarctic Expedition

Scott had no burning ambition to become a polar explorer, but he saw it as a route to promotion through the ranks of the Royal Navy to commander and eventually captain. In 1899, therefore, when he was still a lieutenant, he accepted an offer to lead an expedition to Antarctica.

The Royal Society and the Royal Geographical Society were working together to raise money for such an effort, and Scott was selected by expedi-tion organizer Clements Markham in May 1900. His official designation was commander of the British National Antarctic Expedition. Because the mission was principally scientific, other members of the expedition included naturalist Thomas Vere Hodgson, director of marine biological laboratories at the Marine Biological Station in Plymouth; geologist Hartley Ferrar, a recent graduate of Cambridge University; and physicist Louis Bernacchi, veteran of a recent Antarctic expedition.

Scott commanded the three-masted sailing ship Discovery, which was specially designed and built for Antarctic research. The expedition left England on August 6, 1901, and headed south from New Zealand in late December. Members of the Discovery Expedition, as it was referred to, be-gan charting the Antarctic coastline and established a settlement on a cove in McMurdo Sound that they christened Winter Quarters Bay.

In November 1902, Scott and two other men—Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson—set out on foot, heading south. They became the first humans to reach as far south as latitude 82º 17’, some 500 miles (800 kilo-

Robert Falcon Scott (rear, center) and members of his ill-fated Antarctic mis-sion pose for a self-timed photograph at the South Pole in January 1912. The five men had trouble finding their route back and perished in the harsh conditions. (Granger Collection, New York)


meters) from the South Pole. “Certainly dog driving is the most terrible work one has to face in this sort of business,” Scott wrote.

On December 5, he observed,

The events of the day’s march are now becoming so dreary and dispiriting that one longs to forget them when we camp; it is an effort to record them in a diary. Our utmost efforts could not produce more than three miles for the whole march.

During the course of the expedition, which continued until 1904, Scott and his fellow explorers also surveyed the coast of Victoria Land and made the first penetration of the rim of the Polar Plateau. In the latter instance, Albert Armitage, Scott’s second-in-command, became the first person to cross the western mountains and reach the Antarctic ice cap. (Scott, at the time, was venturing south.) Bernacchi recorded the event:

A typical [Antarctic] glacier followed to its source. . . . A distance of about 140 miles . . . sledged over in a mountainous, glacial region at 78 deg. South [reaching] an altitude of about 14,500 feet . . . accomplished by men [with] little or no previous experience of glacial traveling.

The Discovery Expedition garnered much public interest in Great Britain, and Scott returned home a hero. Nevertheless, the scientific re-cord of the expedition met with considerable criticism from the scientific community. The president of the Physical Society of London, for example, called for a “scientific court martial” when it was shown that the expedition had confused true and magnetic compass bearings and that wind measure-ments had been botched as well.

Terra Nova Expedition

In 1908, Scott married Katherine Bruce, a sculptor, and they had a son, Peter Markham Scott, in 1909. In 1910, Scott took up command of a new scientific expedition to the Antarctic. Funded by private donors and the British government, the voyage would be undertaken on the ship Terra Nova, for an express purpose. Scott announced,

The main object of the expedition, is to reach the South Pole and secure for the British Empire the honour of that achievement.

At the same time, however, science was to be an important part of the expedition. The party included three geologists, a physicist, a meteorologist,


two biologists, a person to conduct magnetic measurements, and a specialist to oversee hydrographical surveys.

Also on board the Terra Nova were twenty Siberian-bred ponies and thirty-four sled dogs. According to Scott’s plan, the ponies would haul sup-plies part of the way inland and then be killed for meat. The key means of transportation would be three motorized sleds, which had been little tested, “man-hauling,” whereby sleds would be pulled by the explorers themselves, and sleds pulled by dogs and ponies.

The Terra Nova left England on June 1, 1910, with Scott staying be-hind to raise more money, which helped fund the expedition. He joined the ship in South Africa and sailed from there to New Zealand, depart-ing for Antarctica on November 26, 1910. By then, Scott had learned that Amundsen also was on his way to Antarctica with the goal of becoming the first person to reach the South Pole.

T E R R A N O V A

º


Establishing a base camp at Cape Crozier, as Scott had intended, was made impossible by rough seas, and the expedition moved on to Cape Evans in McMurdo Sound. After setting up operations there, Scott and his men began erecting supply depots along the route to the pole. Meanwhile, others in the expedition, dubbed the Western Party, explored the Koettlitz Glacier; a Northern Party conducted research at Cape Adare; and a group in the main party began a study of emperor penguins at Cape Crozier.

Scott’s trek to the South Pole began on October 24, 1911. Several men set out on motorized sleds; Scott joined them with dogsleds and ponies on November 1. A total of sixteen men, ten ponies, and twenty dogs began the journey.

Bad weather hampered the explorers from the start, and the motorized sleds broke down repeatedly; the team had failed to bring along the tools and parts needed to keep the sleds running. The ponies also proved to be a mistake, as they suffered from exhaustion from struggling through the deep snow. Despite his earlier expedition to Antarctica, Scott had failed to anticipate how extreme the conditions really would be.

As the party crossed the Polar Plateau, the men’s energy began to wane. Then, on January 16, 1912, they came across the remains of a camp and tracks left by dogs and sleds. Amundsen had been there before them. In his diary, Scott noted,

This told us the whole story. The Norwegians have forestalled us and are first at the Pole.

Scott chose four men to join him for the final assault on the South Pole: Henry Robertson Bowers, Edward Wilson, Lawrence Oates, and Edgar Evans. Despite insufficient food and clothing, the band of explorers sol-diered on through blizzards and numbing cold. They began suffering from dehydration as well, a result of severe exertion in the frigid environment.

Finally, on January 17, Scott and his four partners reached the Pole. The temperature was -22 degrees Fahrenheit (-30 degrees Celsius), with a bitter wind whipping the air. Even more bitter was their sighting of the Norwegian flag. Amundsen had reached the pole thirty-four days earlier. Scott wrote in his diary,

The Pole. Yes, but under different circumstances from those expected. We have had a horrible day . . . Good God! This is an awful place and terrible enough for us to have laboured to it without the reward of priority.

On the return trip to base camp, the five men had trouble finding the path they had taken. Scott had marked his supply depots poorly. On February 11, amid a raging blizzard, the members of the party became lost


in a series of ice ridges while making their way down Beardmore Glacier. When the weather cleared briefly, Scott stopped to collect geological speci-mens, when he should have forged ahead.

Just before running out of food, the men finally found a supply de-pot. But on February 17, Evans died from complications resulting from a concussion. Then in mid-March, Oates wandered from his tent and never returned.

The expedition party now consisted of Scott, Wilson, and Bowers, who soon found themselves trapped in a blizzard with their food supply dwin-dling. The three men set up a tent on March 21 and lay down to await death. The last of them, perhaps Bowers or Scott, died some eight days later. Their bodies were found on the Ross Ice Shelf on November 12, 1912, a mere 11 miles (18 kilometers) from a supply depot but with at least 130 miles (210 kilometers) still between them and the base camp.

In his diary, which was discovered with his body, Scott left a departing statement:

The causes of the disaster are not due to faulty organization but to misfor-tune in all risks which had to be undertaken. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last.

In truth, although the elements played an important role in what hap-pened, Scott’s preparation and planning paled in comparison to those of Amundsen. His supply depots were too few, too small, and too far apart. He relied too much on man-hauling, when dogsledding would have been more efficient and less exhausting. And he failed to leave clear instructions with the expedition members left behind at the base camp about what to do should he be delayed on the return trip. Irregardless of such mistakes in judgment and the expedition’s failure to reach the Pole first, the real tragedy was the loss of life, despite their heroic efforts, of Scott and his four fellow explorers.

Further ReadingBaughman, T.H. Pilgrims on the Ice: Robert Falcon Scott’s First Antarctic

Expedition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.Crane, David. Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy. New York:

Vintage Books, 2007.Huntford, Roland. Scott and Amundsen: The Race to the South Pole. New York:

Atheneum, 1984.Jones, Max. The Last Great Quest: Captain Scott’s Antarctic Sacrifice. New York:

Oxford University Press, 2003.

See also: Amundsen, Roald; Antarctica.


SHACKLETON, ERNEST 18741922

Anglo-Irish explorer Ernest Shackleton was one of the preeminent figures of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, known for his bravery in lead-ing his stranded men to safety during a scientific expedition in 1914–1917 that failed to reach the South Pole.

Shackleton was born on February 15, 1874, in County Kildare, Ireland, to Henry Shackleton, a farmer, and Henrietta Letitia Sophia Gavan. When Ernest still was a child, his father quit farming to train for a career in med-icine at Trinity College in Dublin. In 1884, Henry moved the family to Sydenham, now part of London, where he worked as a doctor.

Ernest loved to read and, after receiving schooling at home, at age thir-teen he entered Dulwich College, a top public school for boys. He found school to be boring, however, and earned only mediocre grades. At age six-teen, he decided to apprentice on a sailing ship, the Hoghton Tower, operated by the North Western Shipping Company.

Discovery Expedition with Robert Falcon Scott

Enamored of seafaring and seeking the kind of adventure he had read about in books, Shackleton thrilled at the chance to sail around the world. After four years at sea, he passed the exam required to become a first mate. By 1898, he had been certified as a master mariner, which meant he could com-mand a British ship anywhere in the world.

1874: Born on February 15 in County Kildare, Ireland1898: Is certified as a master mariner, which qualifies him to command a

British ship1901: Sails for Antarctica as part of Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery

Expedition1909: On the Nimrod expedition, comes within about 110 miles (175

kilometers) of the South Pole on January 9, the closest approach by any explorer to date; is knighted in November

1915: Reaches Antarctica aboard the Endurance in attempt to journey across the continent; the ship is trapped in ice and the men are forced to abandon it

1916: On May 10, reaches South Georgia Island with two other men on a mission to rescue the Endurance crew

1920: Plans the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition to circumnavigate Antarctica

1922: Dies of a heart attack on South Georgia Island on January 5


The following year, Shackleton was hired by the Union-Castle Line to operate a passenger ship between Southampton in England and Cape Town in South Africa. With the outbreak of the Boer War (1899–1902) in southern Africa that October, he commanded a troop ship for Britain.

It was at this time that Shackleton met Cedric Longstaff, an army lieu-tenant whose father was helping to finance the British National Antarctic Expedition, known as the Discovery Expedition after its ship. Through this connection and thanks to the impression he made on Clements Markham, an explorer who was overseeing the expedition as president of the Royal Geographic Society, Shackleton was appointed to the Discovery as third of-ficer. The appointment brought him one step closer to realizing a dream he had once had, which he related to a reporter:

[S]trangely enough, the circumstance which actually determined me to become an explorer was a dream I had when I was twenty-two. We were beating out from New York to Gibraltar, and I dreamt I was standing on the bridge in mid-Atlantic and looking northward. It was a simple dream. I seemed to vow to myself that some day I would go to the region of ice and snow and go on and on till I came to one of the poles of the earth, the end of the axis upon which this great round ball turns.

Under the leadership of Robert Falcon Scott, the Discovery Expedition left London on July 31, 1901. The explorers stopped at Cape Town before proceeding to New Zealand and reaching Antarctica in early January 1902.

With scientists Edward Wilson and Hartley Ferrar, Shackleton sledded from McMurdo Sound to the Great Ice Barrier. Scott then chose Shackleton and Wilson to join him on an exploratory probe toward the South Pole. The team departed on November 2, 1902, and eventually reached as far south as latitude 82º 17', about 500 miles (800 kilometers) north of the pole. Fighting frostbite, snow blindness, and scurvy, the party trudged its way back to the Discovery by February 4.

The journey greatly weakened Shackleton, whose scurvy caused him to spit up blood, and Scott sent him back to England on a relief ship. Some historians have claimed, inconclusively, that Scott removed Shackleton from the expedition because he was popular with fellow crewmen and thereby posed a challenge to Scott’s leadership.

Voyage of the Nimrod

Upon his return to England, Shackleton worked briefly as a reporter for Royal Magazine. In January 1904, he became a secretary of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society.


By that time, he had already begun his campaign to lead a return ex-pedition to Antarctica, raising money and then presenting a proposal to London’s Royal Geographical Society for reaching the South Pole. He laid out his plan in the March 1907 edition of the Geographical Journal. He would employ three separate parties. He wrote,

One party will go east, and, if possible, across the Barrier to the new land known as King Edward VII Land, follow the coastline there south, if the coast trends south, or north if north, returning when it is considered neces-sary to do so. The second party will proceed south over the same route as that of the southern sledge-party of the Discovery; this party will keep from fifteen to twenty miles [24 to 32 kilometers] from the coast, so as to avoid rough ice. The third party will possibly proceed westward over the mountains and, instead of crossing in a line due west, will strike towards the magnetic Pole.

Shackleton made no bones about his priorities, adding,

I do not intend to sacrifice the scientific utility of the expedition to a mere record-breaking journey, but say frankly, all the same, that one of my great ef-forts will be to reach the southern geographical Pole. I shall in no way neglect to continue the biological, meteorological, geological, and magnetic work of the Discovery.

The Nimrod left Lyttelton Harbor in New Zealand, bound for Antarctica, on January 1, 1908. Three weeks later, Shackleton and his crew reached Great Barrier Inlet near the Ross Ice Shelf. Seeing numerous whales at the location, he renamed it the Bay of Whales.

In early February, Shackleton established a settlement at Cape Royds, not far north of where the Discovery had been based at McMurdo Sound. At the lodging site built by the crew, meteorologist Jameson Adams set up equipment to measure air temperature, wind speed and direction, and water evaporation. On a nearby ridge, Adams measured wind speeds in excess of 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour. Biologist James Murray built a sled to lower beneath the ice and drag along with a bucket attached to it to collect small fish and other marine animals. Other crew members studied the local geology and the aurora.

Shackleton, along with Adams, Eric Marshall, and Frank Wild, de-parted base camp on October 29, 1908, in an attempt to reach the South Pole. By January 2, 1909, however, they had neared exhaustion. Shackleton wrote in his journal,

I cannot think of failure yet. I must look at the matter sensibly and consider the lives of those who are with me. . . . Man can only do his best.


Two days later, he wrote,

The end is in sight. We can only go for three more days at the most, for we are weakening rapidly.

Finally, on January 9, stopped by a raging blizzard, the expedition members marked their farthest assault by planting the Union Jack and a brass cylinder containing documents. They had reached 88º 23' south lati-tude, which was about 110 miles (175 kilometers) from the pole, by far the closest anyone had yet come. The men nearly starved to death on their re - turn to base camp. Shortly after their arrival, the Nimrod sailed for England.

Despite their failure to reach the South Pole, the members of the expedition were hailed as heroes upon reaching home. Other achievements by members of the team included the first ascent of Mount Erebus and reaching the South Magnetic Pole.

Within months of his return in 1909, Shackleton published a book about the expedition, The Heart of the Antarctic. He received a gold medal from the Royal Geographic Society and was knighted by King Edward VII.

Voyage of the Endurance

In the months that followed, Shackleton undertook a succession of busi-ness ventures that proved largely unfruitful, earning his livelihood with a heavy schedule of lectures about the Nimrod Expedition. All the while, he harbored a desire to return south.

Members of Ernest Shackleton’s Antarctic odyssey of 1914–1916 pull an open whaleboat across the snow. Shackleton and fiveothers sailed just such a vessel 1,200 miles (1,900 kilo-meters) across icyseas to save them-selves and other members of the expedition. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


Two events in particular influenced Shackleton’s plans for another journey to Antarctica. In December 1911, Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole, ending any hope Shackleton had of making it there first. Then, in early 1912, German explorer Wilhelm Filchner failed in his attempt to make a continental crossing of Antarctica, because an iceberg split apart and made it impossible for him to establish a base. Shackleton resolved to accomplish the continental crossing based on plans devised by Scottish explorer William Speirs Bruce.

E N D U R A N C E

Ernest Shackleton’s three-masted Endurance, said to be the strongest wooden ship built to date, heels to port, after becoming trapped in ice in the Weddell Sea of Antarctica. It sank there in November 1915. (Rue des Archives/Granger Collection, New York)


Shackleton dubbed his journey the Imperial Trans-Antarctica Expedition. He employed two ships: the Endurance, from which he and five other men planned to cross Antarctica starting at Vahsel Bay, and the Aurora, which was to be stationed about 1,800 miles (2,900 kilometers) away, on the opposite end of the continent at McMurdo Sound. The expe-dition was financed mainly by private funds, with some monies contributed by the British government.

Shackleton’s mission ran into trouble from the start. The Endurance reached Antarctica at the Weddell Sea in January 1915, but it promptly became entrapped in ice. Pressure from the frozen mass soon damaged the hull, which began taking on water in late October. The men were forced to abandon ship, and the Endurance sank about a month later.

For weeks, Shackleton and his colleagues camped on ice floes, hop-ing they would drift to safety at Paulet Island, where a supply cache was located. In early April 1916, however, the floe on which they had settled broke apart, and the men were forced to take to their lifeboats. Five days later, they reached Elephant Island, a deserted outcropping in the Southern Ocean. From there, it was decided that Shackleton and four other men would set sail for South Georgia Island and arrange for the rescue of those left behind.

The small party left Elephant Island in April 1916 aboard one of the expedition’s open lifeboats, the James Caird (named for the mission’s chief sponsor), which had been substantially refitted and strengthened by ship’s carpenter Henry McNish. Shackleton and his team took with them four weeks’ worth of food. “For if we did not make South Georgia in that time,” he wrote, “we were sure to go under.”

The men sailed for fifteen days, during which the James Caird nearly capsized and illness brought two of the men close to death. One of the party later wrote,

It might be said that [Shackleton] kept a finger on each man’s pulse. When-ever he noticed that a man seemed extra cold and shivered, he would im-mediately order another hot drink of milk be prepared and served to all. He never let the man know that it was on his account, lest he become nervous about himself.

Finally, on May 8—after 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) at sea—the five men came within sight of South Georgia Island. A ferocious gale nearly hammered the boat against the shore, and roiling water tore open parts of the hull. “I think most of us had a feeling that the end was very near,” wrote Shackleton. Two day later, however, the James Caird reached shore safely. The men disembarked, staggered to a nearby stream, and fell to their knees to drink.


Yet another arduous journey awaited them, for they had landed far from any human settlement on the island. Rather than take to the sea again in search of the South Georgia whaling station, at Stromness, Shackleton sent two of the men, Frank Worsley and Tom Crean, across the island on foot. For thirty-six hours, Worsley and Crean labored across mountainous terrain and glacial mud, reaching the station on May 9.

A boat was dispatched to pick up the three other men, and Shackleton promptly began planning a mission to rescue the twenty-two men still on Elephant Island. After three unsuccessful attempts, foiled by sea ice, the mission was accomplished with the help of a small tug, the Yelcho, on loan from the Chilean navy. The crew of the Endurance was saved.

In May 1917, Shackleton returned to England, which was in the midst of World War I. Volunteering his services, he was sent to South America that October as a goodwill ambassador and diplomat. Not having been in foreign service, however, he proved unsuccessful at persuading the Argentine and Chilean governments to side with the Allies in the conflict. He returned home in May 1918.

By 1920, Shackleton was planning another expedition to Antarctica, this time with the goal of circumnavigating the continent. He obtained financing from John Quiller Rowett, a wealthy businessman and patron of science, for what was designated the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition. Shackleton, however, had been drinking heavily and was suffering from heart problems. In fact, he had suffered a heart attack in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but refused medical treatment.

A refitted Norwegian whaling ship, the Quest, was purchased for the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition. The Quest reached South Georgia Island on January 4, 1922. Shackleton summoned the ship’s doctor early the next morning. He suffered another heart attack and died shortly thereafter.

At the request of his wife, Emily, Shackleton was buried on March 5, 1922, on South Georgia Island. He had once written: “Sometimes I think I am no good at anything but being away in the wilds just with men.”

Further ReadingAlexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic

Expedition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.Huntford, Roland. Shackleton. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1998.Plimpton, George. Ernest Shackleton. New York: DK, 2003.

See also: Antarctica; Royal Geographical Society; Scott, Robert Falcon.


SOCIETY OF WOMAN GEOGRAPHERS

The Society of Woman Geographers (SWG) was founded in 1925 to bring together women who took part in world exploration; were interested in geography, anthropology, or related fields; and had “done distinctive work [that] added to the world’s knowledge.” Established in New York City, the society first organized chapters in New York and Washington, D.C., and then expanded to Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

A nonprofit professional society and social organization, SWG was es-tablished at a time when women were excluded from the most prestigious exploration and research societies, and indeed from many scientific orga-nizations and institutions. For decades, women had been barred from the most prominent geographical associations, such as the Royal Geographical Society in London (though it began admitting women in 1913) and the Explorers Club in New York (which maintained its ban until 1981). It was in response to such exclusion that four friends in New York, all of whom had traveled and written extensively—Marguerite Harrison, Blair Niles, Gertrude Emerson Sen, and Gertrude Mathews Shelby—decided to begin the society.

Harrison was a reporter and travel writer who became a spy for the United States in 1918. She expected to begin an assignment with U.S. military intelligence in Germany, but the war ended before she could do so. During the early 1920s, she served as a spy in Japan, China, and Russia, where she gathered information on the Bolshevik Revolution.

Blair Niles—the pen name of Mary Blair Rice—was a novelist and travel writer who had written about her life among native peoples in Mexico and South America. In 1926, she visited Devil’s Island, the French penal colony off the coast of French Guiana, and recorded the life of one of its prisoners. The resulting book, Condemned to Devil’s Island (1928), was an international best seller that prompted prison reform.

Gertrude Emerson Sen, an expert on Asia, eventually settled in India and reported on its culture. And Gertrude Mathews Shelby engaged in eth-nographic research, including the study of African languages in America.

Harriet Chalmers Adams was named the SWG’s first president in 1925, and she served in that position for eight years. Adams was an

1925: The society is founded in New York City; Harriet Chalmers Adams becomes the organization’s first president

1930: The society presents its first medal, to aviator Amelia Earhart1984: Astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan carries the society’s flag as a member of the

space shuttle Challenger crew


American explorer, writer, and photographer who traveled extensively in South America, Asia, and the South Pacific and published accounts of her journeys in National Geographic magazine.

In 1930, the society presented its first gold medal (for a contribution of “major significance”) to aviator Amelia Earhart, who had become the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean two years before. Other early SWG members included first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, photographer Margaret Bourke-White, mountain climber Annie Peck, and anthropolo-gist Margaret Mead.

Membership in the society is gained through nomination and election. Active members are individuals who have conducted research and fieldwork; are prominent in their disciplines; specialize in a particular geographic area; and have recorded their work in books, articles, films, photographs, or art. Associate members are frequent travelers who have made contributions to geographic education, research, and exploration but have not recorded their findings in permanent form.

Although members share a strong interest in geography and explora-tion, their pursuits are diverse. Those elected to the SWG have included anthropologists, ethnologists, explorers, mountain climbers, big-game hunters, environmentalists, aviators, artists, journalists, photographers, li-brarians, and archivists.

Today, the Society of Woman Geographers has approximately 500 members. Its headquarters in Washington, D.C., also is the site of a library, archive, and museum of works by members. As opposed to formal organ-ization activities, the SWG emphasizes “personal association and inter-change of ideas” among members.

In addition to its Gold Medal, awarded periodically to women of special accomplishment in their field, the society regularly bestows an Outstanding Achievement Award (for a contribution of “lasting benefit to Science, the Arts, or Humanity”) and designates “Flag Carriers” to bring the SWG banner on expeditions of distinction. For example, astronaut Kathryn D. Sullivan was chosen to carry the society’s flag as a member of the space shuttle Challenger crew in 1984.

Further ReadingAnema, Durlynn. Harriet Chalmers Adams: Adventurer and Explorer. Aurora,

CO: National Writers Press, 2004.Olds, Elizabeth. Women of the Four Winds. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.Society of Woman Geographers. http://www.iswg.org.

See also: Explorers Club.


SPACE EXPLORATION, MANNED

The first nations to launch humans into space, the Soviet Union and the United States, did so as much—or more—to gain political and military advantage in the cold war as for scientific reasons. The early missions, in the 1960s, consisted of suborbital and orbital flights around the Earth that led, on the part of the United States, to the landing of men on the Moon.

With the end of the cold war and the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia continued to send people into space on a regular basis, as did the United States. China began human space flight in 2003.

From the outset, space flights have been more than propaganda stunts. They have contributed significantly to knowledge of the Moon and other celestial bodies; they have expanded greatly the information needed for humans to function more effectively in space; and they have contributed directly to scientific knowledge pertaining to the Earth’s environment, hu-man life, and supporting technologies.

1961: Soviet Yuri Gagarin reaches outer space and orbits Earth aboard Vostok 1, April 12; Alan Shepard is first American in space, aboard the Freedom 7, May 5

1962: John Glenn makes the first manned orbital flight of Earth for the United States, on the Friendship 7

1963: Soviet Valentina Tereshkova, aboard Vostok 6, is the first woman in space1965: Soviet Alexei Leonov walks in space, March 18; the United States launches its

first manned Gemini space capsule1968: The United States launches its first manned Apollo flight; Apollo 8 orbits the

Moon1969: The Soviet Union docks space capsules Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5, and men transfer

between them, January 14–15; American Neil Armstrong sets foot on the Moon, July 20

1971: The Soviet Union launches the Salyut 1 orbiting space laboratory1975: Historic joint space mission begins when Apollo 18 docks with Soyuz 191981: The United States launches its first space shuttle, Columbia1998: The International Space Station, developed by the United States, Russia, Japan,

Canada, and the European Space Agency, is assembled in orbit2003: The People’s Republic of China launches into space its first astronaut, aboard

the Shenzhou 5 capsule; the spacecraft makes fourteen orbits of Earth2009: U.S. space shuttle Endeavour carries seven astronauts to the International Space

Station, setting a record for the most people in the same space vehicle at the same time: thirteen


First Humans in Space

After a decade or more of rocket testing, artificial satellite missions, and even the launching into space of a stray Russian dog (Laika, aboard Sputnik 2 in 1957), the era of human space flight began on April 12, 1961, when Soviet air force Colonel Yuri Gagarin was hoisted out of the Earth’s atmo-sphere from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. He was aboard the Vostok 1 space capsule designed by rocket scientist Sergey Pavlovich Korolyov. Gagarin completed a single orbit of the Earth, reentered the at-mosphere, ejected himself from the capsule, and parachuted to the ground in the Saratov Oblast in southeastern Russia. Gagarin was one of twenty original cosmonauts, six of whom were trained for early space flight at Zvezdny Gorodok, or Star Town, near Moscow. Gagarin’s mission had been preceded by several flights that had carried a dummy, Laika, or nothing.

Gagarin was chosen for the historic flight just four days before its launch. Vostok 1 circled the Earth at an altitude of 112 to 203 miles (180 to 326 kilometers) for one hour and forty-eight minutes. It traveled at a speed of 5 miles (8 kilometers) per second. Although a last-minute glitch in the firing of the reentry rockets nearly doomed the flight, the Soviet space program received worldwide acclaim for its accomplishment and enjoyed a major propaganda boost in its competition with the United States.

Barely four months later, on August 6, the Soviets followed up Gagarin’s mission with a seventeen-orbit flight by cosmonaut Gherman Titov aboard Vostok 2. Once again, problems beset the spacecraft. The capsule’s heating system ceased functioning, resulting in a frigid interior

and a disoriented cosmonaut. Nevertheless, the mission rein-forced Soviet prowess in human space exploration.

During this time, the Unit-ed States had been pursuing Project Mercury (1959–1963) to send men into space. The project was under the direction of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). As a result of the Soviet success with Gagarin, NASA decided to move up its first flight, a suborbital mis-sion to be undertaken by Alan Shepard, one of the program’s seven original astronauts, cho-

The age of manned space exploration began on April 12, 1961, with the 108-minute flight of Vostok 1, which car-ried Soviet cosmo-naut Yuri Gagarin on a single Earth orbit. (Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images)


sen for training in 1959. Shepard flew on May 5, 1961, aboard a Mercury capsule dubbed Freedom 7. He was lifted into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida, by a Redstone rocket.

The flight lasted a mere fifteen minutes, during which Shepard barely had time to experience weightlessness. Still, the mission achieved its goal of proving that NASA could launch a man into space and that the capsule would work. Three weeks later, in a historic address to Congress, President John F. Kennedy committed the United States to “landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade.

The United States launched a second suborbital flight on July 21, 1961, carrying another member of the Mercury Seven, Virgil “Gus” Grissom. The mission was another success for NASA, even though the door to the capsule, Liberty Bell 7, opened prematurely upon landing in the Atlantic, nearly drowning Grissom. The Liberty Bell 7 was lost at sea, but America celebrated another manned space flight.

The first manned orbital flight for the United States took place on February 20, 1962, with John Glenn aboard the Friendship 7, launched from Cape Canaveral by an Atlas rocket. Glenn circled the Earth three times on a flight that lasted some five hours. The mission included a few glitches, including a faulty automatic orientation system that forced Glenn to revert to manual control, and concern upon reentry that the capsule’s heat shield was loose, a potentially fatal problem. But the capsule splashed down safely, and the mission demonstrated the capability and promise of the American space program at a time when the Soviets seemed to be dominating the headlines.

The six manned flights of Project Mercury produced little in the way of pure scientific knowledge, as they included few true experiments. They were intended mainly to test the effects of space travel on humans and to advance flight capabilities so that future astronauts could be sent to the Moon.

The Soviets, meanwhile, achieved another historic first in June 1963, when they sent the first woman into space. Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova flew aboard Vostok 6.

About two years later, on March 18, 1965, a pair of cosmonauts were sent aloft in the Voskhod 2 capsule equipped with a collapsible airlock, which allowed pilot Alexei Leonov, attached to a 17-foot (5-meter) tether, to engage in the first-ever space walk. The extravehicular activity (EVA) lasted nearly twenty minutes.

Project Gemini

NASA made the transition to a two-person space capsule with Project Gemini (1965–1966). The broad goal of this program was to develop the capabilities and technologies necessary for advanced space flight.


The first manned mission in the program, Gemini 3, took place on March 23, 1965, with astronauts Grissom and John Young making three Earth orbits. Gemini 4, on June 3, featured a flight time of nearly eighteen hours (sixty-six orbits) and the first space walk by a U.S. astronaut, Edward White. For twenty-three minutes, White propelled himself in space while tethered to the capsule and using a hand-held maneuvering gun, which fired short bursts of gas.

The Gemini program included many more scientific experiments than had been undertaken in Project Mercury. In 1963, NASA began soliciting research proposals through its Office of Space Sciences and Office of Manned Space Flight. The Manned Space Flight Board, cre-ated in 1964, decided which experiments would be performed on which missions. (The procedure would be continued with Gemini’s successor, Project Apollo.)

One approved experiment explored the possibility of radiation dam-age to human cells, certainly a concern for any space flight of long dura-tion. Human blood samples, sealed in an aluminum box, were exposed to a precise amount of radiation in zero gravity and chromosomal ab-errations then studied. Another experiment examined how cells might be affected by near weightlessness. The eggs of a sea urchin were fertil-ized, and changes brought about by low gravity were observed as the eggs developed.

Among other highlights of the Gemini program were the 220 orbits and 330 hours in space recorded by Gemini 7 astronauts Frank Borman and James Lovell in December 1965; the first rendezvous in space, when Gemini 6 (with Walter “Wally” Schirra and Thomas Stafford on board) and Gemini 7 closed to within 1 foot (.3 meters) of each other on December 15; and the first retrieval of an object (a test package) in space by Michael Collins and John Young on Gemini 10 in July 1966.

Project Apollo and Project Soyuz

The program to fulfill President Kennedy’s vision and land a man on the Moon—Project Apollo—was being planned and tested even before the last Gemini flight in November 1966. NASA weighed two options for accom-plishing the goal. One was to assemble a large craft in space and send it to the Moon from there. The other was to launch a capsule, or command module, that would carry a smaller lunar lander into space; pilot the com-bined vehicles into Moon orbit; separate the lander from the capsule for a descent to the Moon’s surface; then return the lander to the command module for the flight back to Earth. NASA decided on the second option, using a three-person capsule to be launched from Earth atop a powerful Saturn V rocket.


The Soviets also had resolved to send men to the Moon and had devel-oped a strategy similar to NASA’s. The Soviet plan, however, entailed more cumbersome maneuvers for the capsule and the Moon craft, and the overall effort was beset by problems. U.S. intelligence analysts reported as early as 1965 that the Soviets had fallen behind in the race to the Moon and that the Russian program was proving “unsuccessful.”

In 1966, with Project Gemini in full swing, NASA readied its first Apollo capsule for a test flight around the Earth. In the rush to meet its deadline, however, NASA apparently accepted a faulty command module, which was beset by technical problems; several last-minute alterations were needed.

Tragedy struck on January 27, when Apollo 1 astronauts Grissom, White, and Roger Chaffee were training in the command module. A fire erupted, and the flames spread rapidly in the pure-oxygen environment. The three astronauts had difficulty opening the hatch and suffocated in the fumes. The cause of the fire never was ascertained definitively, but it was believed to have been started by an electrical short circuit. As a result of the incident, NASA redesigned the capsule’s hatch and ended the use of a pure-oxygen environment on the ground. It was another two years before a modified command module was readied and Project Apollo resumed.

Meanwhile, the Soviet manned-space program, Soyuz, continued to flounder. Russian engineers had developed a modified Soyuz capsule ca-pable of carrying two men to the Moon. In April 1967, however, the cap-sule experienced difficulties while orbiting the Earth, carrying cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. First, the automatic altitude control system failed, and then, during the descent to Earth, the capsule became caught in its para-chute lines. Soyuz 1 plummeted to Earth, killing Komarov and causing the Soviets to suspend future flights.

The United States launched its first manned Apollo flight, Apollo 7, on October 11, 1968, piloted by astronauts Schirra, Donn Eisele, and Walter Cunningham. Later that month, on October 26, 1968, the Soviets launched Soyuz 3, with cosmonaut Georgi Beregovoy aboard. The Russians intended to send two cosmonauts on a flight around the Moon in December 1968, but problems with the launch rocket forced the mission to be postponed.

The United States thus became the first nation to send men around the Moon. In December 1968, Apollo 8 astronauts Borman, Lovell, and William Anders made ten lunar orbits, broadcasting views from the com-mand module to Earth-bound television viewers on Christmas Day. Lovell observed, “The earth from here is a grand oasis in the vastness of space.”

In another key step by the Soviet Union, two manned Soyuz capsules, Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5, succeeded in docking in space in January 1969, and cosmonauts transferred between them. But a rocket failure the following month was another setback in the Soviet lunar program.


Men on the Moon

The culmination of NASA’s efforts since the agency’s founding—and the realization of President Kennedy’s dream of 1961—came with Apollo 11. Launched on July 16, 1969, its command module, Columbia. carried Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, Neil Armstrong,, and Collins, as well as a lunar landing module named Eagle.

On July 20, with Columbia in lunar orbit (piloted by Collins), Armstrong and Aldrin transferred into the lander, released it from the command mod-ule, and descended to the surface of the Moon. “Tranquility Base here,” ra-dioed Armstrong. “The Eagle has landed.”

Then Armstrong slowly backed down the Eagle’s ladder and set foot onto the powdery lunar terrain at 10:56 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Upon stepping onto the surface, Armstrong uttered the historic statement he had prepared before the mission began: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” (Armstrong made a small error in the line he had prac-ticed. He had intended to say, “That’s one small step for a man . . .”)

People around the world watched a grainy television image of Armstrong and Aldrin, who joined him outside the lander fifteen minutes later, bounding about the Moon. The two astronauts worked for two hours and thirty-one minutes, Armstrong scooping up specimens and Aldrin hammering core tubes (cylinders used to collect soil samples) into the sur-face. They also planted a plaque and an American flag.

After spending some time in the Eagle—for a total of twenty-one hours on the Moon—the astronauts fired up the lunar lander. The Eagle and its passengers rejoined the command module the following day.

On the next Moon mission, Apollo 12, launched on November 14, 1969, astronauts Charles “Pete” Conrad and Alan Bean walked about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) around three lunar craters, while Richard Gordon remained in the command module. Conrad and Bean collected soil samples and 7 pounds (3.2 kilograms) of rocks, spending a little more than thirty-one hours on the lunar surface.

For the purpose of scientific research, astronauts on missions begin-ning with Apollo 12 and continuing through Apollo 14–17 left behind a set of instruments called the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP). Using ALSEP, scientists were able to measure and assess vari-ous physical properties and phenomena, including the internal structure of the Moon (by detonating small explosives and measuring the seismic shock waves); atmospheric pressure; the behavior of charged particles; the rate at which heat flows from the Moon’s interior; the distance from the Earth to the Moon (accomplished by firing a laser at the Earth); and the properties of solar wind, lunar gravity, and the lunar magnetic field. Engineers used


signals sent from Earth to control the ALSEP system and run the various experiments. The ALSEP stations continued operating until September 1977.

The successes of the Apollo 11 and Apollo 12 missions were followed by the harrowing and nearly disastrous flight of Apollo 13, with astro-nauts Fred Haise, James Lovell, and John Swigert. The command module, Odyssey, was launched on April 11, 1970, atop a Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V’s second stage cut off too early, leaving the third stage to work harder; however, this problem was overcome.

The Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP) contained scientific instruments used in lunar-surface experiments by Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969. (Science & Society Picture Library/Getty Images)


On April 13, the Odyssey was proceeding toward the Moon when a loud bang shook the command module. There followed a sudden loss of oxygen, and the fuel cells that provided power to Odyssey began to falter.

In order to save the astronauts, NASA mission control in Houston ordered Haise, Lovell, and Swigert to activate the lunar lander, Aquarius, before the fuel cells gave out completely. This would enable them to use the guidance system necessary to go around the Moon and steer back toward Earth, while using the oxygen supply on Aquarius. At the same time, it was vital for the astronauts to conserve energy and reduce their water intake to a mere one-fifth of normal. As Odyssey limped back to Earth over the next three days, temperatures in the module dropped to 37 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius), and condensation covered the walls.

The tired and dehydrated crew made it back to Earth with a splash-down in the Pacific Ocean, and they were picked up by the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Iwo Jima. Later, a review board blamed the accident on a defective prelaunch test that had failed to detect problems with the oxygen tank fans. When Swigert had turned on the fans, a short circuit had started a fire and caused an explosion, rupturing one of the oxygen tanks and damaging another.

The incident postponed further Apollo missions for nine months. Finally, on July 26, 1971, James Irwin, David Scott, and Alfred Worden headed to the Moon aboard Apollo 15.

On the surface of the Moon, Scott and Irwin used a battery-powered rover to travel 5 miles (8 kilometers) and to investigate the Hadley Rille landing site, a steep, V-shaped gorge. During their eighteen hours on the Moon, the astronauts scooped up soil, took core tube samples, and collected rocks, including the first green Moon rocks and a white crystalline rock.

On Apollo 16, launched on April 16, 1972, Thomas Mattingly and John Young (with Charles Duke piloting the command module) used a lunar rover to travel more than 16 miles (26 kilometers) on the Moon’s surface, exploring mountains and craters. They also collected 213 pounds (97 kilo-grams) of soil and rocks.

The final manned Moon mission, Apollo 17, was carried out in December 1972. With Ronald Evans in the command module, Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt explored the surface in three separate excur-sions. They drove the lunar rover a record 21 miles (34 kilometers) and set another record by staying on the ground for seventy-five hours at one time.

Early Space Stations

Meanwhile, the continued failure of the Soviets’ N-1 launch rocket caused them to drop their plans for a manned Moon mission and instead focus on


building a space station to orbit the Earth. In April 1971, the Soviet Union launched the Salyut 1 space station, the first in a series of Earth-orbiting research facilities.

In June of that year, cosmonauts Georgi Dobrovolsky, Viktor Patsayev, and Vladislav Volkov succeeded in docking their Soyuz 11 capsule with Salyut. They stayed aboard the space station for four weeks, during which they monitored the Earth’s surface and atmosphere, conducted biomedi-cal experiments, observed distant stars, and tended the first space garden. Troubles with the station’s operating system forced the cosmonauts to leave earlier than planned, and their capsule lost its oxygen supply on the descent to Earth. All three men died.

The United States launched its own space station, Skylab 1, on May 14, 1973, but it too encountered problems. A failure of the space station’s solar panels caused the cooling system to malfunction and the temperature inside the station to rise too high.

The first of three crews to visit Skylab—Charles Conrad, Joseph Kerwin, and Paul Weitz—lifted off eleven days later. Guided by NASA engineers, they made the necessary repairs: They attached an external para-sol to cool down the space station, fixed one of the solar panels, and restored power to the batteries. The mission continued for a total of twenty-eight days in space and 404 Earth orbits. During that time, the astronauts took 7,000 photos of the Earth and 30,000 of the Sun.

Three times larger than Salyut, Skylab included a dining room and ex-ercise machines for the well-being of astronauts on extended stays. The last crew to arrive at Skylab, in November 1973, spent a record eighty-four days in space. During their stay, the three astronauts—Gerald Carr, Edward Gibson, and William Pogue—engaged in a series of medical experiments and, using a telescope, took the first photographs of the birth of a solar flare.

The year 1975 brought a historic first in space exploration—and cold war cooperation—as the United States and the Soviet Union undertook a joint mission of docking Apollo 18 and Soyuz 19 with each other on July 17. The American crew consisted of Vance Brand, Donald “Deke” Slayton, and Thomas Stafford. The Soviet crew consisted of Valeri Kubasov and Alexei Leonov. After docking, Slayton and Stafford entered the Soyuz spacecraft. Later, Leonov entered the Apollo capsule, where the astronauts engaged in joint astronomical observations and took photographs of the Earth. The Soviets launched a total of nine Salyut space stations between 1971 and 1982.

The next generation of Soviet space stations, called Mir, began with a launch in February 1986. Modular in design and construction, Mir was larger than its predecessor. With special welding techniques developed for outer space, Mir was enlarged further over the next ten years. Intended


as a long-term research base, Mir became the first consistently inhabited space facility. Soviet scientist-cosmonauts engaged in a wide variety of experiments and astrophysical observations, including the detection of a supernova.

In 1993, the United States and Russia agreed on another, more sus-tained joint project, working to establish an International Space Station with Mir as a training ground. U.S. space shuttles transported supplies to Mir, where American astronauts took up occupancy.

In 1995, a series of launches by the United States and the Soviet Union carried astronauts and cosmonauts to Mir. In one instance, Norman Thagard flew with two cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz TM-21. This made him the first American astronaut to fly aboard a Russian spacecraft. Mir remained in operation until March 2001, when it was deemed antiquated and was sent into a lower orbit so it could break up over the South Pacific. In all, the station was occupied for more than twelve of its fifteen years and was visited by astronauts from thirteen different nations.

The Space Shuttle

As the Apollo Project was drawing to a close in 1972, the United States began development of a reusable space shuttle—a major change from the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo capsules. “All of a sudden,” said one member of the astronaut corps, “we had tires, we had wheels, and we had wings, and we had elevons and control surfaces and payload bay doors.”

After repeated delays, the space shuttle Columbia was launched on April 12, 1981, with a two-man test crew of Crippen and Young. Strapped to rocket boosters during liftoff, the shuttle lost sixteen of its thermal tiles—surface material to protect the spacecraft from the intense heat of reentry. NASA engineers determined that the damage did not risk the safe return of the crew, and Columbia orbited the Earth thirty-six times before landing airplane-style at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

NASA called the space shuttle the “space transportation system,” or STS. The shuttle’s original purpose was to carry material and supplies for a new space station similar in design to Skylab. When plans for the space station were suspended, the shuttle program was reoriented for scientific experimentation and the launching of satellites. Because the shuttle’s or-bit was too low for most satellites to be released from its cargo bay, rocket boosters were used.

In November 1982, two communications satellites were launched from Columbia on mission STS-5. This was the shuttle’s first operational mis-sion; the preceding flights had been tests of the worthiness of the spacecraft. It carried a four-man crew.


In June 1983, as part of STS-7, Sally Ride, aboard the space shuttle Challenger, became the first U.S. woman to travel into space. The crew also included two physicians, who conducted biomedical experiments to gath-er information about space sickness. In its cargo bay on mission STS-9, launched in November 1983, Challenger carried Spacelab, a reusable work-shop and research laboratory used on board the shuttle. More than seventy experiments in life science, space physics, materials technology, and other fields were carried out in Spacelab.

NASA planned to launch fifteen shuttle missions in 1986 and hoped to begin launching thirty per year in 1988. Critics claimed that NASA was emphasizing speed over safety and public relations over a more slow-paced and carefully planned scientific program.

On January 28, 1986, Challenger inexplicably exploded seventy-three seconds after launch, killing all seven astronauts aboard, including the first schoolteacher chosen for a spaceflight, Christa McAuliffe.

Investigators later found that faulty seals on the solid-fuel rocket boost-ers had allowed flames to emerge from one side and penetrate the giant external fuel tank. (The external fuel tank was strapped beneath the shuttle, and attached to the sides of the tank were two solid rocket boosters.) The intense heat compromised a strut holding one of the boosters to the tank, causing the strut to break loose. This, in turn, caused the nose of the booster to shift and pierce the fuel tank. Hydrogen and oxygen poured out of the tank and created a fireball, which caused the shuttle to explode into tiny pieces that plunged into the Atlantic Ocean.

The U.S. space shuttle Endeavour carries components of the Japanese Experiment Module ( JEM, or Kibo) to the International Space Station in 2009. JEM is used for research in space medicine, bio-technology, physics, materials technology, and communica-tions. (NASA/ Getty Images)


After the accident, no shuttles were flown for thirty-two months. A number of improvements were made to the entire shuttle fleet, and the shuttle flight program resumed with the successful mission of Discovery, STS-26, in September 1988.

Achievements of the shuttle program have included the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope from Discovery in April 1990 (STS-31); of the Ulysses solar probe, built by the European Space Agency, from Discovery in October 1990 (STS-41); of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory from the Atlantis in April 1991 (STS-37); and of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite to measure atmospheric pollution, from Discovery in September 1991 (STS-48). The space shuttle program also has launched a number of communications satellites for private corporations and spy satel-lites for U.S. intelligence agencies.

In addition, the space shuttle program has provided an important venue for core scientific research, especially on Spacelab. For example, Life Sciences 1 mission in June 1991 was the first exclusively dedicated to studying the effects of weightlessness on humans and other living organisms, analyzing how the muscles of rats change in the outer space environment.

The shuttle program suffered its second major disaster on February 1, 2003, when Columbia disintegrated over Texas as it was reentering the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven crew members were killed. The breakup of the shuttle resulted from an incident that had happened during launch. A piece of insulation foam had broken away from the shuttle’s external fuel tank, struck the leading edge of the left wing, and damaged the tiles on the shuttle’s surface that were needed to protect it from the intense heat gener-ated during reentry.

In the aftermath of this disaster, the shuttle program was suspended in-definitely. Nevertheless, President George W. Bush committed the United States to resuming space shuttle flights once they were deemed safe and using them to help complete the space station. He also pursued plans to develop a new spacecraft for travel to the Moon and to Mars.

On July 26, 2005, some ten months after the date originally targeted by NASA, the space shuttle flight program resumed as Discovery roared into space from Cape Canaveral on mission STS-114. Again, a piece of foam tore away from the fuel tank; fortunately, this one missed striking the shuttle. The mission proceeded successfully, but NASA grounded flights for another year as it addressed the foam and tile problem once more.

In May 2009, the space shuttle Atlantis carried out the fifth and final servicing mission to the Hubble Telescope (STS-125). Then, in July, the shuttle Endeavour carried supplies and equipment to the International Space Station (ISS; see below). In doing so, it set a new record for the most people in one space transportation device at the same time: thirteen astro-nauts in the orbiting station and docked shuttle, including astronauts from


Japan and Canada. Two of the astronauts conducted a space walk to install a Japanese experimental facility that housed scientific instruments, such as those to measure the ionosphere.

With the end of the space shuttle program scheduled for 2010, work and planning proceeded on the next major U.S. initiative—the Constellation program. Long-term goals of the project include developing the capabilities and technologies to open the next frontier in space, expanding operational capabilities away from Earth, and pursuing fundamental scientific research.

The Constellation program entails the development of new, more pow-erful booster rockets—designated Ares I and Ares II—and a next-gener-ation space capsule, called Orion, to take crews and cargo to the ISS. That vehicle is scheduled to be operational in 2014 or 2015. Until then, people and supplies traveling to the ISS likely will do so on Russian spacecraft or perhaps American commercial spacecraft.

The International Space Station and Beyond

The International Space Station was developed as a research facility by the space agencies of the United States, Russia, Japan, and Canada, and by the European Space Agency. Assembly of the space station began in orbit in 1998 and was scheduled to continue into the year 2011. The ISS has been occupied continuously since November 2000 and is expected to remain in use until at least 2015.

The multinational facility has been used to conduct research in biology, physics, astronomy, and meteorology. Scientists aboard the space station have studied the effects of long-term weightlessness on the human body, including muscle atrophy and bone loss, and on the internal functioning of plants and animals.

Physicists, meanwhile, have explored the question of whether fluids that do not mix well on Earth mix better in outer space. A range of experi-ments has been conducted to gain a better understanding of the structure and properties of these and other materials so they might be processed bet-ter on Earth.

Another important investigation has focused on the atmosphere, pollu-tion, and energy. A set of experiments has studied how to control fuel emis-sions and other polluting agents, contributing to the goal of clean, efficient energy on Earth. Future research will focus on the ozone and water vapor in Earth’s atmosphere, along with cosmic rays, cosmic dust, and antimatter and dark matter in the universe. The Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, sched-uled to be carried to the ISS aboard STS-134 in 2010, measures cosmic rays as part of fundamental research in particle physics.

With work on the ISS continuing, the roster of nations taking part in human space exploration has grown. The People’s Republic of China joined


the ranks of countries with human spaceflight capability on October 15, 2003, when astronaut Yang Liwei was launched aboard Shenzhou 5 and spent about twenty-one hours in space.

Several other countries and space agencies have announced or begun human spaceflight programs, among them India, Japan, Iran, Malaysia, and Turkey. As of 2009, individuals who have flown in space have hailed from nearly forty nations.

Dutch and Russian astronauts of the European Space Agency perform an experiment aboard the International Space Station in 2004. Like other visitors to the facility, the team carried out an extensive series of experiments in a variety of fields. (Getty Images)


Further ReadingBeattie, Donald A. Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the

Apollo Program. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.Bond, Peter. The Continuing Story of the International Space Station. New York:

Springer, 2002.Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts.

New York: Penguin, 2007.Chien, Philip. Columbia, Final Voyage: The Last Flight of NASA’s First Space

Shuttle. New York: Copernicus, 2006.DeGroot, Gerard. Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the

American Lunar Quest. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Hansen, James R. First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong. New York: Simon

and Schuster, 2005.Russian Federal Space Agency: http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?lang

=en.Swanson, Glen E., ed. Before This Decade Is Out: Personal Reflections on the

Apollo Program. Washington, DC: National Aeronautics and Space Administration, 1999.

Tsymbal, Nikolai, ed. First Man in Space: The Life and Achievement of Yuri Gagarin. Moscow: Progress, 1984.

U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration: http://www.nasa.gov.Wolfe, Tom. The Right Stuff. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.

SPACE EXPLORATION, UNMANNED

1946: First scientific exploration in space: the United States launches instruments mounted on a V-2 rocket to measure cosmic radiation

1957: First artificial satellite, Soviet Sputnik 1, sent into space; first dog, Laika, lifts off in Sputnik 2

1958: The United States sends its first artificial satellite, Explorer 1, into space,1959: Soviet satellite Luna 1 accomplishes the first flyby of the Moon1960: The United States launches TIROS 1, first in a series of highly successful

weather satellites1962: The United States launches Telstar 1, the first satellite to transmit television

signals1966: Soviet Luna 10, launched March 31, becomes the first satellite to orbit the

Moon; U.S. lunar probe Surveyor becomes the first spacecraft to soft-land on the Moon, June 2

1971: U.S. space probe Mariner 9 orbits Mars, discovers Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano

1975: Soviet Venera 9 orbits Venus and sends a lander to the surface


Unmanned space exploration was made possible in the second half of the twentieth century by the development of rockets capable of sending heavy payloads into space, the cold war competition for global influence between the United States and the Soviet Union, the desire to further scientific re-search and technological development, and the sheer allure of outer space.

The first Earth-orbiting satellites, developed in the late 1950s and ca-pable of little more than measuring radiation, have evolved into complex devices built to transmit television signals, detect military operations, sur-vey weather developments, measure infrared signals, inventory the Earth’s resources, and peer into deep space. In a few short decades, unmanned space exploration moved far beyond Earth’s orbit, with probes sent to the Moon, Mars, Mercury, the Sun, and Venus, and to the fringes of the solar system and beyond.

First Artificial Satellites

The first man-made object to reach outer space was a V-2 rocket, developed and utilized as a ballistic missile by Germany during World War II. The first scientific exploration in space was a cosmic radiation experiment con-ducted by the United States with devices aboard a V-2 rocket, launched in May 1946. Later that year, fruit flies became the first living beings sent into outer space, also aboard a U.S. V-2 rocket.

1986: Giotto, launched by the European Space Agency, investigates Halley’s Comet

1990: The United States launches the Hubble Telescope from the space shuttle Discovery

1995: U.S. space probe Galileo, launched by the space shuttle Atlantis, orbits Jupiter

1997: Mars Pathfinder completes a soft landing on the Martian surface and releases the rover Sojourner to investigate

2003: The United States sends Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) Spirit and Opportunity to the planet’s surface

2004: U.S. interplanetary spacecraft Cassini-Huygens begins orbiting Saturn; flies close by the moon Phoebe; releases a probe to the surface of the moon Titan

2006: The United States launches New Horizons, to study Pluto2007: China launches the Chang’e 1 orbiter to study the Moon’s geological

features2009: U.S. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter orbits and studies the Moon;

findings indicate that the Moon could contain layers of water, in the form of dirty ice, beneath its dry soil


The important advance of controlled orbital spaceflight came on October 4, 1957, with the successful launch by the Soviet Union of an ar-tificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Carried aloft by an R-7 rocket, the 184-pound (83-kilogram) satellite—about the diameter of a beach ball—orbited the Earth at an altitude of 150 miles (240 kilometers). Sputnik’s transmitters broadcast a radio signal in the form of beeps that allowed scientists to mea-sure the electron density in the ionosphere, along with the temperature and atmospheric pressure.

Barely a month later, on November 3, 1957, the Soviets followed with the launch of Sputnik 2, a larger satellite consisting of three parts: a top section containing instruments for measuring radiation; a middle section housing a radio transmitter; and a lower section that held a dog, Laika. She had undergone extensive training to acclimate to the compartment and the rigors of space travel. Laika died a week after liftoff when her supply of oxygen ran out.

The Sputnik program had grown out of an agreement between the Soviet Union and the United States to use satellites in scientific experi-

S P U T N I K 1


ments developed for the International Geophysical Year. The success of the Sputnik program, however, far exceed-ed this goal. It was an important moral and ideological victory for the Soviet Union in the cold war, allowing the Russians to portray their communist nation as being technically, education-ally, and even morally (in the sense of a society dedicated to serious rather than frivolous employment) more advanced than America’s capitalist one.

Under pressure to respond, the United States prematurely attempted to launch a test satellite aboard a Vanguard rocket in December 1957.

The rocket failed immediately upon takeoff, crashed onto the launchpad, and exploded. (Due to secrecy on the part of the Russian government, the exact number of failed Soviet launches has never been disclosed.)

Finally, on January 31, 1958, a four-stage Jupiter rocket propelled the U.S. Explorer 1 satellite into space from Cape Canaveral, Florida. During the satellite’s 111 days in space, an onboard detector discovered a belt of radiation around the Earth. It was named the Van Allen belt in honor of James Van Allen, who had designed the measuring instrument.

On May 15, 1958, the Soviets launched Sputnik 3, an orbiting geo-physical research station. Its instruments, powered, in part, by solar panels, measured meteoroids, magnetic fields, and the radiation belt. Sputnik 4 fol-lowed on May 15, 1960, carrying a Vostok space capsule intended for use in the country’s manned program. Later that year, the Soviets sent two dogs into space aboard Sputnik 5 and brought them safely back to Earth—a cru-cial step toward sending human beings into space.

However, the Soviet space program suffered a tragic setback in October 24, 1960, when an unmanned rocket exploded on launch at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, killing up to 100 workers on the ground. Another explosion at the site in June 1963 took seven lives.

Meanwhile, in July 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower created a new government agency to direct the American space initiative: the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Eisenhower’s primary purpose was twofold: to develop satellites capable of spying on the Soviet Union and to avert a communist propaganda victory by sending a man into space before the Soviets did. A well-funded federal civilian agency was deemed essential to maintaining a large-scale, competitive U.S. space program.

A stray dog named Laika paved the way for human space travel aboard the Soviet space-craft Sputnik 2 on November 3, 1957. Laika proved that a living passenger could survive the launch into space, but she later died in orbit. (AFP/Stringer/ Getty Images)


To test the effects of high-gravity acceleration and prolonged weight-lessness, critical factors for human spaceflight, on January 21, 1960, the United States launched a rhesus monkey named Little Sam into Earth or-bit. The primate was returned safely to Earth; the capsule was recovered as well. (Little Sam lived until 1982.)

In January 1961, in preparation for Alan Shepard’s historic first flight aboard a Mercury capsule in May, a chimpanzee named Ham was catapult-ed into space. Ham carried out simple maneuvers, pulling levers in response to flashing lights (as he had been trained to do on Earth) before landing unharmed sixteen minutes later. (Ham lived until 1983.)

The Soviet Sputnik 7 spacecraft, launched on February 4, 1961, and Sputnik 8, launched on February 12, 1961, carried Venera satellites that would be launched to explore Venus. Sputnik 7 proved to be a failure, but Sputnik 8 succeeded in ejecting the probe into the solar system. Sputnik 9 and Sputnik10, the Soviets’ last tests before sending cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin into space on April 12, 1961, each carried a space dummy and a dog on one Earth orbit; both missions were successful.

Television, Military, Spy, and Weather Satellites

Unmanned space exploration took an important new turn on July 10, 1962, when the United States launched Telstar 1, the first space satellite to trans-mit television signals. Designed by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), Telstar 1 was placed in an elliptical Earth orbit so that its signals could be distributed to television stations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, including ones in the United States, Great Britain, and France.

Telstar 1’s low altitude, however, limited its use to just 102 minutes per day. Moreover, the day before the satellite’s launch, the United States deto-nated a high-altitude thermonuclear bomb. The increase in radiation from that and subsequent nuclear test explosions damaged Telstar 1’s transistors, and it went permanently out of service in February 1963. Three months later, it was replaced by Telstar 2.

In 1978, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) became the first televi-sion network to use satellites to send signals to its affiliate stations. Until the 1990s, satellite television signals were too weak to be picked up on Earth except by large, parabola-shaped “dish” antennas.

Today, however, digital broadcast satellites can send signals directly to houses outfitted with antenna dishes as small as 15 inches (38 centimeters) in diameter. These satellites also can transmit hundreds of channels simul-taneously and, unlike the Telstar satellites, use geostationary orbits that keep them in a fixed position relative to the ground and thus able to operate around the clock.


Satellites also have been used by a number of countries for defense-related purposes. On November 6, 1970, the United States launched its first satellite as part of the Defense Support Program (DSP), to send data continuously to the Missile Warning Center in Colorado. Sensors aboard the satellite were designed to detect nuclear detonations and the launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Over the years, DSP satellites have undergone major improvements and enhancements. They now have more sensors, can withstand laser jam-ming, and can maneuver to escape an attacking satellite. In 1991, a DSP satellite was used to detect Iraqi ballistic missiles being launched against U.S. troops during Operation Desert Storm.

Far more elaborate was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), an elaborate antiballistic missile system—part of it based in space—proposed by President Ronald Reagan’s administration in 1983. Although the Star Wars program, as it was dubbed, never came to complete fruition (or full funding), it did serve as a starting point for ongoing research and develop-ment in space-based missile defense.

In the arena of national intelligence, the first U.S. reconnaissance (spy) satellites, code-named Corona, were launched in 1959 and 1960. The satel-lites carried a camera and sent the film back to Earth in canisters, which were retrieved in midair as they parachuted down. The Soviets launched their first successful camera-toting spy satellite, Zenit, in April 1962. Since then, hundreds of spy satellites have been used by the United States, Russia,

China, and Israel, and, jointly, by France, Spain, and Italy.

Spy satellites typically orbit the Earth at an altitude of 100 miles (160 kilome-ters). The most recent ones carry high-res-olution, multispectral digital photography systems, which take visible light and infra-red pictures. These satellites can discern objects as small as a person and can be used in battlefield situations.

Another important use of satellites is to collect data on meteorology. The satellite Explorer 6, sent aloft in August 1959, radi-oed the first pictures of clouds. The first op-erational weather satellite, launched by the United States on April 1, 1960, was called the Television and Infrared Observation Satellite, or TIROS 1. The cameras aboard TIROS 1 could record cloud patterns, but the satellite operated for only eighty-nine

Satellite television transmission and high-speed data communications began with the U.S. launch of Telstar 1 in July 1962. The multifaceted sphere, measuring 3.3 cubic feet (1 meter) in diameter, provided the first transatlantic tele vision feed. (Science & Society Picture Library/ Getty Images)


days. The Soviets launched their first weather satellite in 1962, followed by the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1977, and China in 1988.

Today, there are more than 200 weather satellites orbiting the Earth, sixty of which originated in the United States. These satellites photograph clouds; record atmospheric and water temperatures; track hurricanes; de-termine if hailstorms and tornadoes are forming; measure land and ocean wind speeds, rainfall, snow cover, and ground moisture; and map ocean currents.

Infrared, X-ray, and Remote-Sensing Satellites

Infrared satellites carry special telescopes to detect objects in space that, while too cool to produce much visible light, produce infrared light. In-frared light is a form of electromagnetic energy with wavelengths longer than those of visible light, making it invisible to the human eye.

The telescopes on infrared satellites can detect dust grains around newly forming stars, as well as gas and dust from dying stars. And because infra red telescopes can penetrate cosmic dust, they can be used to view the Milky Way and other galaxies, providing valuable information to astronomers.

The United States, in cooperation with Great Britain and the Netherlands, launched the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) in January 1983. In November 1995, the ESA sent the Infrared Space Observatory into orbit.

X-ray observatory satellites comb outer space for the source of X-rays and measure their strength, both vital information for astrophysicists. The United States launched the first such satellite, Uhuru, in 1970. It discovered X-rays pulsating from an object named Centaurus X-3 and led scientists to theorize that, because gas was being heated to millions of degrees and releasing X-ray energy, this was a neutron star absorbing gas from a neigh-boring star.

X-ray satellites also have been launched by Japan, Russia, and the ESA. In 2007, the orbiting X-ray telescopes XMM-Newton and Chandra dis-covered a pair of galaxy clusters merging into one, affirming that galaxy clusters can collide faster than previously thought.

Remote-sensing satellites carry devices designed to take images of vis i- ble and infrared electromagnetic wavelengths. These satellites also may in-clude synthetic aperture radar, which beams radio waves toward the ground and then records their reflection. Remote-sensing technology also can pen et - rate cloud cover, vegetation, and even soil. Remote-sensing satellites chart previously hidden geographical features, show how land use is changing, un-cover objects for archaeologists, measure pollution, and contribute to hurri-cane and flood relief by revealing changes brought about by such disasters.


The first satellite dedicated to remote sensing was Landsat 1, launched by the United States in 1972; the last satellite in the program, Landsat 7, was launched in 1999. The Landsat satellites, some of which are still func-tioning, photograph the Earth’s surface every sixteen days. Other such sat-ellites have been sent into space by Canada, China, Japan, Russia, and the ESA.

The Hubble Telescope

Among the most publicized and scientifically fruitful unmanned space instruments has been the Hubble Telescope, named for U.S. astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889–1953). Hubble proved that other galaxies were mov-ing away from our own Milky Way, a conclusion important to the big bang theory, which seeks to explain what happened at the beginning of the uni-verse. (According to this theory, the universe was extremely compact, dense, and hot until a cosmic explosion 10 billion to 20 billion years ago caused it to begin expanding, cooling, and taking the form we know today—a form that continues to change.)

The Hubble Tele-scope has produced astonishing photo-graphs of distant space objects—such as this column of molecular hydrogen gas and dust—and has led scientists to important new un-derstandings of the universe and astro-physical phenomena. (Science & Society Picture Library/ Getty Images)


The Hubble Telescope was launched by the United States from the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, and it orbits the Earth at an al-titude of 320 miles (515 kilometers). The telescope, whose orientation is controlled from the ground, has two cameras to record its findings.

Already late and over budget at the time of its launch, Hubble was im-mediately beset by problems. First, it was discovered that the telescope’s main mirror had been improperly designed and had to be replaced, at a cost of more than $1 billion; astronauts aboard the space shuttle Endeavour made the change during a spacewalk in early December 1993. The telescope also was serviced or repaired on subsequent shuttle missions in 1997, 1999, 2002, 2005, and 2009.

A collaboration between NASA and the ESA, Hubble includes a high-resolution spectrograph for recording ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared wavelengths, which can reveal the temperature, chemical makeup, and motion of planets, dust clouds, and stars. In addition, Hubble contains a faint-object camera designed to detect extremely distant and dim objects, and a Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) that is used to detect cool-temperature objects and those that emit infrared light.

In May 2009, astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis made several repairs to the Hubble Telescope that were expected to extend its life. The Hubble Telescope will remain in service at least until NASA launches its next-generation space observatory: the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared scanning instrument scheduled to become operational in 2013. (Webb was head of NASA from 1961 to 1968.)

The Moon

The first successful flyby of the Moon—within 3,100 miles (5,000 kilo-meters) of the surface—was accomplished by a Soviet satellite, Luna 1, in January 1959. This was followed in September by the flight of Luna 2, a satellite that became the first Earth object to strike the Moon when it was deliberately crashed into the surface east of Mare Serenitatis (the Sea of Serenity). Before its demise, Luna 2 sent back information confirming that the Moon lacks a magnetic field and radiation belts. Then, in October 1959, Luna 3 took the first hazy photographs of the dark side of the Moon.

Following several failed attempts to soft-land a satellite on the Moon, the Soviets succeeded on February 3, 1966, with Luna 9, which sent photo-graphs from the surface.

In April 1966, Luna 10 became the first satellite to orbit the Moon, providing scientific measurements—and the Soviet government with a major propaganda victory in the cold war. Luna 17 landed on the Moon in November 1970 and released an eight-wheeled rover that rode across


the surface, performed soil tests, measured X-rays, and calculated the exact distance between the Moon and the Earth.

The United States also sent space probes to the Moon as part of its Ranger and Surveyor programs. Like the Soviet Luna program, Ranger and Surveyor included failures as well as successes. The Ranger spacecraft were designed to crash on the lunar surface, and, in July 1964, Ranger 7—making the first successful flight in the program—transmitted photographs of the approaching terrain for twenty minutes before impact.

The first U.S. soft landing on the Moon was accomplished by Surveyor 1 in June 1966; this feat was replicated by Surveyors 3, 5, 6, and 7 through early 1968. Surveyor 6 was the first space vehicle to lift off the surface of the Moon as well as land on it. The Surveyor satellites that succeeded in landing took photographs and employed instruments to sample the lunar surface—providing important data that confirmed the texture of the soil would support astronauts on foot.

Another important breakthrough for the United States came in January 1998, when it placed the Lunar Prospector in low-polar orbit around the Moon, where the spacecraft remained until being intentionally crashed into the surface in July 1999. The mission yielded a detailed map of the Moon’s surface composition, along with information about the planet’s origins and resources. Scientific research on the mission also included the discov -ery of ice in the polar craters of the Moon and the mapping of its gravity field.

The United States sent the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) a round the Moon in June 2009 as part of the American Vision for Space Program. The goals of that program include sending astronauts back to the Moon as a follow-up to the lunar landing missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, creating a three-dimensional map of the Moon’s surface, and surveying lunar resources.

With the winding down of the cold war in the early 1990s, other countries began sending probes to the Moon. Japan launched its Hiten spacecraft into Earth orbit in January 1990; the Hiten, in turn, launched a smaller satellite, the Hagoromo, into lunar orbit. When the transmitter aboard the Hagoromo failed, in October 1991, Japanese space scientists suc-ceeded in redirecting the Hiten to the Moon. Eighteen months later, it was deliberately crashed on the lunar surface. In September 2007, the Japanese launched the Kaguya lunar probe, which orbited and surveyed the Moon for two years.

The People’s Republic of China joined lunar exploration by satellite in October 2007 with its Chang’e 1 orbiter, which was named for a Chinese Moon goddess. For the first mission in the Chinese Lunar Exploration Project, Chang’e 1 assembled a three-dimensional image of the Moon’s geo-


logical features, mapped the chemical elements on the surface, measured the depth of lunar soil, and studied solar wind. Chang’e 2 was scheduled for 2010 or 2011.

India’s first lunar mission came with the October 2008 launch of the Chandrayaan-1 satellite, which orbited the Moon and released an impact probe to the surface that November. The probe struck the lunar south pole in an experiment to determine whether ice was present. Among the scien-tific instruments aboard Chandrayaan-1 were a mapping camera, a spectral imager, and a gamma ray spectrometer.

The Sun and Mercury

Between 1960 and 1968, the United States sent several small unmanned space probes to orbit the Sun as part of the Pioneer program. Pioneer 5, launched in March 1960, carried high-energy particle detectors and a magnetic-field detector and measured how magnetic fields were changed by solar flares. Pioneers 6 through 9 measured the structure and flow of solar wind; the spacecraft were positioned in orbit in such a way that astronomers could use the data they collected to forecast solar storms up to two weeks before they occurred. NASA scientists remained in contact with several of the Pioneer probes into the early 1990s, and with Pioneer 6 until 1997.

The innermost of the solar system’s planets, Mercury, has been little explored. The U.S. Mariner 10, which flew by Venus in February 1974, came close to Mercury that March, at a distance of about 430 miles (700 kilometers). After looping around the Sun, it made its second flyby that December and its last in March 1975. Mariner 1 mapped a little less than half of Mercury’s surface and discovered that the planet’s atmosphere con-sists mainly of helium. It also found that Mercury has a magnetic field and an iron-rich core.

In January 2008, a NASA spacecraft known as the Mercury Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) probe made another flyby of Mercury and discovered great variability in the plan-et’s magnetic field. It also produced images of Mercury’s previously unre-corded surface and detected magnesium in the planet’s atmosphere.

Venus

Venus became the object of exploration when, in 1961, the Soviet Union began its Venera program, with the goal of landing a probe on the planet. Of the eight initial Venera craft, two descended toward the planet’s sur-face and sent back data that revealed the atmospheric pressure was ninety times greater than Earth’s, surface temperatures exceeded 9,000 degrees


Fahrenheit (4,982 degrees Celsius), and 97 percent of the atmosphere was carbon dioxide.

In October 1975, the Soviet Union succeeded in landing two probes on the Venusian surface. Venera 9, launched on June 8, 1975, consisted of an orbiter and a lander. The orbiter had engines to break its speed and help it to circle the planet. The lander included parachutes to slow its descent and a “crush ring” to absorb the shock of impact with the surface, and was encased in a sphere built to protect it from heat and atmospheric pressure. The land-er touched down on the Venusian surface on October 22 and transmitted data, including one photograph, for fifty-three minutes.

Venera 10, launched on June 14, 1975, also landed a surface vehicle on October 25; it provided several photos of Venus’s surface. Other Venera satellites, some landers and some orbiters, followed. The last in the program was Venera 16, which orbited Venus and mapped the planet’s northern hemisphere in October 1983.

In December 1978, the U.S. probe Pioneer Venus 1 orbited Venus and mapped nearly the entire planet with its radar. Also arriving that month was Pioneer Venus 2, which consisted of four separate atmospheric probes. One of the probes used a parachute to slow its descent, while the three remaining probes plunged straight through Venus’s atmosphere.

A more extensive mapping of Venus was accomplished by the Magellan mission in 1989 and 1990. NASA’s first interplanetary probe since Pioneer in 1978, the probe Magellan was launched from the space shuttle Atlantis on May 4, 1989, and propelled by a solid-fuel rocket. By August 1990, the spacecraft had arrived at Venus and begun an elliptical orbit. Circling the planet, Magellan mapped the surface with radar. Before the mission ended in October 1994, the probe sent back images of 98 percent of the surface.

In November 2005, the European Space Agency launched Venus Express, its first probe of that planet. Arriving at Venus in April 2006, the spacecraft deployed a variety of scientific instruments: a magnetometer to measure the planet’s magnetic field; three spectrometers, to measure the atmosphere, analyze radiation, and observe the electromagnetic spectrum; and a transmitter to send radio waves and measure them as they travel through the atmosphere or bounce off the surface. Initial findings from these experiments indicate that Venus once had oceans and that it currently experiences lightning more frequently than does Earth.

Mars

The first spacecraft to fly by Mars was the U.S. probe Mariner 4. It came within 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) of the planet on July 14, 1965.


Images from the vehicle showed the surface of Mars to be barren and cra-tered, with an atmospheric pressure too low to allow for liquid water on the surface. In 1969, Mariner 6 and Mariner 7 traveled closer to the planet and produced sharper, but similar, images.

Then, in November 1971, Mariner 9 became the first space probe to orbit Mars. A dust storm impeded the transmission of images at first, but Mariner 9 eventually sent more than 7,300 photos, which revealed two pre-viously unknown geological features: Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano reaching a height of 78,000 feet (24,000 meters), and a long valley that was named Valles Marineris.

Two more American spacecraft, Viking 1 and Viking 2, went into Mars orbit in 1976 and sent landers to the surface. The orbiters took tens of thousands of photos and detected water vapor in the Martian atmosphere. The landers transmitted panoramas of the landscape and collected vital in-formation about the planet’s climate and seismic activity.

The major breakthrough in Martian exploration came on July 4, 1997, when the U.S. spacecraft Pathfinder landed on the planet’s surface. The probe had slowed its descent by using a parachute and braking rockets, and cushioned its landing through the use of airbags. Time magazine reported,

Across the U.S. and much of the world, the ship’s successful arrival was greeted with the most attention accorded an otherworldly landing since, perhaps, Apollo 11 touched down on the moon 28 years ago. At the Pasa-dena convention center, near NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where the Pathfinder mission was being run, a standing-room-only crowd of more than

NASA engineers demonstrate the Mars Exploration Rover (MER), a six-wheeled robotic device deployed to the planet’s surface to search for, collect, and analyze rocks, minerals, and soil. (Robyn Beck/AFP/Getty Images)


2,000 people whooped and wept as the pictures from Pathfinder streamed onto a 25-ft. screen. On the Internet, NASA sites that promised to post the pictures as soon as they became available recorded a staggering 100 million hits on Friday alone.

Once on Mars, Pathfinder released a six-wheeled robotic rover called Sojourner. Roaming the rocky surface, Sojourner sent 550 photographs back to Earth—these were in addition to the 16,500 sent by Pathfinder—and analyzed chemical properties at some sixteen locations on Mars.

In September 1997, the Mars Global Surveyor, another U.S. probe, reached the Red Planet (so called because of its reddish appearance, caused by iron dioxide present on its surface), went into orbit, and began send-ing data back to NASA scientists. Laser beams sent from the spacecraft to the surface revealed topographical details, including the existence of vast plains in the northern hemisphere. A thermal emission spectrometer re-corded temperatures and, by detecting chemicals, enabled a mineral map to be made of the entire planet. The Surveyor also produced more than 25,000 photographs, which have revealed sand dunes and gullies, perhaps caused by now-extinct water flows.

In 2003, as part of its Mars Exploration Rover (MER) program, the United States sent two more robotic rovers to the Martian surface, Spirit

S O J O U R N E R


(MER-A) and Opportunity (MER-B). The primary scientific objective of the mission was to collect more information about the planet’s geology, es-pecially anything it might reveal about water activity. The rovers continued in operation into 2009.

The Outer Planets and Beyond

Jupiter has been the object of eight space probes, all of them American and only one of which orbited the planet. The first, Pioneer 10, was launched in March 1972 and began its flyby of Jupiter in late November 1973. The probe encountered intense radiation as it flew within 81,000 miles (130,000 kilometers) of the planet’s chemical clouds and confirmed what most scien-tists had suspected: Jupiter’s distinctive red spot was a giant storm. Pioneer 11, which passed within 21,000 miles (34,000 kilometers) of Jupiter in December 1974, made the first investigations of the planet’s expansive polar regions.

The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 planetary probes—the last spacecraft in NASA’s Mariner series and the first to reach the outermost planets—made their closest approaches to Jupiter in March and July 1979, respectively. Important discoveries about Jupiter by the Voyager probes included three new moons, a ring system, and evidence of volcanic activity on one of the planet’s moons (Io).

In 1992, the spacecraft Ulysses investigated Jupiter’s magnetic field, then continued its scheduled journey farther into space. In 1995, Galileo—launched by the shuttle Atlantis in October 1989—became the first space-craft to orbit Jupiter. It surveyed the planet and its moons for eight years, and it revealed that three Jovian moons have very thin atmospheres and might contain liquid water beneath their surfaces. In 1995, Galileo sent a small probe into Jupiter’s atmosphere; in the one hour before it was de-stroyed by the heat and intense atmospheric pressure, the probe sent back considerable data about the planet’s atmosphere.

The year 2000 brought a flyby of Jupiter by the Cassini-Huygens space-craft, a joint effort by NASA and the ESA. This flyby yielded some of the most extensive images of the planet to date—about 26,000 photos in all—including features as small as 40 miles (64 kilometers) in diameter. And, in September 2006, another planetary probe en route to the edge of the solar system and beyond, New Horizons, flew close enough to get a boost (or “as-sist”) from the planet’s gravitational field. (The satellite came within about 1.7 million miles, or 2.3 million kilometers, of the planet.)

The first space probe to visit Saturn was Pioneer 11, which had inves-tigated Jupiter in late 1974. In September 1979, Pioneer 11 passed within 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) of Saturn, later crossing the orbit of Neptune and becoming the first spacecraft to leave the solar system. The


first high-resolution images of Saturn came from the flyby of Voyager 1 in 1980, which also passed near one of the planet’s moons, Titan, and exam-ined its atmosphere. Additional images of Saturn were taken in August 1981 by Voyager 2, which used a radar system to measure the temperature and density of the upper atmosphere.

In July 2004, the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft—consisting of the Cassini orbiter and Hugyens probe—reached Saturn and began orbiting. On July 11, the piggybacked vehicle flew close by the moon Phoebe and returned a series of close-up photos. In December, Cassini released Huygens to land on the surface of Titan, the largest of Saturn’s moons. The probe transmitted photos showing what might be a shoreline and islands, and revealed clouds of methane. The probe continued to send back data for more than an hour after landing. Before the Cassini-Hugyens mission ended in 2008, it confirmed the existence of four previously unknown moons of Saturn.

The planets Uranus and Neptune have been visited by only one space-craft, Voyager 2. The spacecraft made its closest approach to Uranus in January 1986, coming within 50,600 miles (81,500 kilometers); notable discoveries included a magnetic field and ten previously unknown moons. In 1989, Voyager 2 came within 3,000 miles (4,800 kilometers) of Neptune’s north pole, revealing four planetary rings, six moons, and the existence of auroras.

The New Horizons probe, meanwhile, launched by the United States in January 2006, is on course to visit the dwarf planet Pluto and its three known moons. The probe is scheduled to arrive at Pluto in July 2015 and then continue on to study the Kuiper Belt, a region beyond the solar system that contains frozen objects called “ices,” made largely of methane, ammo-nia, and water.

Aside from planetary probes, Giotto, a spacecraft launched by the European Space Agency on July 2, 1985, made a flyby of Halley’s Comet on March 14, 1986. Giotto entered the comet’s atmosphere, passed within 400 miles (644 kilometers) of the comet and 640 miles (1,030 kilometers) of its nucleus, and survived despite being hit by several particles. Giotto transmit-ted the first close-up images of Halley’s Comet and the first images ever of a comet’s nucleus. Scientists then were able to set Giotto on a different course, using a gravitational slingshot through the Earth’s atmosphere to propel it to Comet Grigg-Skjellerup, which it passed in July 1992.

NASA initiated a new phase in deep space exploration in March 2009 with the launch from Cape Canaveral of the new Kepler Space Telescope, designed to identify planets such as Earth that orbit suns other than ours. The $600 million device, which was sent into orbit around the Sun, can observe distant stars in the Milky Way Galaxy and measure the size and orbit of every planet that passes in front of them. By the year 2013, ac-


cording to one scientist involved with the project, Kepler likely will have located hundreds of planets, perhaps thousands, that may be home to intelligent life.

Further ReadingBrunier, Serge. Space Odyssey: The First Forty Years of Space Exploration.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Cadbury, Deborah. Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet

Union for Dominion in Space. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.Godwin, Robert. The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of

Lunar Vehicles. Burlington, Canada: Apogee, 2007.Harland, David M. Jupiter Odyssey: The Story of NASA’s Galileo Mission. New

York: Praxis, 2000.Mishkin, Andrew. Sojourner: An Insider’s View of the Mars Pathfinder Mission.

New York: Berkeley, 2003.Winchester, Jim, ed. Space Missions: From Sputnik to SpaceShipOne, The

History of Space Flight. San Diego, CA: Thunder Bay, 2006.

SPEKE, JOHN HANNING 18271864

English explorer John Hanning Speke discovered Lake Victoria in eastern equatorial Africa and correctly identified it as the principal source of the Nile River.

He was born on May 4, 1827, in Jordans, Somerset, England, to William Speke and Georgina Elizabeth Hanning. John’s father was a captain in the British army, and he directed his son toward a military career. In 1844, John Speke began serving in the army of the East India Company and was active in the Punjab campaign, which included battles at Ramnagar, Sadullapur, and Chilianwala, and in Gujarat.

1827: Born on May 4 in Jordans, England1844: Begins serving in the army of the East India Company1854: Joins an expedition to East Africa under Richard Burton to explore Somaliland1856: Begins a second expedition to East Africa under Burton to find the source of

the Nile River1858: With Burton, discovers Lake Tanganyika1859: Announces to the Royal Geographical Society that Lake Victoria is the source

of the Nile1862: Discovers the place where the Nile leaves Lake Victoria and names it Ripon

Falls1863: Publishes Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile1864: Dies on September 18 from gunshot wounds suffered while partridge hunting


In 1854, Speke joined an expedition to East Africa under the explorer Richard Burton, with the purpose of traversing Somaliland (now Somalia). Both Burton and Speke were attacked by tribesmen and severely wounded. Speke nearly died, but recovered and went on to serve in the Crimean War (1853–1856). Burton also recovered, returned to England, and fought in the Crimean War.

Lake Tanganyika and Lake Victoria

Despite friction between the two men over what Speke believed was Burton’s questioning of his bravery in Somaliland, the two men teamed up in 1856 for another expedition to East Africa. Their shared goal was the discovery of a vast in-land “sea” called Ujiji (Lake Tanganyika, which lies between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Tanzania) and the source of the Nile River (found to be at Lake Victoria, on the bor-ders of Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda).

Traveling inland from Zanzibar in June 1857, the two Englishmen were beset by tropi-cal disease throughout the journey. In addition,

Speke temporarily lost his hearing after a beetle crawled inside his ear and had to be removed with a knife.

Speke and Burton reached their destination, Lake Tanganyika, in February 1858. Speke had been nearly blinded by an illness and could not clearly see the body of water they had discovered. (He later regained his sight.) After exploring the lake for three months, and with Burton now ill, the two men prepared to head back to the East African coast—only to be told of a large lake to the north.

On July 9, with Burton still too sick to make the journey, Speke set out in search of the lake. Several weeks later, in August, he discovered the lake and named it Victoria Nyanza (Lake Victoria). He believed it was the source of the Nile River, but he had lost most of his survey equipment and was unable to determine the depth or size of the lake or to make other investigations. Burton rejected Speke’s claim, insisting that the source of the Nile was Lake Tanganyika.

Speke returned to England in May 1859, about two weeks ahead of Burton. During those two weeks, Speke delivered a speech to the Royal Geographical Society and published an article in Blackwood’s Magazine

English explorer John Hanning Speke reached Lake Victoria in 1858 and correctly identi-fied it as the source of the Nile River. He also collected a wealth of scientific information on the geography, climate, flora, and fauna of East Africa. (Apic/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)


in which he told of the expedition and announced that he had found the source of the Nile.

Burton was furious. By reporting on the mission first, he believed that Speke had violated an agreement between the two men to make a joint an-nouncement of their findings. He also was angry that Speke had advanced his claim for Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile without Burton having an opportunity to argue for Lake Tanganyika. The subsequent split between the two explorers was deep and permanent.

Ripon Falls and the Source of the Nile

Under the sponsorship of the Royal Geographical Society, Speke returned to Africa in 1860 with James Augustus Grant, a friend and an officer in the British army, for the purpose of confirming Lake Victoria as the source of the Nile. On September 25, 1860, Speke’s party of 217, including por-ters and armed men, departed Zanzibar. The expedition was soon halted, however, as disputes among his interpreters caused negotiations with local tribes to break down and prevented him from gaining assurances of safe passage. Grant, meanwhile, had embarked on a more northerly route, only to have his caravan attacked and his supplies stolen.

Together, the two men resumed their journey in September 1861. Grant became ill in January 1862, and Speke continued north into Uganda without him. In February, Speke arrived at the palace of King Mutesa and negotiated with the ruler to obtain permission to travel onward.

Finally, in July 1862, Speke reached the Nile River on the northwest shore of Lake Victoria, in Uganda. On July 28, he found the site at which the Nile River exits the lake and named it Ripon Falls (after Lord Ripon, the British undersecretary of state for war who had been instrumental in arranging the expedition).

Speke began following the river downstream (north) from the lake, but he was forced away from the water by hostile local tribes. He later returned to the Nile, rejoined Grant, and reached Gondokoro, a trading depot in southern Sudan, in February 1863. From Khartoum, which was farther north, Speke sent a telegram to London in which he declared, “The Nile is settled.”

In carrying out the expedition, Speke and Grant became the first Europeans to cross equatorial eastern Africa. In doing so, they explored 500 miles (800 kilometers) of territory never before seen by Europeans. But because Speke had been unable to follow the river downstream the en-tire distance from Ripon Falls to Gondokoro, some questioned whether he had really found the source of the Nile. His old companion and nemesis, Burton, expressed particular skepticism, insisting that there was no proof that the river that intersected with Lake Victoria was indeed the Nile.


Back in London, Speke appeared again before the Royal Geographical Society—this time, to announce that he had found the source of the Nile—and was widely celebrated. In December 1863, he published a book on the expedition, Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile, which was widely read but poorly edited, and its accuracy was questioned. The following year, Speke published a second work, What Led To the Discovery of the Source of the Nile.

Burton, meanwhile, still insisted that Lake Tanganyika, not Lake Victoria, was the true source of the Nile. The two rivals were scheduled to


debate the issue on the morning of September 16, 1864, at a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, when tragedy struck. On the afternoon before the debate, Speke went hunting for partridges in the Wiltshire countryside. As he was climbing over a wall, his gun fired ac-cidentally, leaving a wound in his left side. When a friend approached him, Speke said weakly, “Don’t move me.”

Within fifteen minutes, the man who had correctly concluded that Lake Victoria was the source of the Nile was dead, at the age of thirty-eight. In his honor, a red granite obelisk was erected in London’s Kensington Gardens. According to a contemporary observer, “Speke’s nature displayed a truly remarkable blend of indomitable determination with the spirit of perennial youth.”

Further ReadingCarnochan, W.B. The Sad Story of Burton, Speke, and the Nile; Or, Was John

Hanning Speke a Cad? Stanford, CA: Stanford General, 2006.Maitland, Alexander. Speke. London: Constable, 1971.Speke, John Hanning. Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile. 1863.

Mineola, NY: Dover, 1996.

STANLEY, HENRY MORTON.See Livingstone, David

STARK, FREYA 18931993

An English travel writer and explorer, Freya Madeleine Stark journeyed throughout the Middle East, including areas where few Western men, and fewer Western women, had ever traveled before. Her observations of the land, peoples, and everyday life—recorded in some two dozen books—are known for their poetic beauty and incisive analysis.

See also: Burton, Richard Francis; Royal Geographical Society.

1893: Born on January 31 in Paris1927: Travels to Lebanon and is enchanted by the Middle Eastern desert1929: Undertakes solo expedition through Persia to the Caspian Sea1932: Publishes Baghdad Sketches1934: Publishes The Valleys of the Assassins1936: Awarded the Mungo Park Medal by the Royal Geographical Society;

publishes The Southern Gates of Arabia1951: Publishes Beyond Euphrates1972: Named a dame of the British Empire1993: Dies at age 100 on May 9 at her home in Asolo, Italy


Born on January 31, 1893, in Paris to British painters who moved frequently, Stark was raised in several locations, including rural England and London. She spent much of her youth in northern Italy, however, and was educated by tutors at her grandmother’s house in Genoa. Because of her travels and education, she could speak English, French, German, and Italian.

At age nine, she read The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1885), also known as The Arabian Nights, and was captivated by its tales of Arabia and Persia. The book stimulated her interest in the Middle East and a desire to travel to the region. So, too, did the frequent relocations by her family. As she later said,

I loved languages . . . and I loved to travel. My sister and I were brought up to travel; we wandered about [and] I always had a feeling for learning languages, and Arabic covers the greatest number of countries with the most interesting history that was within my reach. I never thought of Far Eastern languages, but I could learn Arabic, and it covers the greatest area. And, strangely, I thought when I was about 20 that the countries where oil was being found were going to be the most interesting in my life.

Stark studied literature at Bedford College in London and then served as a battlefield nurse during World War I. She completed a course in Arabic at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London and in 1927 decided to travel to Lebanon. Once there, she imme-diately fell in love with the desert. “I never imagined that my first sight of [it] would come as such a shock of beauty and enslave me right away,” she wrote.

In 1929, Stark undertook difficult solo expeditions from Baghdad to Lorestan Province (in western Persia, now Iran) and to the mountains of Mazandaran Province on the Caspian Sea, where she nearly died of malaria and dysentery. Over the next twelve years, she traveled extensively in Arabia, Iraq, Lebanon, Persia, and Syria. She mapped a remote part of the Elburz Mountains in Persia and explored remote southern Arabia, where few Westerners had ever before ventured.

Dame Freya Stark lived and traveled throughout the Middle East from the 1920s to 1950s. In many areas, she was one of the first Western women to do so. Her more than thirty books about the region, the people, and her ex-periences are consid-ered classics. (Hulton Archive/Stringer/Getty Images)


During World War II, Stark joined Britain’s Ministry of Information and took part in Arabic radio broadcasts aimed at getting nations in the Middle East to support the Allies or at least convincing them to remain neutral. She was particularly influential in Yemen, where she traveled with a projector and films that she showed to audiences as part of an Allied pro-paganda campaign.

In Cairo, Egypt, she founded a secret anti-Fascist society called the Brothers of Freedom, which advocated in the Middle East for democracy and religious tolerance. She later recalled,

We started with 12 friends and gradually spread. . . . In a year or two we had over 100,000 people in the committees who wanted to help us.

Beginning in the 1950s, even as she spent much of her time writing, Stark continued to travel and explore. She kept on doing so into her later years. For example, she voyaged down the Euphrates River on a raft in her eighties.

Stark wrote twenty-four books about her travels, all published by the John Murray company in London, as well as an autobiography and eight volumes of letters, which reveal the wealth of her friendships and the excite-ment of her adventures. Stark’s books are known for their spirit, lucidity, and fascination with landscapes. In Baghdad Sketches (1932), for example, she wrote,

I like these slow yellow streams. As they silt up or shift in their lazy beds, they remove cities boldly from one district to another. They are as indolent, and wayward, powerful, beneficent and unpitying as the Older Gods whom no doubt they represent; and there is no greater desolation in this land than to come upon their dry beds, long abandoned, but still marked step-by-step with sand-colored ruins of the desert.

Freya Stark was awarded the Mungo Park Medal for exploration by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society in 1936. In 1972, she was named dame of the British Empire (the equivalent of knight). She died on May 10, 1993, at her home in Asolo in northeast Italy; she was 100 years old.

Further ReadingGeneisse, Jane. Passionate Nomad: The Life of Freya Stark. New York: Modern

Library, 2001.Moorehead, Caroline. Freya Stark. New York: Viking, 1985.Moorehead, Lucy, ed. Letters of Freya Stark. 8 vols. Salisbury, UK: Compton

Russell, 1974–1982.Stark, Freya. The Freya Stark Story. New York: Coward-McCann, 1953.

See also: Royal Geographical Society.


THOMAS, ELIZABETH MARSHALL 1931

An American anthropologist and author best known for her books about dog and cat behavior, Elizabeth Marshall Thomas also explored remote areas of sub-Saharan Africa in researching her compelling studies of the Bushmen and Dodoth peoples.

She was born Elizabeth Marshall in Boston on September 13, 1931, to Laurence Marshall, a civil engineer and cofounder of the Raytheon Company (then called the American Appliance Company), and Lorna McLean, an English teacher and ballerina. She attended Abbot Academy, a girls’ boarding school in Andover, Massachusetts. Following her gradu-ation from the academy in 1949, Elizabeth attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.

Her father interrupted her schooling the following year to take the family on a trip to the Kalahari Desert in Botswana (at that time, the Bechuanaland Protectorate) in southwestern Africa. He was seeking ad-venture and a different kind of educational experience for himself and his family. Without formal academic training, the Thomases plunged into an anthropological study of the Bushmen. At the time, the Bushmen had little contact with the modern outside world and followed traditional lifeways, subsisting as hunters and gatherers.

From 1950 to 1955, Elizabeth Marshall made several journeys to Botswana to study the Bushmen, spending a full year with them in 1952. She also resumed her college studies, transferring from Smith College to Radcliffe College in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During her junior year, she wrote a short story about the Bushmen titled “The Hill People,” which won a fiction contest held by Mademoiselle magazine. After getting her degree from Radcliffe in 1954, Marshall married Stephen Thomas; the couple would have two children.

1931: Born on September 13 in Boston1950: Visits the Kalahari Desert in southwestern Africa with her family1959: Publishes The Harmless People, a study of the Bushmen in Africa1965: Publishes The Warrior Herdsmen, about the Dodoth people of

Uganda1993: The Hidden Life of Dogs becomes a best seller2006: Publishes The Old Way: A Story of the First People, about the

Bushmen


Further research among the Bushmen resulted in Elizabeth Marshall Thomas’s first book, The Harmless People (1959), an anthropological study of life in the tribe written in unusually vivid, nonscientific prose. The book found a wide audience. Thomas updated the work in the 1980s to consider the effect of modern influences, especially alcohol and a wage-labor system, on Bushman society.

Thomas journeyed again to Africa in 1960, this time to study the Dodoth people in Uganda. Unlike the Bushmen, the Dodoth were warriors who raised cattle. Based on that expedition and her studies of Dodoth life, Thomas wrote The Warrior Herdsmen, published in 1965.

According to a reviewer for The New York Times, the book contained “few ethnographic facts of the more conventional sort” but was “more like the personal journal of an exciting adventure.” Nevertheless, the reviewer continued, it conveyed an “underlying anthropological understanding,” showing that “the Dodoth are real people of the twentieth century caught up in the trials and tribulations of emergent Africa.”

Thomas’s first novel about indigenous cultures, Reindeer Moon (1987), tells the story of a teenage girl who lived in a hunter-gatherer tribe of Siberia about 20,000 years ago. The Animal Wife (1990) is a companion novel set in the same location and time period.

At the same time that she was conducting her anthropological studies and writing works of fiction and nonfiction based on them, Thomas also was pursuing a passion she had had since childhood: animals and animal behavior. Objects of her study included elephants at zoos in the United States and in the wilds of Namibia (in southwestern Africa). With scientist Katy Payne, she discovered that elephants communicate by using sounds too low for human beings to hear. Thomas also studied wolf packs on Baffin Island, off the northeastern coast of Canada, and she found that they ex-hibit an orderly social structure.

Thomas began making a rigorous study of a friend’s husky, Misha, fol-lowing the dog as it wandered about. Then, she studied Misha’s interactions with her own dogs and the offspring of these dogs. From her investigation came the book The Hidden Life of Dogs (1993), which reached The New York Times best-seller list—and remained on it into 1994.

In this book, Thomas sought to answer the basic question, “What do dogs want?” Misha’s primary mission, she concluded, was to establish dominance over other dogs. Her portrayal of the canine world in human terms—with references to “depression,” “marriage,” and the like—was vivid and appealing to readers but objectionable to some dog experts. Behavioral scientists criticized her for anthropomorphizing dogs and argued that her understanding of dog consciousness was actually an understanding of the human reaction to dog consciousness.


Thomas followed her best seller about dogs with a book about cats, The Tribe of the Tiger: Cats and Their Culture (1994). In this work, she discusses cats as house pets, as well as her own encounters with lions and tigers in Africa. Her subsequent works about animals have included The Social Lives of Dogs: The Grace of Canine Company (2000) and The Hidden Life of Deer: Lessons from the Natural World (2009). Despite the popular format of these books, Thomas tries to provide readers with behavioral insights based on rigorous study and scientific observations.

In The Old Way: A Story of the First People (2006), Thomas returns to the Ju/Wasi Bushmen of southwestern Africa. This book encompasses an autobiographical account of her travels, a family memoir, and updated observations and reflections on native customs.

Further ReadingThomas, Elizabeth Marshall. The Hidden Life of Dogs. Boston: Houghton-

Mifflin, 1996.———. The Old Way: A Story of the First People. New York: Farrar, Straus and

Giroux, 2006.———. Warrior Herdsmen. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981.

VAN DER POST, LAURENS 19061996

Afrikaner writer, journalist, World War II hero, explorer, and conser-vationist Laurens van der Post also was a political advisor to Great Britain,

1906: Born on December 13 in Philippolis, South Africa1926: Publishes a magazine critical of racial segregation in South Africa1939: Joins the British Army in World War II1943: Taken prisoner by Japanese troops in Indonesia1952: Publishes Venture to the Interior, a best seller about his travels in

Nyasaland (Malawi)1955: Undertakes expedition into the Kalahari Desert in southwestern

Africa to study the Bushmen1977: Takes Prince Charles of England on safari in Kenya, Africa, and

organizes the World Wilderness Congress to serve as an international environmental forum

1981: Knighted by Queen Elizabeth II1996: Dies on December 16 in London


a friend and follower of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung, and an opponent of apartheid who introduced the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert to the out-side world in a series of popular books and television documentaries.

Van der Post was born on December 13, 1906, at Philippolis in the Orange River Colony (now the Orange Free State province of the Republic of South Africa). His father, of Dutch descent, was Christian Willem Hendrik van der Post, a prominent South African political leader and law-yer. His mother, of German descent, was Lammie van der Post. Laurens was the thirteenth of fifteen children.

Youth and Early Career

As a child, Laurens van der Post worked on his father’s farm, enjoyed read-ing books, and attended Grey College in Bloemfontein from age eleven. In 1925, he became a cub reporter for the Natal Advertiser in Durban. The fol-lowing year, he began publishing with two other writers a satirical magazine that advocated the integration of the white and black races in South Africa.


Authorities shut down the magazine after three issues. Van der Post later said that he had grappled with two problems in his youth:

One was that my people [the Dutch] had been conquered by the British just a few years before I was born. . . . Though I like the English without reserva-tion, I had inherited this bitterness. The second problem was the fact that I loved the black peoples of Africa. . . . It was a great shock to me, when I was sent away . . . [to Grey College] to find that I was being educated into some-thing which destroyed the sense of common humanity I had shared with the black people.

After several months at sea, marrying, and starting a family in England, Van der Post returned to South Africa in 1929 and worked as a journalist for the Cape Times, a newspaper in Cape Town. Again, he criticized racial segregation, writing in one article, “The future of civilization of South Africa is, I believe, neither black or white but brown.”

Back in England in the early 1930s, Van der Post began socializing with the Bloomsbury Group, a collection of prominent intellectuals and writ-ers that included John Maynard Keynes, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, and Leonard Woolf. In 1934, the Woolfs published Van der Post’s first novel, In a Province, about the damage being done to South Africa by its racial and ideological divisions.

By this time, Van der Post had taken to heavy drinking in the face of personal problems. He was especially torn between the loyalty he felt for his wife and family and the love he felt for an English actress with whom he was having an affair.

With the outbreak of World War II in 1939, Van der Post joined the British army and soon rose to the rank of captain with the Intelligence Corps in East Africa. In early 1942, he was transferred to the Dutch East Indies (now the Republic of Indonesia), where, it was felt, he could help the Allied war effort due to his ability to speak both English and Dutch. As a military commander, he succeeded in evacuating from Java Allied personnel who had been captured by the Japanese.

In April, however, Van der Post himself was taken prisoner. He spent the rest of the war at two prison camps in Japan, Sukabumi and Bandung, where he dedicated himself to lifting the morale of fellow prisoners. He later wrote three books about his wartime experiences: A Bar of Shadow (1954), The Seed and the Sower (1963), and The Night of the New Moon (1970).

Studies of African Tribes

With the end of World War II, Van der Post remained in Indonesia, where he worked for two years to help reconcile differences between Indonesian


nationalists and the Dutch colonial authority. The effort failed, and Van der Post left as British troops withdrew. He returned to England in 1947, by which time, a revolution was under way in Indonesia.

Between 1948 and 1965, Van der Post tended his farm in South Africa while writing books and engaging in several explorations of southern Africa. In 1951, he published a best-selling work called Venture to the Interior, about his travels in Nyasaland (then a British protectorate, today the country of Malawi).

This work reflected the influence of Jung, who posited two aspects of the human unconscious: the personal unconscious (the repressed thoughts and feelings accumulated during an individual’s life) and the collective unconscious (the inherited memories, symbols, experiences, and feelings common to people in all cultures). Accordingly, Van der Post maintained in Venture to the Interior, everyone’s personality is divided between primi-tive and civilized components; the former is instinctive and subjective, the latter objective and rational. His own journey in Africa, he observed, was more than geographical; it was a journey into the “inward, nebulous, sub-conscious, disquieting, where Africa becomes a spiritual continent.”

In the early 1950s, Van der Post undertook an extensive study of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert in the Bechuanaland Protectorate (now Botswana), in southwestern Africa. In 1954, he lectured at the Jung Institute in Zurich, Switzerland.

In 1955, he published the book The Dark Eye in Africa, in which he asserted that the white oppression of blacks comes from a desire to sup-press what he called the “instinctive man” (as opposed to the rational man), which he said resides in the “dark brother.” That same year, he returned to Bechuanaland for an expedition sponsored by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC), which yielded a six-part television documentary in 1956 and led to his writing the book The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958).

By this time, Van der Post was considered a leading expert on the Bushmen. He would write several more books about them, including two novels set near the Kalahari. His writing emphasized the outside pressures being faced by the Bushmen; the response to his observations prompted the British colonial government in 1961 to establish the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, where the Bushmen were to live undisturbed. By the 1990s, however, the Bushmen were being forced out of their homeland by the gov-ernment, and Van der Post joined the fight against the relocation program. Ironically, the Bushmen were being removed in part as a result of the ex-panding cattle ranching he had promoted back in the 1950s.

Van der Post also cultivated relationships in the high echelons of the British government, advising officials on issues of conservation and South African policy. In 1977, he took Prince Charles of England on an African safari in Kenya, and, with the South African conservationist Ian Player, he


organized the World Wilderness Congress in Johannesburg, South Africa, to serve as an international environmental forum. Two years later, he ad-vised Britain’s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher on South African issues. In 1981, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.

Van der Post died in London on December 16, 1996, leaving extensive research and writings about the Bushmen and environmental issues. He had published a total of twenty-six books, many of them anthropological studies based on personal experiences and adventures. Aside from The Lost World of the Kalahari, his major works on the Bushmen include The Heart of the Hunter (1961) and Testament to the Bushmen (1984).

In the years since his death, Van der Post has been accused of fabricat-ing certain information in his memoirs and other books. For example, some have challenged his claims to have explored territory previously unseen by white men. In his writings, however, Van der Post expressed the noblest sentiments about Africa and life in general. He once observed,

I’ve always said that there are two great sources of corruption. Corruption by power, and corruption by suffering. We have got to hold out against powerful men and societies who dominate vulnerable and less-powerful people—and other forms of life. And we must take an equally strong stand against becom-ing bitter, and vengeful, and cynical, and even anarchical because of what oth-ers have inflicted on us. It is the hallmark of a truly integrated person that he will not allow his suffering to turn him sour. The history of Africa has never been a pleasant one, but I believe that there is a place in Africa for anybody to live in dignity and love.

Further ReadingJones, J.D.F. Storyteller: The Many Lives of Laurens van der Post. London: John

Murray, 2001.Van der Post, Laurens. About Blady: A Pattern Out of Time. New York:

William Morrow, 1991.———. Venture to the Interior. New York: William Morrow, 1951.


WALLACE, ALFRED RUSSEL 18231913

A British naturalist and geographer who wrote on issues as disparate as politics, spiritualism, and the environment, Alfred Russel Wallace was the first to formulate the theory of evolution by natural selection, even before Charles Darwin published his own conclusions on the subject.

Born on January 8, 1823, in Usk, Monmouthshire, Wales, to Thomas Vere Wallace and Mary Anne Greenell, Alfred was the eighth of nine chil-dren. He attended grammar school at Hertford in England. At age fourteen, he left school for London, where he learned surveying from his brother William.

Despite his limited formal education, Alfred was an avid reader and enjoyed studying maps. He pursued an education on his own, reading and attending lectures, and worked briefly as a watchmaker. In 1839, William took him to Hertfordshire to work as his assistant in the surveying busi-ness. Alfred’s curiosity also extended to astronomy, agriculture, and botany, all of which he studied zealously.

During the course of his surveying, Alfred Russel Wallace witnessed firsthand the plight of farmers in the wake of the passage of enclosure laws, which restricted their access to land. Beginning in 1750, such laws allowed the closing off by wealthy landowners of fields and common lands where farmers traditionally had grazed their animals. An enclosure law passed in 1845 strengthened the practice, which Wallace addressed in an essay titled “The South-Wales Farmer.” (The essay was published years later.)

1823: Born on January 8 in Usk, Wales1848: With naturalist Henry Walter Bates, undertakes an expedition to the Amazon

River basin in South America1853: Publishes A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro1858: Writes an essay in which he formulates the theory of evolution based on natural

selection1881: Becomes president of the Land Nationalisation Society, which he founded to

promote equal access to English real property (land and that which is attached to it, such as buildings)

1890: Named by the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge as the first recipient of the Darwin Medal, issued for “his independent origination of the theory of evolution through natural selection”

1913: Dies November 17 in Broadstone, England


Meanwhile, in 1843, Wallace had become a master in the Collegiate School at Leicester. There, he began experimenting with phrenology, hypnotism, and telepathy, interests he would pursue later in life, much to the chagrin of those who considered them foolish eccentricities. While at Leicester, Wallace met the naturalist Henry Walter Bates, who introduced him to the study of entomology.

South America and the Malay Archipelago

Wallace returned to surveying in 1846. Two years later, he convinced Bates to accompany him on an expedition to the Amazon basin in South America to collect insects, animals, and plants. For reasons unknown, the two natu-ralists parted company in 1850. Wallace remained in South America until 1852; Bates stayed for eleven years.

While in South America, Wallace surveyed a large part of the Amazon River. He determined that numerous details on existing maps were incor-rect, including the locations of islands, the existence of parallel channels, and the width of the river at various locations. He studied the habitats and languages of the various peoples he encountered; collected a wide variety of insect and bird specimens; and compiled detailed notes on his observations and discoveries.

In his published account of the expedition, A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro (1853), Wallace reported at least one impor-tant scientific observation: the Amazon River limited the range of animal species in the immediate vicinity. For example, on one side of the river, he found a butterfly with sky-blue wings; on the other side, he found a similar species with indigo-colored wings. Neither species commingled with the other, which later prompted Wallace to consider the relationship between geographic influence and evolution.

The expedition to South America was dogged by tragedy. In 1851, Wallace’s younger brother, Herbert, who had joined him on the trip, died of yellow fever. Then, on the return trip to England, the ship on which Wallace was traveling, the Helen, caught fire at sea, forcing him, the other passen-gers, and the crew into open boats. All of the notes and specimens he had not previously sent to England were lost.

On his next expedition, from 1854 to 1862, Wallace journeyed to the Malay Archipelago, where he traveled among the islands, collected biologi-cal specimens, and wrote scientific articles. He discovered that the archi-pelago is divided by a strait (today called “Wallace’s Line”) and that, as in the Amazon basin, geography shaped life-forms. West of the strait, he found the flora and fauna to be Asian in its physical attributes; east of the strait, he discovered the native species to be Australian.


Theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection

In 1853, after returning from his trip to South America, Wallace wrote a paper, “On the Habits of Butterflies of the Amazon Valley,” that clearly antici-pated the theory of evolution through natural selec-tion. For instance, he wrote of the Heliconia species,

[They] are exceedingly productive in closely allied species and varieties of the most interesting descrip-tion and often have a very limited range. . . . [As] there is every reason to believe that the banks of the lower Amazon are among the most recently formed in South America, we may fairly regard those insects, which are peculiar to that district, as among the youngest of species, the latest in the long series of modi-fications which the forms of animal life have undergone. [Italics added.]

Wallace later claimed that the theory of evolution through natural selection came to him while he was suffering a severe case of malaria in 1858. Gripped by fever in the Molucca Islands, he began thinking about the theory of philosopher Thomas Malthus that war, famine, disease, and infertility are natural checks on the growth of human population. Likewise, Wallace thought, such elements also must control the growth of animal populations.

Based on this thinking, Wallace wrote an essay—titled “On the Ten - dency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type: Instabil-ity of Varieties Supposed to Prove the Permanent Distinctness of Species.” In this work, he maintained that the life of wild animals is a strug gle for existence based on self-preservation and the survival of infant offspring.

In June 1858, Wallace sent the paper to his friend and fellow naturalist Charles Darwin, to ask his opinion and in case it might help Darwin in his own work on the origin of species. Darwin was stunned, as Wallace’s essay contained the very ideas he had formulated on the subject. In short, the two men had reached the same conclusion independently.

Facing a dilemma, Darwin decided to submit extracts of his own previ-ous writings, along with Wallace’s paper, to the prestigious Linnean Society of London. The writings of both men were read at a meeting of the society on July 1 and published as a single paper in the society’s journal under the names of Darwin and Wallace.

After expeditions in the Amazon basin and Malay Archipel-ago to collect animal and plant specimens, Alfred Russel Wal-lace began formulat-ing the theory of evolution by natural selection—indepen-dently from Charles Darwin—in the mid-1850s. (Granger Collection, New York)


History would give credit largely to Darwin, in part because his land-mark book on the subject, On the Origin of Species (1859), articulated the theory in detail and triggered widespread hostile reaction. Wallace would become one of the forgotten men of modern biological science despite the essential similarity—and originality—of his theory.

Wallace returned to England from Southeast Asia in 1862, by which time he had gained prominence as a natural scientist and geographer. Four years later, he married Annie Mitten, the daughter of a botanist, with whom he would have three children.

In 1869, he published a well-received account of his experience in Southeast Asia, The Malay Archipelago: The Land of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise, which he followed in 1870 with Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection. His Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876), which was published in two volumes, and Island Life (1880) placed the geographic dispersal of living and extinct animals in an evolutionary context.


Over the years, Wallace moved frequently in England, living in London, in Grays in Essex, and in Parkstone and Broadstone, both in Dorset. He earned some money from his books and by selling specimens he had col-lected during his expeditions to museums, but he never held a salaried posi-tion, and he invested his money carelessly. As a consequence, he sank into poverty. In 1881, he was rescued by a small pension that was granted to him by the British government at the behest of two friends, Darwin and naturalist Thomas Huxley.

Also in 1881, Wallace was elected president of the new Land Nationalisation Society, which enabled him to address some of the social and economic issues facing England, including trade policy and land re-form. Returning to the plight of farmers, which he had been exposed to as a young surveyor, Wallace advocated the view that the government should help those disposed of land to rise out of poverty by buying arable acre-age and renting it to small farmers. In 1886, he made his last trip outside England, a ten-month lecture tour of the United States.

Wallace spent his later years immersed in the spiritualist world of me-diums, criticizing the many scientists and others who dismissed such inter-ests as quackery. He asked,

Now what do our leaders of public opinion say when a scientific man of proved ability again observes a large portion of the more extraordi-nary phenomena, in his own house, under test conditions, and affirms their objective reality; and this not after a hasty examination, but after four years of research?

In 1890, Wallace was named the first recipi-ent of the biennial Darwin Medal, awarded for important work in Darwinian science by the Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge. In 1892, he received the Linnean Society’s Gold Medal and the Royal Geographical Society’s Founder’s Medal. During his lifetime, he published a total of twenty-one books, in addition to numerous articles and essays.

Alfred Russel Wallace died on November 17, 1913, in Broadstone, southwest England, where he was buried. Two years later, a commemorative marble medallion in his honor was unveiled in London’s Westminster Abbey.

The first scientific paper on the theory of evolution by natural selection, “On the Tendency of the Species to Form Varieties,” coau-thored by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, was published on August 20, 1858. (Granger Collection, New York)


Further ReadingCamerini, Jane R., ed. The Alfred Russel Wallace Reader: A Selection of Writings

from the Field. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.Fichman, Martin. An Elusive Victorian: The Evolution of Alfred Russel Wallace.

Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004.Raby, Peter. Alfred Russel Wallace: A Life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2001.Smith, Charles H., and George Beccaloni, eds. Natural Selection and Beyond:

The Intellectual Legacy of Alfred Russel Wallace. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

WASHBURN, BRADFORD 19102007

An American mountaineer, photographer, and cartographer, Bradford Washburn also was the director of the New England Museum of Natural History; the founder and longtime director of the Boston Museum of Science; and the leader of a project in the 1970s to map the Grand Canyon in Arizona.

Bradford Washburn was born on June 7, 1910, to Henry and Edith Washburn in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His father was dean of the Episcopal Theological School, and his mother was an amateur photog-rapher. He later said that his mother was the first to put a camera in his hands, and added: “It is probably fair to say that my mother contributed to my sense of adventure and that my father contributed to my appreciation for detail and accuracy.”

From boyhood, Washburn climbed mountains. At age eleven, he scaled Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which at 6,288 feet (1,917 me-ters) is the tallest peak in the northeastern United States. He later recalled how attracted he had become to “hiking on mountain trails and sharing

See also: Bates, Henry Walter; Darwin, Charles.

1910: Born on June 7 in Cambridge, Massachusetts1921: Climbs the highest peak in the northeastern United States, Mount

Washington in New Hampshire1933: Receives an undergraduate degree from Harvard University1937: Explores Mount Lucania in Canada, the highest unexplored peak in

North America1939: Becomes director of the New England Museum of Natural History1951: Makes the first-ever ascent of Mount McKinley, in Alaska, by way of

the mountain’s West Buttress1974: Compiles a map of the inner part of the Grand Canyon, in Arizona1978: Completes a map of the center section of the Grand Canyon2007: Dies on January 10 in Lexington, Massachusetts


the thrills of discovery with close friends.” By age sixteen, Washburn had ascended the Matterhorn in Switzerland and Mont Blanc in the French Alps. The following year, he published his first book, Among the Alps with Bradford (1927).

Washburn received his undergraduate degree in 1933 from Harvard University, where he was a member of the mountaineering club. Its mem -bers climbed remote peaks in Alaska and Canada. He returned to Harvard years later, earning a master’s degree in geology and geography in 1960.

Satisfying his appetite for adventure in another way—not unrelated to his interests in mountain climbing and photography—Washburn trained to become a pilot and flew solo for the first time at Boeing Field in Seattle in 1934. One year later, he earned his private flying license. By this time, to help plan expeditions, Washburn had taken to shooting aerial photo-graphs of mountains that he was interested in climbing—and for their sheer beauty.

Washburn’s most momentous and hair-raising early climb took place in 1937, when he attempted to climb Mount Lucania (17,146 feet, or 5,226 meters) in Canada’s Yukon Territory. The third highest peak in Canada, Mount Lucania also was the highest unclimbed mountain in North America at the time. Two years earlier, members of a climbing party had quit their ascent to the summit and declared it unlikely that anyone would ever reach the peak because of the formidable terrain.

When the National Geographic Society sponsored Washburn, then twenty-six, for his attempt, the society’s president at the time, Gilbert Grosvenor, said to him,

Bradford Washburn, one of America’s leading mountain-eers of the 1930s and 1940s, was also a pioneering figure in mountain photogra-phy and cartography. He later founded and directed the Boston Museum of Science. (Robert Lackenbach/Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images)


Yours is the first expedition we have entrusted to a man as young as yourself, and your remarkable record . . . might very naturally lead you to be a little over-confident and take risks . . . that an older man might not venture to take.

Washburn was accompanied on the climb by another young American mountaineer, Robert Bates, who also was twenty-six at the time, and he was flown to the site by Bob Reeve, a notable Alaskan bush pilot. Washburn in-structed Reeve to land them on Walsh Glacier, just south of the mountain. Unknown to the team, however, an unusual warm spell had turned the top of the glacier to mush, and the plane was entrapped immediately upon land-ing. Several days passed before the ice hardened and Reeve could depart.

Washburn and Bates spent three weeks hauling supplies to their base camp. Finally, on July 9, they made their final assault from the base of the summit pyramid, wading through waist-high snow. “We fought on as I have never fought in my life,” Washburn wrote.

The two climbers reached the summit later that afternoon. “Our yell of triumph could have been heard in Timbuctoo!” Washburn recorded in his journal.


On their return, Washburn and Bates trudged 150 miles (240 kilo-meters) from base camp through the surrounding wilderness to reach the small town of Burwash Landing. From there, a bush pilot took them to Valdez, Alaska.

Washburn’s wife, Barbara, accompanied him on a number of expedi-tions, including on his fourth climb to the summit of Canada’s Mount McKinley, in 1947. This made her the first woman to scale that mountain, which at 20,320 feet (6,194 meters) is the highest in North America.

In 1951, Washburn made the first-ever ascent of Mount McKinley by way of the mountain’s West Buttress, thus opening a new route that is used by most climbers today. He later recalled,

McKinley is the biggest and most beautiful peak of the really big mountains of the world that was really accessible to me. When we first went in there, it was unmapped and virtually unexplored.

In Alaska, Washburn took his photography to a new level, recording images of the wilderness from the ground and the air. As his prints revealed, he was interested in natural beauty as much or more than he was interested in scientific observation. His black-and-white photos later were shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art and in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.

As a cartographer, Washburn used aerial photography to survey the landscape and make measurements of its features. In 1960, for example, he used this technique to map Mount McKinley.

In 1974, with the help of staff members from National Geographic mag-azine, Washburn used helicopters to scale peaks in and around the Grand Canyon in Arizona and then measured contours and distances with lasers and reflecting prisms. The result was a detailed map of the Inner Canyon, followed four years later by a map of the central part of the canyon.

Perhaps his greatest cartographic achievement was a topographic map of the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest, which is in the Himalayan Mountains on the border of Nepal and Tibet. The map was published in National Geographic in 1998 and distributed to more than 10 million readers.

In addition, Washburn was named director of the New England Museum of Natural History, in Boston, in 1939; he spent the next forty years working to improve it. Under his leadership, the museum was rebuilt and reestablished as the Boston Museum of Science on a site spanning the Charles River between Boston and Cambridge. Washburn retired as direc-tor of the museum in 1980, but he held the title of honorary director for the rest of his life. According to one observer, Washburn made the museum


a “leading center for science” by bringing its exhibits more in line with recent research and theory.

Washburn wrote several more books, including Mount McKinley: The Conquest of Denali (1991). His writings and photographs also appeared in a number of magazines, including Life and National Geographic. He died from heart failure at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts, on January 10, 2007, at age 96.

Further ReadingSfraga, Michael. Bradford Washburn: A Life of Exploration. Corvallis: Oregon

State University Press, 2004.Washburn, Bradford. Mount McKinley’s West Buttress: The First Ascent, Brad

Washburn’s Logbook, 1951. Williston, VT: Top of the World, 2003.Washburn, Bradford, and Lew Freedman. Bradford Washburn: An

Extraordinary Life. Portland, OR: West Winds, 2005.

WATERTON, CHARLES 17821865

Eccentric English naturalist and explorer Charles Waterton traveled through British Guiana (now Guyana) in South America to collect the plant from which the poisonous substance curare—used by natives on ar-rowheads and later in Europe as a muscle relaxant—is derived.

Charles Waterton was born on June 3, 1782, at Walton Hall, his family’s estate in Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England. His family was wealthy, aris-tocratic, and devoutly Roman Catholic. Charles embraced the faith as well and later would develop close ties with Catholic leaders at the Vatican in Italy. He was educated at a small Catholic school near the town of Durham in northern England and then Stonyhurst, a Jesuit school in Lancashire.

After a brief time in Spain, Waterton journeyed to British Guiana in 1804 to take care of an uncle’s estates near Georgetown. In 1812, he began exploring the countryside. During his explorations, he collected a large vine found in the rainforest that Indians crushed and cooked to create a mixture called “curare.” (The name comes from an Indian word meaning “poison.”) The natives used it on the tips of arrows and darts to hunt wild game or, in

See also: National Geographic Society.

1782: Born on June 3 in Wakefield, England1804: Journeys to British Guiana to manage family estates1812: Begins exploring the interior of British Guiana and collects the

poisonous plant curare1825: Publishes Wanderings in South America, about his four expeditions on

the continent1865: Dies on May 27 in Wakefield


some cases, in warfare to kill tribal enemies. Curare paralyzes the muscles and, in fatal doses, causes respiratory paralysis. Today, the plant is used in medicine to treat multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy. Waterton, however, wanted to export curare to Europe to treat rabies. Because curare could relax the muscles, he thought it might be able to ease the convulsions atten-dant with rabies.Traveling on foot, Waterton explored along the Demerara and Essequibo rivers in British Guiana all the way to northern Brazil. On the way, he collected more flora as well as fauna, recorded details about the terrain, and observed indigenous peoples.

After returning briefly to England, he undertook a second expedition to British Guiana in 1816. He returned to England again and launched a third journey to British Guiana in 1820. And in 1824, after visiting the United States and several West Indian islands, he began a fourth exploration of British Guiana.

In his book Wanderings in South America (1825), Waterton wrote about the natives and their poisonous substance:

Thus the savage of Guiana, independent of the common weapons of destruc-tion, has it in his power to prepare a poison by which he can generally insure to himself a supply of animal food; and the food so destroyed imbibes no deleterious qualities. Nature has been bountiful to him. She has not only or-dered poisonous herbs and roots to grow in the unbounded forests through which he strays, but has also furnished an excellent reed for his arrows, and another, still more singular, for his blow-pipe; and planted trees of an amaz-ing hard, tough, and elastic texture, out of which he forms his bows. And in order that nothing might be wanting, she has superadded a tree which yields him a fine wax, and disseminated up and down a plant not unlike that of the pine-apple, which affords him capital bow-strings.

The book proved popular with young readers in Great Britain—among them Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin—who felt called to their own naturalist adventures. Especially enthralling to schoolchildren were Waterton’s descriptions of experiences such as riding a crocodile:

[I] jumped on his back. I immediately seized his fore-legs, and, by main force, twisted them on his back; thus they served me for a bridle. . . . He be-gan to plunge furiously, and lashed the sand with his long and powerful tail. I was out of the reach of the strokes of it by being near his head. He continued to plunge and strike and made my seat very uncomfortable. It must have been a fine sight for an unoccupied spectator.

A best seller from the start, Wanderings has never been out of print since the original edition. Waterton’s other notable work is Essays on Natural


History, Especially Concerning Ornithology, which first appeared in 1844 and includes an autobiography of the author.

As a taxidermist, Waterton preserved his specimens with a special solu-tion of mercury chloride rather than by stuffing the carcasses. He amassed a large collection of preserved species, especially birds, which is now on dis-play at the Wakefield Museum.

In the late 1820s, after completing his four journeys to British Guiana, Waterton retired to Walton Hall. He encircled the property with a 3-mile (5-kilometer) wall to contain wild birds and animals. For the next forty years, he managed the estate as a nature reserve, making him one of Europe’s earliest conservationists. Waterton also was an early and outspoken critic of the pollution caused by England’s industrial revolution.

Married briefly—his wife died in childbirth within a year of their 1829 wedding—Waterton was known to live a monkish existence, sleeping on bare boards with a block of wood as a pillow. He spent the rest of his life at Walton Hall, rising each day at three o’clock in the morning and reading a chapter of Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote (1605–1615).

Waterton died on May 27, 1865, from injuries sustained falling from a bridge on the grounds. He was buried near the spot where the accident occurred.

Further ReadingAldington, Richard. The Strange Life of Charles Waterton, 1782–1865.

London: Evans Brothers, 1949.Edginton, Brian. Charles Waterton: A Biography. Cambridge, UK: Lutterworth,

1996.Phelps, Gilbert. Squire Waterton. Wakefield, UK: EP, 1976.

WATKINS, GINO 19071932

1907: Born on January 29 in London1925: Enters Trinity College, Cambridge1927: Explores and surveys Edgeoya (Edge Island) in the Arctic1928–1929: Explores the upper Hamilton and Unknown rivers in

northeastern Canada1930–1931: Leads the British Arctic Air Route Expedition to Greenland

and maps 280 miles (450 kilometers) of the coastline1932: Returns to Greenland on an expedition sponsored by Pan American

Airways to find a location for a refueling base1932: Dies on August 20 while exploring Greenland


British Arctic explorer Gino Watkins led expeditions to investigate and map areas of Labrador, in far northeastern Canada, and Greenland. His last journey to Greenland resulted in his death at the age of only twenty-five.

He was born Henry George Watkins on January 29, 1907, in London. His father, who had the same name, worked for the government as a king’s messenger, carrying important documents on diplomatic missions. At age twelve, “Gin” (the nickname he commonly used) sought entry into the Royal Navy training program to become an officer, but he failed the entrance exam. At sixteen, he entered Lancing College in Sussex, where he took up swim-ming, cross-country running, and rifle shooting. His interest in mountain climbing and exploration began during family trips to the French Alps and the Austrian Tirol, which he traversed with his father and guides.

In 1925, Gino Watkins entered Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, where his interest in Arctic exploration was piqued by a series of lectures on the polar regions by Scottish explorer James Wordie. During his Easter vacation in 1926, Watkins worked as a deckhand on a North Sea trawler and then was offered a place on an expedition to Greenland planned for the summer of 1927.

When the Greenland trip was canceled, Watkins approached the Royal Geographical Society proposing an expedition to survey and tra-verse uninhabited Edgeoya (Edge Island), located in the Arctic Ocean near Spitsbergen, between Greenland and the northwestern coast of Norway. The island was largely unexplored and had never been crossed, and the so-ciety agreed to fund the expedition.

Accompanying twenty-year-old Watkins on the expedition were eight scientists, including a biologist, a physicist, and a botanist, as well as a surveyor. The team sailed for the island on a Norwegian sealing ship, the Heimen, and arrived at Deevie Bay at Edgeoya on July 30, 1927. Over the next month, despite the challenge of gale-force winds and thick fog, the explorers were able to map much of the island and gather botanical specimens.

Watkins knew little about surveying, but as the leader of the mission, he kept the effort organized and disciplined. He recounted the journey in an article published by the Royal Geographical Society in August 1928. He also presented scientific data to a meeting of the fellows of the society and was elected to that body despite his young age.

Watkins’s efforts on Edge Island led the Royal Geographical Society to provide him with funds for another expedition, this time to the interior of Labrador. The goal was to spend nine months mapping the headwaters of the Unknown River, the land adjacent to the Hamilton River (now called the Churchill River), and the southern boundary of Labrador. The explora-tion would require extensive travel along the region’s waterways both in the


summer, when currents flowed rapidly, and in the winter, when ice covered the frozen terrain. Watkins recruited two men, Lionel Leslie and James Maurice Scott, to accompany him, and he also had the help of a guide and experienced trapper, Robert Michelin.

The expedition began in late July 1928, when the men set out north up the Kenamu River in eastern Labrador. Heavy rains were followed by swarms of mosquitoes, from which they tried to protect themselves by smearing a mixture of butter and tar on their skin. The measure was largely unsuccessful. The men eventually made their way to the lower reaches of the Hamilton River and continued north to the town of North West River.

Watkins, Michelin, and Scott set out with dogsleds to Grand Lake and the Naskaupi River. (Leslie had left the expedition, as planned.) A 23-mile (37-kilometer) trek to Lake Nipishish took a week to complete. With ra-tions running low, the team arrived back at North West River and the safety of shelter in late January 1929.

Watkins then pursued another objective, to survey the Falls District of the Unknown River. The expedition proceeded without major problems, at least until March 1829, when the team members reached the junction of the Hamilton and Unknown rivers, where the wooded gorge proved difficult to traverse. Despite the challenging terrain, Watkins and his colleagues pushed onward to the source of the Unknown River at Lake Ossokmanuan.

Because Lake Ossokmanuan also fed the Hamilton River, at least in part, the explorers had discovered a previously unknown geographic fact: the Hamilton and Unknown rivers make up an interconnected system. Time prevented Watkins and his colleagues from mapping the entire south-ern border of Labrador, but they did complete a valuable survey of previ-ously uncharted regions.

After returning to England in spring 1929, Watkins determined to re-turn to Greenland as part of the effort to survey an Arctic air route. For commercial air travel between Great Britain and North America to be vi-able, refueling stations would be needed in Iceland, in Greenland, on Baffin Island, and at Hudson Bay. (Airplanes at the time had far more limited flying ranges than they do today.) Such places would have to be more thor-oughly surveyed before air bases could be built.

Raising money proved difficult because the Great Depression had be-gun, and Watkins spent a year organizing and funding the expedition. At the same time, he trained for his pilot’s license on small aircraft, which he hoped to employ on the mission.

In July 1930, Watkins and his team of fourteen men set out on the British Arctic Air Route Expedition to Greenland. Again, his party con-sisted of several surveyors and scientists of different kinds, including a meteorologist, an ornithologist, and a geologist. Crisscrossing Greenland


in seven separate forays, Watkins and his team employed motorboats and a seaplane to map 280 miles (450 kilometers) of coastline and monitor weather conditions.

Taking meteorological readings at Greenland’s ice cap was an especially harrowing adventure, which nearly cost the life of a team member who be-came stranded at the station there under an avalanche of snow. The expedi-tion also engaged in a 600-mile (960-kilometer) journey around the south-ern coast of Greenland by Watkins and two other men in an open boat. Upon returning to London, Watkins accepted a Founder’s Medal from the Royal Geographical Society in recognition of his expedition.

In July 1932, Watkins set out on another journey to Greenland, this time to Tugtilik on the southeastern coast, to make weather observations. Pan American Airways sponsored the journey as part of the effort to iden-tify viable locations for refueling stations. On August 20, Watkins, who was in charge of procuring food for the group, went seal hunting by kayak—a method he had perfected on the previous expedition. Colleagues warned him not to go hunting alone and to stay clear of a glacier at Lake Fjord from which ice had been falling. Watkins dismissed their concerns.

Days later, Watkin’s empty kayak and a pair of his pants were found at Lake Fjord. His body was never located. The details of what happened at the fjord will never be known, but it is believed that Watkins may have left the kayak to make repairs and, while perched on an ice floe, was swept into the frigid water by ice crashing down from the glacier. The kayak in which he took his last journey is today on display at the Royal Geographical Society in London. It serves as a reminder of his accomplishment in mapping Arctic regions, his commitment to adventure, and, in the end, the recklessness that led to his death.

Further ReadingLindsay, Martin. Those Greenland Days: The British Arctic Air Route Expedition,

1930–1931. London: W. Blackwood, 1932.Ridgway, John. Gino Watkins. London: Oxford University Press, 1974.Scott, James M. The Land That God Gave Cain: An Account of H.G. Watkins’s

Expedition to Labrador 1928–1929. London: Chatto and Windus, 1933.

WILKES EXPEDITION

1798: Charles Wilkes is born in New York City on April 31836: Congress approves the United States Exploring Expedition, an

around-the-world scientific and surveying mission conducted by the U.S. Navy


The United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, known as the Wilkes Expedition for its leader, Charles Wilkes, was an 87,000-mile (140,000-kilometer) journey undertaken by nine scientists and nearly 350 crew members aboard six ships to collect scientific knowledge, physical specimens, and mapping information, especially of the South Pacific Ocean. The expedition gathered the greatest quantity of scientific data of any ocean voyage of the mid-nineteenth century.

Among those who lobbied for funding of the expedition was John Cleves Symmes, Jr., of Ohio, an army captain during the War of 1812. Symmes was a proponent of the so-called holes in the poles theory, accord-ing to which the Earth was hollow and could be entered through openings at the two poles.

Thus, when Congress approved the expedition in 1836, it did so, in part, to find the polar entrances; however, the major objectives ultimately were a combination of commercial, diplomatic, and scientific goals. Congress de-clared that the expedition was to explore and survey “the Southern Ocean”:

to determine the existence of all doubtful islands and shoals, [so] as to discover, and accurately fix, the position of those which [were] in or near the track of our vessels in that quarter and [might] have escaped the observation of scientific navigators.

Finding someone to lead the expedition proved nearly as elusive as find-ing the polar entrances. In March 1838, the government finally turned to U.S. Navy officer Charles Wilkes, who headed the Department of Charts and Instruments. Born April 3, 1798, in New York City, Wilkes had at-tended boarding school and later Columbia College (now part of Columbia University). He entered the navy in 1818 and achieved the rank of lieuten-ant in 1826. He earned his reputation as an explorer on a surveying trip to Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay in 1832 and 1833.

The United States Exploring Expedition got under way on August 18, 1838, when Wilkes set sail from the Port of Hampton Roads, Virginia, in the expedition’s flagship, the Vincennes. His fleet included five other navy vessels: the sloop Peacock, the brig Porpoise, the storeship Relief, and two schooners, the Sea Gull and the Flying Fish.

1838: The government appoints Wilkes, a navy lieutenant, to head the expedition; ships set sail from Hampton Roads ,Virginia, on August 18

1842: The expedition ends in New York City on June 101877: Wilkes dies on February 8 in Washington, D.C.


The nine scientists on the expedition, all young and talented, included naturalists, botanists, taxi-dermists, and a mineralogist. The chief botanist, William Brackenridge, a Scot, had been in charge of the Edinburgh Gardens. Geologist James Dwight Dana already had published his System of Mineralogy (1837), the leading text on the subject at that time. Horatio Hale of Harvard University served as phi-lologist and ethnologist, and Charles Pickering of the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia served as the head naturalist.

After stopping at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, then rounding the tip of South America, the ships proceed-ed west from Chile and Peru across the South Pacific to Samoa and to New South Wales in Australia. In December 1838, Wilkes sailed south from Sydney, Australia, into the Antarctic Ocean. But the expedi-tion ships were poorly prepared for the harsh con-ditions, and the Peacock was nearly crushed by an iceberg. One of the vessels, the Flying Fish, crossed the 70th parallel in March 1839, taking it near the farthest southern point reached to that time by British explorer James Cook in 1774.

The Wilkes Expedition arrived at Fiji and the Hawaiian Islands in 1840. In July, two sailors were killed by the locals while bartering for food on Malolo, an island in the Fiji archipelago. Wilkes retaliated by killing doz-ens of Fijians and destroying their villages. One of the explorers wrote,

We continued as we had commenced, to destroy every house and plantation that we came across, and as we marched in three lines, I do not think that one escaped us.

The expedition continued on to explore the West Coast of the United States, including the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River. Wilkes sent several men on an overland expedition to San Francisco and then sailed south and joined them there. He next headed the fleet west across the Pacific to the Philippines, Borneo, Singapore, and Polynesia. The expedition then crossed the Indian Ocean and rounded the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa, finally reaching New York on June 10, 1842.

Lieutenant Wilkes had completed his circumnavigation of the globe, covering a total distance that exceeded three times the Earth’s circumfer-ence. In the process, however, he had lost two ships and twenty-eight men and had killed natives on Fiji. He was widely criticized for his dictatorial style and disliked by many expedition members.

U.S. naval officer Charles Wilkes commanded the United States Exploring Expedi-tion of 1838–1842, a global scientific survey of unprec-edented scope He also wrote the offi - cial narrative of the expedition and edit ed the twenty-volume scientific reports. (Library of Congress)


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Upon returning home, Wilkes faced a navy court-martial for the loss of a ship on the Columbia River, for the mistreatment received by subordinate officers, and for the harsh discipline he had meted out to sailors. He was acquitted of all charges except the illegal flogging of sailors, for which the punishment was a public reprimand. One observer wrote,

Wilkes’s extreme arrogance & conviction that he would not only be acquitted, but it would [be] accomplished with a flourish of trumpets & a swipe at his accusers, has thus rendered his sentence doubly severe to himself.

Wilkes spent much of the rest of his life writing the Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, which was published in 1845 and con-sisted of five volumes and an atlas. He also edited the reports of the expe-dition, comprising twenty volumes of papers and eleven atlases over the course of publication from 1844 to 1874. Wilkes personally authored two of the volumes, one on meteorology and the other on hydrography. His Western America, Including California and Oregon (1849) and Theory of Winds (1856) were scientific works based on his observations and surveys.

The Wilkes Expedition yielded the largest collection of ethnographic objects and natural history specimens in America to that time. Among the thousands of anthropological artifacts were clubs from Fiji, feathered bas-kets from California, fishhooks from Samoa, and flax baskets from New Zealand. The collection was believed to be the largest ever gathered by one sailing expedition.

The botanists and naturalists returned home with an enormous variety of pressed plants—some 50,000 specimens of 10,000 species—as well as more than 1,000 living plants and the seeds for an additional 648 species. The zoologists brought back 2,150 birds, 134 mammals, and 588 species of fish (ready to be mounted), more than 200 jars of insects, and hundreds of envelopes containing other specimens. The geologists collected 300 fossil species, 400 species of coral, and 1,000 species of crustacean. The various collections formed the foundations of the U.S. National Herbarium and the U.S. Botanic Garden, today part of the Smithsonian Institution.

The scientific data compiled by the expedition was just as impressive. It included several notebooks of observations of native languages; a journal rich in ethnographic studies; 241 navigational charts, encompassing 280 Pacific islands (among them the first complete chart of the Fiji Islands), 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) of the Oregon coast, a 100-mile (160-kilo-meter) stretch of the Columbia River, the overland route from Oregon to San Francisco, and 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) of the Antarctic coast; and extensive meteorological, astronomical, magnetic, and oceanographic observations.


In all, the expedition amassed information on a scale and of a com-plexity that challenged the ability of contemporary scientific institutions to digest and analyze it. Wilkes died in Washington, D.C., on February 8, 1877, with the rank of rear admiral. In August 1909, his remains were moved to Arlington National Cemetery in tribute to his service and accomplishments.

Further ReadingHenderson, Daniel. The Hidden Coasts: A Biography of Admiral Charles

Wilkes. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1971.Morgan, William James, et al., eds. Autobiography of Rear Admiral Charles

Wilkes. Washington, DC: Naval History Division, Department of the Navy, 1978.

Philbrick, Nathaniel. Sea of Glory: America’s Voyage of Discovery, The U.S. Exploring Expedition, 1838–1842. New York: Viking, 2003.

Stanton, William. Great United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975.

See also: Antarctica.


aneroid barometer: A barometer without mercury, it consists of a partial vacuum chamber covered by a thin elastic disk. High atmospheric pressure pushes against the disk and causes it to bulge inward, while low pressure causes the disk to bulge outward. An aneroid barometer is smaller and more portable than a mercury barometer.

archaeology. The study of past human life and culture by the recovery and examination of remaining material evidence, such as buildings, tools, and pottery.

artificial satellite. An object that has been placed into orbit around the Earth or another celestial body. The first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched into orbit around the Earth by the Soviet Union in 1957. By 2010, thousands of satellites had been launched into orbit around the Earth through the efforts of more than fifty countries, while other satellites have circled the Moon and various planets.

astrolabe. The mariner’s astrolabe consists of a disk or ring made of brass and marked off in degrees, with a movable arm at the center. By orienting the zero point on the disk with the horizon, a sailor can measure the altitude of any celestial object by sighting it along the arm. There is no precise date for the invention of the astrolabe, but it was likely in existence by the seventh century c.e. Although mariners used astrolabes into the 1800s, they have since become antiquated and are manufactured today mainly as conversation pieces.

Batesian mimicry. A form of biological resemblance whereby two or more species are similar in appearance, or in some other way, but only one actually carries the feature or features that make it repulsive to a predator, such as having a repugnant taste. This form of mimicry carries the name of its discoverer, nineteenth-century English naturalist Henry Walter Bates.

bathyscaphe. The name is taken from the Greek term meaning “deep ships.” This deep-sea submergence vessel can be used without attachment to a ship’s cable. Thus, it has more freedom of movement than some other deep-sea submersibles.

botanist. A scientist who specializes in the study of plants.cartographer. A person who makes maps and charts.cetaceans. Aquatic mammals, such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales.chlorofluorocarbons: A family of chemical compounds, consisting of

carbon, hydrogen, chlorine, and fluorine, which were developed for use in aerosol propellants and refrigerants. Chlorofluorocarbons are believed to react with the atmospheric ozone layer and cause its depletion.


chronometer: A timepiece used in scientific research that can accurately and precisely measure the duration of an event. In Switzerland, the Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres (COSC) conducts tests and issues certificates that meet its standards. The official COSC definition of a chronometer states that it “is a high-precision watch capable of displaying the seconds and housing a movement that has been tested over several days, in different positions and at different temperatures, by an official neutral body.”

continuous plankton recorder. A device used to collect plankton—tiny organisms in the water that form the basic food source of many larger marine animals—for study. Silk fabric is placed on a roller and towed by a ship. The forward motion of the ship supplies the energy to unroll the silk in stages, and plankton is collected on the fabric at a rate that closely corresponds to its concentration in the ocean.

deep-sea vents. Openings in the ocean floor from which mineralized water are emitted. These vents are formed where the sea floor is torn apart by the spreading of the Earth’s tectonic plates.

egg clutch: Refers to a group of eggs produced by a bird or reptile, usually during a single time period, and laid in a nest.

Egyptology. A field of archaeology that focuses on the study of ancient Egyptian art, history, language, literature, and religion from the fifth millennium b.c.e. to the fourth century c.e.

entomology: The scientific study of insects, including their taxonomy, morphology, physiology, and ecology. Entomology also includes the study of the harmful and beneficial impacts of insects on human beings and their environment.

ethnographer. A person who studies a particular human culture firsthand and reports on the people’s way of life based on direct observation.

folding: The term fold is used in geology when originally flat and planar surfaces become bent or curved. Folds form as a result of various types of stress and pressure.

fossils. The remains and other evidence of plants and animals found in sedimentary rock or other features of the Earth’s crust from a past geologic age. These include organic remains and their impressions, as well as impressions of tracks, trails, and habitats.

functionalism: In anthropology, a theory that stresses how the patterns and institutions of a society are interdependent and interact to maintain cultural and social unity. Thus, for example, to anthropologist Bronsilaw Malinowski every custom, material object, idea, and belief that he studied fulfilled a vital cultural and societal function.

geodetic: Also called geodesy, it is the study of the size and shape of the Earth and its gravitational field, tides, and the movement of its crust and poles.


geology. The scientific study of the origin, history, and structure of the Earth.

herbarium: A collection of dried plant specimens properly mounted, identified by experts, and labeled by their proper scientific names, together with other information, such as where they were collected and how they grew. These specimens are filed in cases according to families and genera, and thus are made available for quick reference.

hot spring. A natural spring that discharges water over 980 degrees Fahrenheit (530 degrees Celsius). Hot springs are created when water enters a crack in the Earth’s surface and forces out water that has collected beneath a fault and has been heated by hot rocks deeper in the Earth’s interior.

Human-Occupied Vehicle (HOV). A deep-sea submersible capable of carrying passengers that is used in oceanic exploration.

hydrography: The measurement and description of the physical features and conditions of navigable waters, such as oceans, rivers, lakes, and the coastal areas that adjoin them. Information from hydrographic research provides accurate nautical charts and guides the study of shoreline erosion and the movement of sediment. Furthermore, hydrographic studies are instrumental in determining the use of marine resources, establishing maritime boundaries, building coastal facili-ties, and implementing environmental policies, including pollution control.

hygrometer: One of several devices that measures the relative humidity of the air. There are several types of hygrometers, ranging from psychrometers (see below) to electronic devices. For example, a hair tension hygrometer uses a strand of hair held under a known tension; the degree to which the hair curls in response to humidity reveals the amount of relative humidity. A cooled mirror dewpoint hygrometer measures relative humidity by detecting condensation on the surface of a mirror with an electronic device.

ice stations. First established by the Soviet Union and the United States, these scientific stations are located on ice floes in the Arctic. Ice stations have been used to conduct hydrological, meteorological, and magnetic observations of the Arctic region.

indigenous people: People who originate in a particular region or country (sometimes referred to as “native people”). The United Nations defines indigenous people as those having historical continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies.

indigo: A plant that is the natural source of a blue dye. Extraction of the dye was important to the economy of colonial America and other parts of the world, especially India. Since the early twentieth century, synthetic indigo has replaced the natural dye in most uses.


isothermal line: A line on a map that connects points of constant or equal temperatures.

JIM suit. An atmospheric deep-sea diving suit developed in 1971, it is designed to protect divers from the dangers associated with deep-sea compression.

lichen: Parasitic fungi which feed on algae or different types of bacteria. mineralogy. The study of the distribution, identification, and properties

of minerals (naturally occurring, inorganic substances that are characterized by crystalline structure, color, and hardness.)

natural selection. A theory most prominently associated with the natural scientist Charles Darwin, according to which the young in a species compete for survival. In this process, they pass on to the next gener-ations (through heredity) variations, or adaptations to the environment, that are important to survival. According to Darwin, even the slightest variations may determine whether a specific species endures or dies out.

North Magnetic Pole. Arctic location where the magnetic field lines are oriented vertically before entering the Earth’s surface. The magnetic pole is caused by the Earth’s core emitting electrical currents; the pole drifts because the currents change.

oceanography. The exploration and scientific study of the ocean and its phenomena.

paleontology. The study of life-forms that existed in prehistoric or geologic times, usually as found in the fossils of plants, animals, and other organisms.

philology: This branch of linguistics is the study of human speech, mainly as it appears in literature and thus reveals cultural history.

psychrometer: Used for measuring atmospheric humidity, this instrument consists of two thermometers. The bulb of one thermometer is kept moist, and the effect of evaporative cooling is determined by comparing it to the other thermometer, which is kept dry.

rhumb line: A line that crosses all meridians of longitude at the same angle, it can be used for plotting a vehicle, an aircraft, or a ship’s course over short distances and at low latitiudes.

samplers. Also known as corers, these hollow steel tubes are used to gather a core sample of layers from the Earth’s crust on land, at the bottom of the ocean, and sometimes in other bodies of water. Samplers come in a various thicknesses and lengths, depending upon the type of material to be collected, and they provide a layered profile of the sediment in any given location.

scurvy: A breakdown of human collagen caused by a deficiency of vitamin C and characterized by spongy and bleeding gums, bleeding under the skin, and extreme weakness. It was a major threat to crews aboard


sailing vessels during the Age of Discovery and later, due to inadequate diets at sea.

taxonomy. The science of classifying organisms.tectonic plates. The large plates that make up the Earth’s surface. Tectonic

plates are in constant movement, shifting position by up to 2 inches (3 centimeters) per year. Consequently, the ocean floors are continually moving, spreading from the center, and sinking at the edges.

theodolite. An instrument used in surveying. It consists of two graduated circles placed at right angles and a telescope that turns on an axis and is situated at the center of the circles, all mounted on a pedestal. With this device, an explorer can measure horizontal and vertical angles and thus accurately survey land.

underwater sonar system: A system using sound waves to detect and locate submerged objects or to measure distances.

Van Allen radiation belt: Two belts (sometimes considered a single belt of varying intensity) of radiation outside the Earth’s atmosphere, extending from about 400 to 40,000 miles (650 to 65,000 kilometers) above the Earth. The belts were named for James A. Van Allen, the American astrophysicist who first predicted their existence.

voyageur: A woodsman, boatman, or guide employed by a fur company to transport goods and supplies between remote stations in the North American wilderness, generally in the seventeenth through eighteenth centuries.


The following is a selective list of books and Web sites pertaining to scientific expeditions and exploration since the fifteenth century. Please see the “Further Reading” lists accompanying individual articles for additional sources on specific subjects and people.

Books

Alexander, Caroline. The Endurance: Shackleton’s Legendary Antarctic Expedition. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1998.

Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.

Ballard, Robert D., ed. Archeological Oceanography. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

———. The Discovery of the Titanic. New York: Warner, 1987.Barden, Renardo. The Discovery of America: Opposing Viewpoints. San Diego, CA:

Greenhaven, 1989.Bascom, Willard. The Crest of the Wave: Adventures in Oceanography. New York:

Harper and Row, 1988.Bates, Henry Walter. The Naturalist on the River Amazon. 1863. New York:

Routledge, 2004.Baughman, T.H. Pilgrims on the Ice: Robert Falcon Scott’s First Antarctic

Expedition. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2008.Beaglehole, J.C., ed. The Journals of Captain James Cook on His Voyages of

Discovery. Rochester, NY: Boydell, 1999.Beattie, Donald A. Taking Science to the Moon: Lunar Experiments and the Apollo

Program. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.Bernbaum, Edwin. Sacred Mountains of the World. Berkeley: University of

California Press, 1997.Berne, Jennifer. Manfish: The Story of Jacques Cousteau. San Francisco: Chronicle,

2008.Berton, Pierre. The Artic Grail: The Quest for the North West Passage and the North

Pole, 1818–1909. New York: Lyons, 2000.Bond, Peter. The Continuing Story of the International Space Station. New York:

Springer, 2002.Bonta, Marcia M. Women in the Field: America’s Pioneering Woman Naturalists.

College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1991.Botting, Douglas. Humboldt and the Cosmos. New York: Harper and Row, 1973.Bowleb, Peter. Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence. New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1996.


Bowman-Kruhm, Mary. The Leakeys: A Biography. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2005.

Brown, Janet. Charles Darwin: Voyaging. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.Bruce, James. Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768–1773.

1790. New York: Horizon, 1964.Brunier, Serge. Space Odyssey: The First Forty Years of Space Exploration.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002.Bryce, Robert. Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved. Mechanicsville,

PA: Stackpole, 1997.Cadbury, Deborah. Space Race: The Epic Battle Between America and the Soviet

Union for Dominion in Space. New York: HarperCollins, 2006.Cameron, Ian. To the Farthest Ends of the Earth: 150 Years of World Exploration by

the Royal Geographical Society. New York: E.P. Dutton, 1980.Chaikin, Andrew. A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts. New

York: Penguin, 2007.Collins, David N., ed. Siberian Discovery. 12 vols. Surrey, UK: Curzon, 2000.Counter, Allen S. North Pole Legacy: Black, White and Eskimo. Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.Cousteau, Jacques, with Frédéric Dumas. The Silent World. New York: Harper,

1953.Crane, David. Scott of the Antarctic: A Life of Courage and Tragedy. New York:

Vintage Books, 2007.Davis, Wade. One River: Explorations and Discoveries in the Amazon Rain Forest.

New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996.DeGroot, Gerard. Dark Side of the Moon: The Magnificent Madness of the

American Lunar Quest. New York: New York University Press, 2006.Doubilet, David. Pacific: An Undersea Journey. Boston: Little, Brown, 1992.Dugard, Martin. Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone. New

York: Doubleday, 2003.Earle, Sylvia. Sea Change: A Message of the Ocean. New York: Putnam, 1995.Earle, Sylvia, and Al Giddings. Exploring the Deep Frontier. Washington, DC:

National Geographic Society, 1980.Fleming, Fergus. Ninety Degrees North: The Quest for the North Pole. New York:

Grove, 2001.Frost, Orcutt. Bering: The Russian Discovery of America. New Haven, CT: Yale

University Press, 2003.Gascoigne, John. Science in the Service of Empire: Joseph Banks, the British State and

the Uses of Science in the Age of Revolution. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.

Godwin, Robert. The Lunar Exploration Scrapbook: A Pictorial History of Lunar Vehicles. Burlington, Canada: Apogee, 2007.

Hallett, Robin, ed. Records of the African Association, 1788–1831. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1964.


Hanbury-Tenison, Robin , ed. The Seventy Great Journeys in History. New York: Thames and Hudson, 2006.

Hayes, Derek. First Crossing: Alexander Mackenzie, His Expedition Across North America, and the Opening of the Continent. Seattle: Sasquatch, 2001.

Henderson, Bruce. True North: Peary, Cook and the Race to the Pole. New York: W.W. Norton, 2005.

Herbert, Wally. The Noose of Laurels: The Discovery of the North Pole. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1989.

Heyerdahl, Thor. Green Was the Earth on the Seventh Day. New York: Random House, 1996.

Horner, John, and Edwin Dobb. Dinosaur Lives: Unearthing an Evolutionary Saga. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace, 1998.

Hudson, Peter. Two Rivers: Travels in West Africa on the Trail of Mungo Park. London: Chapmans, 1991.

Huntford, Roland. The Last Place on Earth: Scott and Amundsen’s Race to the South Pole. New York: Modern Library, 1999.

———. Shackleton. New York: Carroll and Graf, 1998.Isaac, Glynn, and Elizabeth R. McCown, eds. Human Origins: Louis Leakey and

the East African Evidence. Menlo Park, CA: W.A. Benjamin, 1976.Jaffe, Mark. The Gilded Dinosaur: The Fossil War Between E.D. Cope and O.C.

Marsh and the Rise of American Science. New York: Crown, 2000.Jeal, Tim. Stanley: The Impossible Life of Africa’s Greatest Explorer. New Haven,

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Moorehead, Caroline. Lost and Found: The 9,000 Treasures of Troy. New York: Viking, 1996.

Morell, Virginia. Ancestral Passions: The Leakey Family and the Quest for Humankind’s Beginnings. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.

Morison, Samuel Eliot. Admiral of the Ocean Sea. New York: MJF, 1997.———. The Great Explorers: The European Discovery of America. New York:

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Web Sites

The Explorers Club. http://www.explorers.org.The Hakluyt Society. http://www.hakluyt.com.International Polar Year. http://www.ipy.org.Kon-Tiki Museum. http://www.kon-tiki.no.The National Academies, International Geophysical Year. http://www.nas.edu/

history/igy.National Association of Black Scuba Divers. http://www.nabsdivers.org.National Geographic Society. http://www.nationalgeographic.com.Roy Chapman Andrews Society. http://www.roychapmanandrewssociety.org.Royal Geographical Society: http://www.rgs.org.Russian Federal Space Agency: http://www.roscosmos.ru/main.php?lang=en.Society of Woman Geographers. http://www.iswg.org.U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration: http://www.nasa.gov.U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration Landsat Program: http://

landsat.gsfc.nasa.gov.


Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

Abyssinia (Ethiopia), 1:62–63; 2:267

Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia, 1:183

Acadians, 1:60Account of the Arctic Regions, An

(Scoresby), 2:270Acosta, Bertrand B., 1:70Acuña, Cristóbal de, 1:6Adams, Cyrus C., 1:8Adams, Harriet Chalmers,

2:285–86Adams, Jameson, 2:280Adare, Cape, Antarctica, 1:22;

2:276Addington, Cape, Alaska, 2:255Adelaide, Cape, Canada, 1:14Aden, Yemen, 1:65Admiral of the Ocean Sea: A Life

of Christopher Columbus (Morison), 1:108–9

Advance Base, Antarctica, 1:69, 72, 74

Adventure, HMS, 1:87; 2:234Aegean Sea, 2:199Aerial photography, 2:204, 339Aetos, Mount, 2:260Africa, 2:198, 251

British exploration, 1:3–5Bruce, 1:61–64Burton and Speke, 1:64–69;

2:251, 251, 317French exploration, 1:3Kingsley, 1:165–69, 167

Livingstone, 1:184–87, 188; 2:251

new colonies in, 1:4Park, 1:4; 2:238–41Portuguese explorations,

1:xi–xii, 3, 106–7

Africa (continued)Schweinfurth, 2:267–69Stanley, 1:184, 187–90, 188,

189; 2:251Van der Post, 2:326–30See also specific location

African Association, 1:xiii, 3–5, 39; 2:239

African plate, 1:33Agamemnon, death mask of,

2:262–64, 263Agassiz, Alexander, 2:226Agassiz, Louis, 2:225–26Age of Discovery, 1:xii, xiii,

105–12; 2:200, 201, 216, 223, 232, 253

Age of Reconnaissance, 1450–1650, The (Parry), 1:xii

Akka pygmies, 2:267, 268Aku-Aku (Heyerdahl), 1:147Al-Idrisi, Mohammed, 2:199,

200Alaska, 1:12, 15, 27, 29, 30, 89;

2:207, 208, 216, 218, 252, 254, 255, 256, 258, 337, 339

Albert, Lake, Africa, 1:187, 189Albert I, Prince of Monaco,

2:222, 226Albert Hall, London, 2:251Albert P. Crary Science and

Engineering Center, 1:24

Alberta, Canada, 2:194Aldrin, Edwin “Buzz,” 2:292,

293Aleutian Islands, 1:27, 149Aleuts (native people), 2:255Alexander Mackenzie and

Company, 2:194–95

Alexandria Troas, Turkey, 2:260Alexandrian Museum, Egypt,

2:199Alfragan, 1:108Algeria, 1:4Algiers, 1:61, 62Allen, John, 1:127Allosaurus (dinosaur), 1:80Alone (Byrd), 1:74Alpine Club, 1:121Alps, 2:337ALSEP. See Apollo Lunar

Surface Experiments Package

Alvin (submersible), 1:31, 32–33, 35, 37, 37

Amazon River and Basin, 1:xiii, 5–8, 6; 2:207, 208, 265–66, 331, 332, 333

Bates, 1:7, 44–47Humboldt, 1:5, 155Wallace, 1:44; 2:332

“America,” 2:199, 200American Alpine Club, 2:338American Museum, New York,

1:183American Museum of Natural

History (AMNH), New York City, 1:16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 81, 130; 2:229, 242

American Philosophical Society, 1:91, 114, 180, 182

American Plate, 2:231–32American Revolution, 1:61,

113, 115, 126American Telephone and

Telegraph Company (AT&T), 2:305

Ames, Oakes, 2:265


AMNH. See American Museum of Natural History

Among the Alps with Bradford (Bradford), 2:337

Amundsen, Jens, 1:9Amundsen, Roald Engelbregt

Grauning, 1:xii, 8–16, 10, 21, 22, 23, 28, 124; 2:277

Northwest Passage, 1:8, 10–13

South Pole, 1:10, 13–15; 2:272, 275, 276, 277, 282

Amur River, 2:252, 257, 257Anastasi, Adrian, 1:53Anatolia, Turkey, 2:259, 260Anaximander, 2:199Anchorage, Alaska, 1:89Anders, William, 2:291Anderson, Alexander, 2:241Anderson, William R., 1:29Andes Mountains, 1:6, 56, 57,

98, 99, 157; 2:218, 265Andrea Doria (ship), 1:36Andrews, Charles Ezra, 1:16Andrews, Roy Chapman, 1:xii,

16–21, 19, 130Aneityum Island, 1:80Angkor, Cambodia, 2:209, 210Angkor Wat, 2:209, 210–11,

210Angola, 1:166ANGUS underwater camera,

1:33, 35Animal behavior, 2:325Animal Wife, The (Thomas),

2:325Antarctic Circle, 1:21, 22, 87

Cook’s crossing of, 2:231, 234

Antarctic Ocean, 2:347See also specific voyage/

expeditionAntarctic Peninsula, 1:21, 22Antarctic Program, U.S., 1:24

Antarctica, 1:xiii, 11, 13, 21–25, 22, 159, 160, 161, 161; 2:201, 225, 234

Amundsen, 1:8, 9, 13–15, 21, 23

Byrd, 1:21, 23, 69, 70, 71–74, 73; 2:218

Cook, 1:21, 82, 87 glaciers, 1:21, 25 Scott, 1:13, 14, 22, 23;

2:272–77, 273, 278, 279 Shackleton, 1:13–14, 22–

23; 2:278–84, 281, 282 See also specific locationAnthropological Society of

London, 1:68Anthropology Heyerdahl, 1:142–49, 143,

145, 146 Leakey family, 1:170–75;

2:218Anthropology, cultural. See

EthnographyAntioch, 1:137Anzhu, Pyotr, 1:27Apartheid, 2:327–28Apatosaurus (Brontosaurus;

dinosaur), 1:80Aphrodite’s Temple, Kíthira,

2:264Apollo Lunar Surface

Experiments Package (ALSEP), 2:292–93

Apollo Project (spacecraft), 2:287, 290–94, 296

Apollo 7, 2:291 Apollo 8, 2:287, 291 Apollo 11, 1:124; 2:287,

292, 293, 293 Apollo 12, 2:292 Apollo 13, 2:293–94 Apollo 15, 2:294 Apollo 16, 2:294 Apollo 17, 2:294 Apollo 18, 2:287, 295Appalachian Mountains, 1:32

Apurímac River, Peru, 1:8Aquarius (lunar lander), 2:294Arabia, 1:65; 2:267, 268, 322Arabian Nights (The Book of

the Thousand Nights and a Night; Burton, translator), 1:69; 2:322

Arabian Sea, 1:148Arabic, 2:322, 323Archaeology, 1:51–54 Bell, 1:51–54, 52 Bingham, 1:55–58, 57;

2:218 Carter, 1:75–78, 77; 2:218 Schliemann, 2:259–63, 262,

263 See also Marine archaeologyArchaeopteryx (primitive bird),

2:229, 230Archimedes (bathyscaphe), 1:33Arctic, 1:xiii, 11, 26–31, 160,

161; 2:202, 251, 342 Amundsen, 1:8–9, 10–13,

10, 15, 28 Bering, 1:26, 27; 2:253–55,

254 Byrd, 1:15, 28, 69, 70, 70 Henson, 1:23, 28, 140–42,

141; 2:243 Hudson, 1:26, 27, 111–12 Nansen, 1:9, 28; 2:211–16,

212, 222, 242 Nordenskjöld, 1:9, 15, 28;

2:219, 220–22, 220 Peary, 1:11, 13, 26, 28, 29,

140–42, 141; 2:218, 222, 242–45, 243

Russian exploration, 2:252–58

Scoresby, 1:269–71 temperature, 1:29, 31 twenty-first century, 1:29,

31 Watkins, 2:342–45Arctic Circle, 1:26Arctic haze, 1:160–61


Arctic Ocean, 1:15, 28, 161; 2:193, 194, 215, 219, 253, 255, 257, 343

See also specific voyage/expedition

Ares Valley, Mars, 2:314Argentina, 1:98; 2:208Argo (submersible), 1:34, 35Argonauts of the Western Pacific

(Malinowski), 2:195, 197

Argun (ship), 2:257Aripuanã River, Brazil, 1:7Arizona, 2:248, 339Arkansas, 1:115, 116Arkansas River, United States,

1:114Arkhangelsk (Archangel),

Russia, 1:27; 2:258Arktika (ship), 1:29Armitage, Albert, 2:274Armstrong, Neil, 1:124; 2:287,

292, 293Arsenyev, Vladimir

Klavdiyevich, 2:253, 258Artes Africanae; Illustrations

and Descriptions of Productions of the Industrial Arts of Central African Tribes (Schweinfurth), 2:269

Asia, 2:200, 201, 286See also specific location

Asie Centrale (Humboldt), 1:156

Assam, 1:165Astoria, Oregon, 1:181Astrolabes, 1:111, 111Atahuallpa (Inca emperor), 1:110AT&T. See American Telephone

and Telegraph CompanyAthabasca, Lake, Canada, 2:193Athabasca River, Canada, 2:193Atlantic Ocean, 2:228, 231, 271

See also specific voyage/expedition

Atlantis (ship), 1:37Atlantis (space shuttle), 2:298,

302, 309, 315Atlas of America’s Northwestern

Coast from the Bering Strait to Corrientes Cape and the Aleutian Islands, 1:27

Atlas of the Northern Part of the East Ocean, 1:27

Aurora (ship), 2:283Australia, 1:42, 50, 101; 2:201,

231, 233, 234, 237, 269, 347

Cook’s exploration, 1:38, 41, 85, 87

Flinders’s exploration, 1:124–28

Unknown Coast, 1:125, 126–27, 128

See also specific locationAustralopithecus (primate

species), 1:173–74A. afarensis, 1:175A. africanus, 1:174A. anamensis, 1:175A. boisei, 1:170, 173, 174

Automobiles, 1:18Avasaksa, Lapland, 2:202Aylesbury, Countess of, 1:5Ayuthaya, Siam, 2:209Azov, Russia, 1:148Aztec Empire, Spanish conquest

of, 1:105, 110

Baalbek, Lebanon, 1:62Babylonia, 2:199Bacteria, 1:34Badoo, Africa, 2:241Baffin, William, 1:27, 105,

112Baffin Bay, 1:105, 112Baffin Island, 1:27; 2:325Bagamoyo, Tanzania, 1:187Baghdad, Iraq, 1:53Baghdad Museum, 1:52

Baghdad Sketches (Stark), 2:321, 323

Bahamas, 1:105, 108Bahia, Brazil, 1:49Bahía Blanca, Argentina, 1:49Bahr-al-Ghazal, Sudan, 2:268Baikonur Cosmodrome, 2:288,

304Baja California, Mexico, 2:201Baku, Russia, 1:135Balchen, Bernt, 1:70, 71–72Ballard, Chester, 1:32Ballard, Robert Duane, 1:xiii,

31–38, 34, 124; 2:218Bamako, Africa, 2:240Bangweulu, Lake, Zambia,

1:186, 187Banks, Joseph, 1:xiii, 3, 4, 38–

43, 39, 83, 85, 87, 126, 127, 128; 2:234, 238

Banks, William, 1:39Bantu tribes, 2:198Bar of Shadow, A (Van der

Post), 2:328Barbados, 1:142Barbary states, 1:4, 61Barents Sea, 2:256, 258Barnum, P.T., 1:183Barometers, 2:212, 214, 246,

247Barrow, Alaska, 1:30Barrow, John, 2:250Bartram, William, 1:114Basra, Iraq, 1:53Bass, George, 1:125–26Bass Strait, 1:126Batavia, 1:87Bate, Sarah, 1:39Bates, Henry Walter, 1:7, 44–

47; 2:331, 332Bates, Robert, 2:338–39Batesian mimicry, 1:44, 45–46Bathyscaphes, 1:33; 2:222, 227,

236, 236, 237Baudin, Nicolas, 1:126, 127Bauer, Ferdinand Lukas, 1:127


Bay of Whales, Antarctica, 1:13, 71; 2:280

Bayanzag Valley, Mongolia, 1:130

BBC. See British Broadcasting Company

Beagle, HMS, 1:47–51, 48, 49, 96, 97, 97, 98–101, 102; 2:225, 234

Bean, Alan, 2:292Beardmore Glacier, Antarctica,

2:277Beasts of the Sea, The (De Bestiis

Marinis; Steller), 2:255, 256

Beaufort, Francis, 2:250Beaufort Sea, 1:89Beaufoy, Hugh, 1:4Bechuanaland (Botswana),

1:185; 2:324, 327, 329Bedouin, 1:52Beechy Island, 1:11Beetles, 1:44Belém (Para), Brazil, 1:6, 44, 45Belgian Antarctica Expedition,

1:8, 9, 22Belgica (ship), 1:9, 22Bell, Alexander Graham, 2:216Bell, Gertrude Margaret

Lowthian, 1:xii, 51–54, 52

Bell Telephone Company, 2:216

Bella Coola River, British Columbia, 2:193, 194

Beloit, Wisconsin, 1:16Beloit College, 1:16, 17Bement, Arden, 1:37Bennett, Floyd, 1:28, 70Bennett, James Gordon, Jr.,

1:186, 187Benowm, Africa, 2:240Berbera, Somalia, 1:66Berberis calliantha (evergreen

shrub), 1:165Beregovoy, Georgi, 2:291

Bering, Vitus Jonassen, 1:26, 27; 2:252, 253, 254, 255, 256

Bering Island, 2:255Bering Sea, 1:27; 2:221, 255,

256Bering Strait, 1:27, 89; 2:221,

252, 253Berlin, Germany, 1:156Bernacchi, Louis, 2:273, 274Beyond Euphrates (Stark), 2:321Big bang theory, 2:308Big Nambas people, 1:79Bingham, Hiram, III, 1:55–58,

57; 2:218Binomial nomenclature, 1:40Bioko Island (Fernando Póo),

1:68, 167Bipedalism, 1:174, 175Birds as evolved from dinosaurs,

2:206, 229, 230 See also specific speciesBismarck (ship), 1:36Bjaaland, Olav, 1:13Black Sea, 1:31, 36, 38; 2:228Blackburn, Reid, 2:218Blackwood’s Magazine, 2:318–19Blanc, Cape, Mauritania, 1:107Blegen, Carl William, 2:264Bligh, William, 1:125Bloomsbury Group, 2:328Blue Nile River, 1:61, 62–63Blue poppy (Meconopsis

betonicifolia), 1:163, 164–65

Boer War, 2:279Bogotá, Colombia, 1:156Bojador, Cape, Africa, 1:107Bolívar, Simón, 1:55–56Bolivia, 2:208Bolshoy Baranov Cape, Russia,

1:27Bone Cabin Quarry, Wyoming,

1:80, 81Bongo people, 2:268

Bonin Island, 2:256Bonpland, Aimé, 1:5, 7, 152,

154, 155Book de Magnete (Gilbert), 1:14Book of the Thousand Nights

and a Night, The (Arabian Nights; Burton, translator), 1:69; 2:322

Boos, Franz, 1:126Boothia Peninsula, Canada,

1:11, 12, 14, 28Bor Guve, Mongolia, 1:129, 130Bora Bora Island, 1:79Borchgrevnik, Carsten, 1:22Borge, Norway, 1:8, 9Borman, Frank, 2:290, 291Borneo, 1:17, 133, 134; 2:347Borup, Yvette, 1:17Boston Museum of Science,

2:336, 337, 339–40Botanic Garden, U.S., 2:349Botany Banks, 1:38–43; 2:234 Humboldt, 1:153–54 Kingdon-Ward, 1:163–65 Mexia, 2:207–9 Schultes, 2:265–67 Schweinfurth, 2:267–69 Wilkes Expedition, 2:349Botany Bay, Australia, 1:38, 41,

85, 124, 125; 2:234Botswana (Bechuanaland),

1:185; 2:324, 327, 329Boudeuse, La (ship), 1:60Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de,

1:58–61, 59, 154; 2:231, 234

Bougainville Island, 1:60; 2:234Bougainvillea (climbing plant),

1:60Bourke-White, Margaret, 2:286Bowdoin Bay, Greenland, 2:242Bowers, Henry Robertson,

2:276–77Bowman, Isaiah, 1:56Bowring, John, 2:209


Brackenridge, William, 2:347Bradford Washburn American

Mountaineering Museum, 2:338

Brahmaputra River, 1:138Brand, Vance, 2:295Braun, Wernher von, 1:159Brazil, 1:5, 6, 44, 45, 49, 68, 98,

109, 133; 2:207, 208, 347

Brazza, Pierre Savorgnan de, 1:166

Breed, William, 2:248Bright Angel shale, 2:248British Arctic Air Route

Expedition, 2:342, 344–45

British Association for the Advancement of Science (British Science Association), 1:68; 2:269, 271, 321

British Broadcasting Company (BBC), 2:329

British Columbia, 1:89, 142, 144, 176; 2:193, 194

British East India Company, 1:64, 65

British Empire, 1:43; 2:250–51British Guiana (Guyana), 2:251,

340–42British Military Intelligence,

1:53British Museum, 1:39, 43, 167British Museum of Natural

History, 1:79, 171British National Antarctic

Expedition, 1:22; 2:272, 273–74, 275, 278, 279, 280

British Science Association (British Association for the Advancement of Science), 1:68

Brontosaurus (Apatosaurus; dinosaur), 1:80

Brothers of Freedom, 2:323Brown, Robert, 1:127Bruce, James, 1:xii, 4, 61–64Bruce, William Speirs, 2:282Bryce, Robert, 2:244Bube people, 1:165, 167Buddhism, 1:129, 137Budge, E.A. Wallis, 2:264Buffon, Georges Louis-Leclerc,

Comte de, 1:63Bull, Henryk John, 1:21, 22Bulletin of the American

Geographical Society, 1:8Bumpus, Hermon C., 1:17Bunarbashi, Turkey, 2:260Bureau of American Ethnology,

2:245, 249Burma, 1:17, 165Burton, Richard Francis, 1:xii,

64–69, 65, 166, 168, 186; 2:251, 317–21

Bush, George W., 2:298Bushmen, 2:324–25, 326, 327,

329Bussa Rapids, 2:241Bute, Earl of, 1:5Butterflies, 1:44, 45, 46Bylot, Robert, 1:27, 112Byrd, Richard E., 1:xii, 15, 21,

23, 28, 69–74, 70; 2:218Byron, John, 2:233

Cabinda, Africa, 1:166Cabot, John, 1:131Cairo, Egypt, 2:323Cairo Museum, 1:78Calabar, Africa, 1:166Calder, William, III, 2:263Calicut, 1:107California, 1:89; 2:349 gold rush, 2:260California gray whales, 1:17Callao, Peru, 1:146, 147Calvert, Frank, 2:260Calypso (ship), 1:92, 93–95, 93Camarasaurus (dinosaur), 1:80

Cambodia, 2:209, 210Cameras, 2:338 ANGUS underwater, 1:33,

35 mapmaking and, 2:204 See also PhotographyCameron, Verney Lovett, 2:251Cameroon, 1:166Cameroon, Mount, 1:168Camp Disappointment, 1:183Camposaurus (dinosaur), 1:80Camps and Trails in China

(Andrews), 1:20Canada, 1:26, 27, 29, 59, 83,

105, 110, 112, 131–32; 2:193–95, 243, 256, 299, 308, 325, 336, 337, 339, 342, 343

See also specific locationCanary Islands, 1:108Canterbury Basin, New

Zealand, 2:237Cape Adare, Antarctica, 1:22;

2:276Cape Addington, Alaska, 2:255Cape Adelaide, Canada, 1:14Cape Blanc, Mauritania, 1:107Cape Bojador, Africa, 1:107Cape Chelyuskin, Russia, 1:27Cape Cod, Massachusetts,

2:226Cape Crozier, Antarctica, 2:276Cape Evans, Antarctica, 2:276Cape Leeuwin, Australia, 1:127Cape Morris Jesup, Greenland,

1:28; 2:242Cape of Good Hope, Africa,

1:42, 87, 88, 107; 2:347Cape Prince of Wales, Alaska,

1:27Cape Royds, Antarctica, 2:280Cape Shelagski, Russia, 2:252,

257Cape Times, 2:328Cape Verde Islands, 1:49, 98,

107


Carchemish, 1:52Cárdenas, Garcia López de,

1:110Caribbean (West Indies), 1:xiii,

113, 126, 163; 2:226Carmel, California, 1:16, 20Carnarvon, George Edward

Stanhope Herbert, fifth Earl of, 1:75, 76–78

Caroline Island, 2:256Carpentaria, Gulf of, 1:127Carr, Gerald, 2:295Carson, Rachel, 1:95Carter, Howard, 1:xii, 75–78,

77; 2:218Carteret, Philip, 2:234Cartier, Jacques, 1:105, 110Cartography. See Maps and

mapmakingCascade Mountains, 2:194Casiquiare Canal, 1:155Caspian Sea, 2:321, 322Cassini-Huygens (spacecraft),

2:302, 315, 316Castaneda, Carlos, 2:266Catastrophic theory, 1:49,

102–3Catholicism, 1:xi; 2:232, 340Cave of a Thousand Buddhas,

China, 1:129Celebes Island, 1:17Centaurus X-3, 2:307Central Africa, 1:4, 166, 189Central America, 2:200, 201,

242 See also specific locationCentral Asia, 1:135, 136–38,

136, 138Central Asia and Tibet (Hedin),

1:137Central Asiatic Expeditions,

1:16, 17–20Central Kalahari Game Reserve,

2:327, 329Centrifugal force, 2:202Cernan, Eugene, 2:294

Cetaceans, 1:16, 17CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons),

1:25Chaffee, Roger, 2:291Challenger (space shuttle),

2:285, 286, 297Challenger Deep, 2:227, 237Challenger expedition, 2:222,

225, 231, 232, 234, 235, 237

Chambers, Robert, 1:102Chandra (X-ray telescope),

2:307Chandrayaan-1 (lunar orbiter),

2:311Chang-Tang plateau, Tibet,

1:123, 124Chang’an (Xi’an), China,

1:137Chang’e 1 (lunar orbiters),

2:302, 310–11Chao Phraya River, Thailand,

2:209Chapman, Cora May, 1:16Charbonneau, Toussaint, 1:178Charles, Prince of Wales, 2:326,

329Charles Hansson (ship), 1:12Charles Island, 1:50Chatham Island, 1:50, 99Chechen Desert, 1:138Cheesman, Lucy Evelyn,

1:78–80Chelyuskin, Cape, Russia, 1:27Chelyuskin, Semyon, 1:27;

2:256Chemosynthesis, 1:34Cherrie, George, 1:7Chesapeake Bay, United States,

2:203Chikyu (ship), 2:237Chile, 1:98–99; 2:208, 235,

347Chimborazo, Mount, Ecuador,

1:155, 157Chimpanzees, 2:218

China, 1:17, 19, 121, 129, 135, 136, 136, 137, 139, 163, 164; 2:199, 252, 257, 257, 258, 285, 287, 302, 308

manned space exploration by, 2:287, 299–300

unmanned space exploration by, 2:310–11

See also specific locationChipewyan, Fort, Canada, 2:193Chirikov, Aleksi Illich, 1:27;

2:254, 255Chitambo, Africa, 1:187Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs),

1:25Choqquequirau, Peru, 1:56Christianity, 1:xi, 107, 185Christmas, Wilhelmina

Anderson, 1:20Chronometers, 1:67, 67, 83,

156; 2:194, 203, 246Chukchi Peninsula, Russia,

2:254Churchill River (Hamilton

River), Canada, 2:342, 343–44

Cíbola, 1:105, 110Circumnavigation of Earth,

1:58, 59, 59, 105, 110; 2:232, 233, 234, 256, 347

Civil Service Commission, 1:58Civil War, U.S., 1:186; 2:246Clairaut, Alexis, 1:59Clarion Fracture Zone, 2:235Clark, Charles, 1:89Clark, James L., 1:17Clark, William, 1:xiii, 114,

175–76, 177–83, 177, 179; 2:194

Classes, classifying, 1:40Clatsop, Fort, Oregon, 1:181–

82Clearwater River, United States,

1:181


Climate change, 1:31See also Global warming

Clipperton Fracture Zone, 2:235

Cloverly Formation, Montana, 1:81; 2:230

Club of the Royal Philosophers, 1:43

Coconino sandstone, 2:248Cod, Cape, Massachusetts,

2:226Coelurus, 1:81Colbert, Edwin H., 2:229cold war, 1:23, 29, 58; 2:287,

295, 302, 304, 310Collins, Michael, 2:290, 292Colombia, 1:154; 2:265–66Colonialism, 1:169, 189Colorado River, 2:245–46,

247–49, 247Columbia (Apollo 11 command

module), 2:292Columbia (space shuttle), 2:287,

296, 298, 338Columbia River, 1:181, 183;

2:347, 349Columbia University, 2:227Columbus, Christopher, 1:xi–

xii, xiii, 105, 108–9, 131Comet Grigg-Skjellerup, 2:316Commander Islands, 2:254,

256Commerçon, Philibert, 1:60Como Bluff, Wyoming, 1:80–

81, 91Compasses, 2:194, 212, 246,

269, 270, 271Compton Gamma Ray

Observatory, 2:298Concepción, Chile, 1:99Condemned to Devil’s Island

(Niles), 2:285Conformal maps, 2:201–2Congo, 1:189–90Congo, Democratic Republic of,

2:268, 318

Congo and the Founding of Its Free State, The (Stanley), 1:190

Congo River, 1:3, 186, 189; 2:241, 268

Connecticut, 1:55, 58Conrad, Charles “Pete,” 2:292,

295Conservation, 2:329, 342Conshelf projects, 1:92, 95–96Constellation program, 2:299Continental Divide, 2:193, 194Continental drift, 1:31, 32;

2:228Continentality principle

(Humboldt), 1:157Continuous plankton recorder,

2:227Contributions to the Theory

of Natural Selection (Wallace), 2:334

Convicts, 1:42Cook, Frederick, 1:13, 29;

2:243, 244–45Cook, James, 1:xiii, 3, 4, 27,

41–42, 82–90, 83, 84, 86, 125, 152, 153, 154; 2:203, 231, 233, 234, 347

Antarctic Circle crossed by, 1:21, 22, 87

Antarctica circumnavigated by, 1:82, 85, 87

Australia, 1:38, 41, 85, 87Northwest Passage, 1:88–89

Cook and Peary: The Polar Controversy Resolved (Bryce), 2:244

Cook Inlet, 2:193Cooley, William Desborough,

1:131Cope, Edward Drinker, 1:xii, 81,

90–92; 2:205, 207“Cope’s rule,” 1:91Coral snakes, 1:46Corers, 2:228

Corona (satellite), 2:306Coronado, Francisco, 1:105,

110Coropuna, Mount, Peru, 1:57Corps of Discovery, 1:175–76,

178, 180, 182–83Cortés, Hernán, 1:105, 109–10Coryndon Memorial Museum,

1:172Cosmic radiation, 1:24, 159;

2:302Cosmos (Humboldt), 1:153, 157Cosmos Club, 2:216Cousteau, Jacques-Yves, 1:xiii,

92–96, 93; 2:218Cousteau, Jean-Michel, 1:96Cousteau, Philippe, 1:96Cousteau Society, 1:92, 95Crary, Albert P., 1:24Crean, Tom, 2:284Crime and Custom in Savage

Society (Malinowski), 2:197

Crimean War, 2:318Crippen, Robert, 2:296Crocodiles, 2:341Crosley, John, 1:127Crozier, Cape, Antarctica, 2:276Cumberland, HMS, 1:127Cunningham, Walter, 2:291Curare, 2:265–66, 340–41Custis, Peter, 1:116Cutler, W.E., 1:171Cuzco, Peru, 1:56, 110Cyclops Mountains, New

Guinea, 1:80

Damascus, Syria, 1:52, 68Damāvand, Mount, Persia,

1:136Dana, James Dwight, 2:347Danielssen, Daniel Cornelius,

2:212Daphne Island, 1:100Dark Eye in Africa, The (Van der

Post), 2:329


Darwin, Charles, 1:xiii, 45–46, 91, 96–105, 97, 131, 157; 2:206, 206, 225, 331, 333, 334, 335, 335, 341

Beagle voyage, 1:47–51, 48, 49, 97, 97, 98–101, 102; 2:225, 234

Darwin, Erasmus, 1:97, 102Darwin Medal, 2:335Darwinism. See Evolution,

Darwin’s theoryDavis, John, 1:21, 22, 27Davis Strait, 1:27Davy, Humphry, 2:270Days Before History (Hall),

1:170De Bestiis Marinis (The Beasts of

the Sea; Steller), 2:255, 256

Death masks, 2:259, 262–64, 263

Deep Ocean Engineering, 1:117, 119

Deep Rover (submersible), 1:119Deep-sea drilling, 2:222, 223,

227–28, 237–38Deep Sea Drilling Project,

2:237Deep Submergence Laboratory,

1:34Deevie Bay, 2:343Defense Support Program

(DSP), 2:306Defoe, Daniel, 1:125Deinonychus (dinosaur), 2:229,

230Deir el Bahbri, Egypt, 1:75Dellenbaugh, Frederick, 1:123Demakopoulou, Katie, 2:263Demerara River, British Guiana,

2:341Denali National Park (Mount

McKinley National Park), Alaska, 2:207, 208

Denmark, 1:148Denmark Strait, 1:36Depression, Great, 1:20, 58;

2:344Dersu Uzala (Dersu the Hunter;

Arsenyev), 2:258Des Moines River, United

States, 2:246Descent of Man, The (Darwin),

1:97, 103, 105Description from a Voyage

Around the World (Bougainville), 1:60

Desert Storm, Operation, 2:306Devil’s Island, 2:285DEW (Distant Early Warning)

Line, 1:29Dezhnyov, Semyon, 2:253, 254Dias, Bartholomeu, 1:105, 107Dias, Dinis, 1:107Dickson, James, 2:238Dinka people, 2:268Dinosaurs, 1:19

birds as evolved from, 2:206, 229, 230

eggs, 1:16, 18–19, 19, 130, 150–51; 2:230

fossils, 1:18, 21, 80–81, 90, 91, 129, 130, 130, 150–51; 2:206, 229–30

growth rates in, 1:151 as warm blooded, 1:151,

152; 2:229, 230 See also specific speciesDiomede Island, 1:27Diplodocus (dinosaur), 1:80Dipping needles, 1:156Discoveries Made in Exploring

the Missouri, Red River, and Washita by Captains Lewis and Clark, Doctor Sibley, and William Dunbar, 1:116

Discovery (Byrd), 1:74Discovery (ship; Baffin

expedition), 1:112

Discovery (space shuttle), 2:298, 302, 309

Discovery, Age of. See Age of Discovery

Discovery, HMS (ship; Cook expedition), 1:89

Discovery Expedition, 2:273–74, 275, 278, 279, 280

Discovery of the Titanic, The (Ballard), 1:35

Dismorphia butterflies, 1:45Distant Early Warning (DEW)

Line, 1:29District of Columbia, University

of the (UDC), 1:162–63Diur people, 2:268Divers Voyages Touching the

Discoverie of America (Hakluyt), 1:131, 132

Dobrovolsky, Georgi, 2:295Dodoth people, 2:324, 325Dogs, 2:325Dogsleds, 1:11; 2:213, 243,

244–45, 275, 276, 277Dolphin, HMS, 2:233–34Dörpfeld, Wilhelm, 2:264Drifting ice stations, 1:26,

28–29, 30, 30Druze, 1:51–52DSP. See Defense Support

ProgramDu Chaillu, Paul Belloni, 1:166Duke, Charles, 2:294Dunbar, William, 1:xiii, 113–17Dunbar-Hunter expedition,

1:xiii, 113–17Dunhuang, 1:129Dunn, William, 2:246Dutch East India Company,

1:112Dutch East Indies, 2:233, 328Dyhrenfurth, Norman, 1:120,

122

Eagle (lunar lander), 2:292, 293Eagle City, Alaska, 1:12


Eannes, Gil, 1:107Earhart, Amelia, 2:285, 286Earl of Pembroke (ship), 1:86Earle, Barbara, 1:36Earle, Sylvia Alice, 1:117–20,

118, 124; 2:228–29Early Apollo Scientific

Experiments Package (EASEP), 2:293

Early Man and the Ocean (Heyerdahl), 1:148

Earthcircumference, 2:199, 200–

201circumnavigation, 1:58, 59,

59, 105, 110; 2:232, 233, 234, 256, 347

climate, 1:21equatorial bulge, 2:202magnetic field, 1:24

Earthquakes, 2:235EASEP. See Early Apollo

Scientific Experiments Package

East Africa, 2:251East India Company, 2:317East Indies (Spice Islands), 1:xi,

xiii, 110; 2:232East Pacific Rise, Siberian Sea,

1:27; 2:252, 257Easter Island, 1:87, 144, 147–

48, 149; 2:231Ecuador, 1:5, 6, 146, 154Edge Island (Edgeoya), 2:342,

343Edsel Ford Range, Antarctica,

1:72Edward, Lake, Africa, 1:189Edward VII, King of England,

2:281Edwards, W.H., 1:44Egg Mountain, Montana, 1:151Eggs, dinosaur, 1:16, 18–19, 19,

130, 150–51; 2:230Egypt, 2:267, 323Egypt Exploration Fund, 1:75

Egyptian Antiquities Service, 1:75–76

Eisele, Donn, 2:291Eisenhower, Dwight D., 2:304El-Amarna, Egypt, 1:75Elasmosaurus (reptile), 2:207Elburz Mountains, Persia,

2:322Elephant Island, 2:283, 284Elephants, 2:325Elizabeth I, Queen of England,

1:132Elizabeth II, Queen of England,

2:326, 330Ellesmere Island, 1:14, 27, 141;

2:243Ellicott, Andrew, 1:114Ellsworth, Lincoln, 1:15, 23Emma Dean (boat), 2:246Encounter Bay, Australia, 1:126,

127Endeavour (space shuttle),

2:287, 297, 298, 309Endeavour, HMS, 1:38, 41–42,

82, 83, 85, 86, 86; 2:234Endurance (ship), 2:278, 281–

84, 282England/English, voyages of

discovery by, 1:111–112, 131–132; 2:232, 233

Enlightenment, 1:3, 59, 60Entomological Society of

London (Royal Entomological Society), 1:46

Entomology, 1:44 Bates, 1:44–47Environment, evolution and,

1:102, 104Environmentalism, 1:95–96,

119–20, 157; 2:266, 326, 329–30

Epidemics, 1:6–7Equal-area maps, 2:201–2Equatoria, 1:184, 189Equatorial Guinea, 1:167

Eratosthenes of Cyrene, 2:199–200

Erebus, Mount, Antarctica, 2:281

Erickson, Gregory, 1:151Erie, Lake, 1:111Eritrea, 2:268Erketu ellisoni (dinosaur), 1:130ESA. See European Space

AgencyEskimo Life (Nansen), 2:213Eskimos. See InuitEssays on Natural History,

Especially Concerning Ornithology (Waterton), 2:341–42

Essay on the Principle of Population, An (Malthus), 1:101, 103

Essequibo River, British Guiana, 2:341

Ethiopia (Abyssinia), 1:62–63; 2:267

Ethnobotany, 2:265Ethnography, 1:12, 28; 2:196–

97, 285, 349 field-work, 2:195, 196–97,

196 functionalist approach,

2:195, 197–98 Hanbury-Tenisons, 1:133–

35 Leakey family, 2:218 Malinowski, 2:195–99 participant observers in,

2:197 Schweinfurth, 2:267–69 Thomas, 2:324–26Etoile, L’ (ship), 1:60Eudiometers, 1:156Euphrates River, 2:199, 323Eurasia, 1:15Europe. See specific locationEuropean Space Agency (ESA),

2:298, 299, 300, 302, 307, 308, 309, 312, 316


European Union, 2:237Evans, Cape, Antarctica, 2:276Evans, Edgar, 2:276–77Evans, Ronald, 2:294Everest, George, 1:122Everest, Mount, 2:339

expeditions to, 1:xiii, 120–23, 121

Evolution, 1:50; 2:331, 335catastrophic theory, 1:49,

102–3Darwin’s theory, 1:91, 96–

97, 97, 100–105, 143; 2:205, 206, 206, 331, 333

geography and, 2:332, 334Lamarck’s theory, 1:91, 102Wallace’s theory, 1:103–4;

2:331, 332–34, 333Ewing, Maurice, 2:228Expeditions. See specific

expeditionExplorer 1 (satellite), 1:158,

159–60, 159; 2:301, 304Explorer 6 (satellite), 2:306Explorer Comes Home, An

(Andrews), 1:20Explorers. See specific explorerExplorers Club, 1:123–24, 142;

2:285Explorers Journal, 1:123, 124Exploring the Deep Frontier

(Earle), 1:119Exploring with Byrd (Byrd),

1:74Expression of the Emotions in

Man and Animals, The (Darwin), 1:97, 105

Exxon Valdez oil spill, 1:120

Faisal I, King of Iraq, 1:51, 54Falkland Islands, 1:60, 98Fallen Timbers, Battle of, 1:177Fang people, 1:165, 166, 168Farthest North (Nansen), 2:214Fatu Hiva Island, 1:143

Ferdinand, King of Spain, 1:xi, 108

Fernando Póo Island (Bioko), 1:68, 167

Fernel, Jean, 2:200–201Ferrar, Hartley, 2:273, 279Fieldwork, 2:195, 196–97,

196Fiji Islands, 2:233, 235, 347,

349Filchner, Wilhelm, 2:282Finches, 1:50, 100Finlay, Gregory and Company,

2:193Fiorelli, Giuseppe, 2:260First Crossing of Greenland, The

(Nansen), 2:213First Pan American Scientific

Congress, 1:56Fish

fossils, 2:206 See also specific speciesFitzRoy, Robert, 1:47, 96Fjord, Lake, Greenland, 2:345Flaming Cliffs, Gobi Desert,

1:18, 19, 130Flinders, Matthew, 1:xiii, 42,

124–28Florida, 1:132Florilegium (Banks), 1:42Floyd Bennett (airplane), 1:71–

72, 73, 73Flying Fish, USS, 2:346, 347For Better, For Worse: To the

Brazilian Jungle and Back Again (M. Hanbury-Tenison), 1:133–34

Forbes, Edward, 2:222, 223–24Ford trimotor monoplane (Tin

Goose), 1:71–72, 73, 73Forster, E.M., 2:328Forster, George, 1:152, 153Fort Chipewyan, Canada, 2:193Fort Clatsop, Oregon, 1:181–82Fort Mandan, North Dakota,

1:178, 180, 181, 182

Fort Peck Reservoir, Montana, 1:150, 152

Fort Pitt, Pennsylvania, 1:113Fossey, Dian, 1:124; 2:218Fossils, 1:16, 17–18; 2:205–7,

248dinosaur, 1:18, 21, 80–81,

90, 91, 129, 130, 130, 150–51; 2:206, 229–30

extraction, 1:20fish, 2:206hominid, 1:171–75, 171mammal, 1:173; 2:206shells, 2:247

Fracture zones, 2:232, 235Fram (ship), 1:13, 14; 2:211,

212, 213–15France/French, 2:337

voyages of discovery by, 1:3, 110–11; 2:232, 234

Franheim, 1:13Franklin, John, 1:9, 11, 28;

2:250, 251Franz Josef Land, 2:214, 215Fraser River, Canada, 2:194Frazer, James, 2:196Freedom 7 (Mercury space

capsule), 2:287, 289Freeman, Thomas, 1:116French Academy of Sciences,

1:61French and Indian War. See

Seven Years’ WarFrench Congo, 1:165, 166, 167French Guiana, 2:285French Polynesia, 1:79French Royal Academy of

Sciences, 2:202Fridtjof, Mount, Antarctica,

1:71Friendship 7 (Mercury space

capsule), 2:287, 289Frobisher, Martin, 1:27Frobisher Bay, Baffin Island,

1:27Fruneaux Group, 1:126


Fuchs, Vivian E., 1:24Fuji Islands, 1:149Functionalism, 2:195, 197–98Fur trade, 2:193Furneaux, Tobias, 1:87

Gagarin, Yuri, 2:287, 288, 288, 305

Gagnan, Émile, 1:93Galápagos Islands, 1:47, 50, 79,

96, 99–100, 147; 2:231, 234

Galápagos Rift, 1:33Galileo (space probe), 2:302Gama, Vasco da, 1:105, 107Gambia River, Africa, 1:3, 4,

107; 2:239, 241Garrett, Jim, 1:119Gelu, Lakpa, 1:123Gemini Project (spacecraft),

2:287, 289–91, 296Gemini 3, 2:290Gemini 4, 2:290Gemini 6, 2:290Gemini 7, 2:290Gemini 10, 2:290

Genera, 1:40Genus, classifying, 1:40Geodesy, 2:200, 204Géographe, Le (ship), 1:126, 127Geographical Distribution of

Animals, The (Wallace), 2:334

Geographical Journal, 2:250, 251, 280

Geological Survey, U.S., 2:199, 204, 207, 218, 245, 249

Geology, 1:41; 2:248, 349George’s River, Australia, 1:124,

125–26Germany, Nazi, 1:139; 2:198Gibson, Edward, 2:295Giesecke, Albert, 1:56Gilbert, William, 1:14Giotto (spacecraft), 2:302, 316Gishe Abbay, 1:63

Giza, Great Pyramid of, 1:75Gjoa (ship), 1:10–11, 12, 28Gjoa Haven, 1:11, 12Glacial melting, 1:160Glaciers, 1:21, 25, 28Glen Canyon, United States,

2:247Glenn, John, 2:287, 289Global Crop Diversity Trust,

1:31Global Positioning System

(GPS), 1:5, 6, 8, 14, 67Global Seed Vault, 1:31Global warming, 1:21, 29, 31Glomar Challenger (ship),

2:227–28Goa, India, 1:65Goa and the Blue Mountains

(Burton), 1:65Gobi Desert, 1:xiii, 16, 17, 18,

19, 21, 129–30, 130, 135, 136, 139

Godthaab, Greenland, 2:211, 213

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 1:158

Gold, 1:4, 6, 110; 2:232, 259, 261, 261

Gold rush, California, 2:260Golden Bough, The: A Study

in Magic and Religion (Frazer), 2:196

Gondar, Abyssinia, 1:62–63Gondokoro, Sudan, 2:319, 320Good, Peter, 1:127Good Hope, Cape of, Africa,

1:42, 87, 88, 107; 2:347

Goodall, Jane, 2:218Gordon, Richard, 2:292Gore, John, 1:89Gorillas, 2:218Gould, Laurence, 1:71GPS. See Global Positioning

SystemGrafton, Duke of, 1:5

Grand Canyon, Arizona, 2:246, 247–48, 336, 339

Grand Lake, Labrador, 2:344Grand Wash, Arizona, 2:248Granger, Walter, 1:18, 20, 80Grant, James Augustus, 2:251,

319Grant, Peter, 1:100Gravity corer, 2:228Gray, Asa, 1:96, 103Great Barrier Inlet, Antarctica,

2:280Great Barrier Reef, Australia,

1:85, 127; 2:237Great Bone Wars, 1:91; 2:207Great Britain, 1:3, 4; 2:194, 211,

307imperialism, 1:5, 53–54, 169

Great Depression, 1:19–20, 58; 2:344

Great Ice Barrier, Antarctica, 1:23; 2:279

Great Lakes, 1:110–11Great Northern Expedition,

1:26, 27; 2:252, 254–56Great Plains, 1:178Great Slave Lake, Canada, 2:193Greece, 2:215, 264Greek Archaeological Society,

2:263Greely, Adolphus, 1:123Green River, United States,

2:246–47, 247Greenhouse gases, 1:161Greenland, 1:9, 11, 26, 27, 28,

29, 69, 70, 112, 140–41, 160; 2:211, 212–13, 219, 220, 222, 242, 244, 269, 270–71, 342, 343, 344–45

Greenland Sea, 2:270Greenwich Mean Time (prime

meridian), 2:203Gregory, MacLeod and

Company. See Finlay, Gregory and Company


Grenville (ship), 1:83Grigoryev, Alexander

Mikhaylovich, 2:258Grissom, Virgil “Gus,” 2:289,

290, 291Grosvenor, Gilbert Hovey, 1:95;

2:217, 218, 337–38Grosvenor, Gilbert Melville,

2:218Grunsfeld, John, 2:338Guadalcanal Island, 1:36Guam Island, 2:236Guerrero, Mexico, 2:208Guinea, Gulf of, Africa, 1:165,

166Guinness, Thomas Loel, 1:93, 94Gulf Stream, 2:225, 226Gulf War, 1:120Gunther, Albert Charles, 1:167Guyana (British Guiana), 2:251,

340–42

Habeler, Peter, 1:123Haddon, Albert Cort, 1:171Hadley Rille, Moon, 2:294Hadrosaurs (dinosaur), 1:151,

152Hagoromo (satellite), 2:310Ha’il, Saudi Arabia, 1:51, 52Haise, Fred, 2:293–94Hajj, 1:64, 65Hakluyt, Richard, 1:131–32,

132Hakluyt Society, 1:xiii, 131–32Hale, Horatio, 2:347Half Moon (ship), 1:112Hall, Henry Rushton, 1:170Halley, Edmund, 1:88Halley’s Comet, 2:302, 316Hallucinogens, 2:265–66Ham (chimpanzee), 2:305Hamilton River (Churchill

River), Canada, 2:342, 343–44

Hanbury-Tenison, Marika, 1:133–35

Hanbury-Tenison, Robin, 1:133–35

Hanssen, Helmer, 1:13Harar, Somalia, 1:64, 65Hardy, Alister, 2:227Hargas, Marjorie, 1:32, 36Harmless People, The (Thomas),

2:324, 325Harrison, John, 1:67, 67; 2:203Harrison, Marguerite, 2:285Harvard University

Botanical Museum, 2:265, 266

Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium at, 2:265, 266

Hassel, Sverre, 1:13Haverford College, 1:91Hawaii, 1:89, 149Hawaiian Islands, 2:235, 347Hawkes, Graham, 1:117, 119Hayden, Ferdinand, 1:91Heart of Africa, The: Three Years’

Travels and Adventures in the Unexplored Regions of Central Africa from 1868 to 1871 (Schweinfurth), 2:267, 268

Heart of the Antarctic, The (Shackleton), 2:281

Heart of the Hunter, The (Van der Post), 2:330

Hedin, Sven Anders, 1:129, 135–39, 136

Heezen, Bruce, 2:228Heimen (ship), 2:343Helen (ship), 2:332Heliconian butterflies, 1:45;

2:333Hendrickson, Kai, 1:56Henrietta Marie (ship), 1:163Henry the Navigator, Prince

of Portugal, 1:xi, 105, 106–7, 106

Henslow, John Stevens, 1:97, 98

Henson, Matthew, 1:xii, 26, 28, 140–42, 141; 2:243

Herbariums, 1:39Hermit shale, 2:248Hesperornis (early bird species),

2:206Heyerdahl, Thor, 1:142–49,

143, 145, 146Hidatsa Indians, 1:178Hidden Life of Deer, The: Lessons

from the Natural World (Thomas), 2:326

Hidden Life of Dogs, The (Thomas), 2:324, 325

Hillary, Edmund, 1:120, 121, 122, 124

“Hillary Step,” 1:122Himalayan Mountains, 1:121,

122, 138; 2:339Hindu culture, 1:65Hissarlik, Turkey, 2:259, 260–

62, 261Historic Naval Ship

Association, 2:236History of British Starfishes and

other Animals of the Class Echinodermata (Forbes), 2:222, 223

History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, The, 1:183

Hiten (spacecraft), 2:310Hitler, Adolf, 1:139; 2:198HMS Adventure. See Adventure,

HMS HMS Beagle. See Beagle,

HMSHMS Cumberland. See

Cumberland, HMSHMS Discovery. See Discovery,

HMSHMS Dolphin. See Dolphin,

HMSHMS Endeavour. See Endeavour,

HMS


HMS Investigator. See Investigator, HMS

HMS Norfolk. See Norfolk, HMS

HMS Porpoise. See Porpoise, HMS

HMS Providence. See Providence, HMS

HMS Reliance. See Reliance, HMS

HMS Resolution. See Resolution, HMS

HMS Swallow. See Swallow HMS

HMS Terror. See Terror, HMS

Hobart, Tasmania, 1:14Hodgson, Thomas Vere,

2:273Hofmann, Albert, 2:265Hoghton Tower (ship), 2:278Holistic view of nature, 1:153–

54, 157Homer, 2:259, 260, 261, 264Hominids, 1:170, 171–75, 171,

172Homo erectus, 1:173, 174Homo habilis, 1:173–74Homo sapiens, 1:173, 174,

175Hoover, Herbert, 1:58, 72Hopewell (ship), 1:112Horn of Africa, 1:148Hornemann, Friedrich, 1:4Horner, John R. “Jack,” 1:xii,

150–52; 2:230, 231Horrocks, Jeremiah, 1:88Hot springs, 1:115, 116Hot Springs, Arkansas, 1:113,

115Hot Springs National Park,

1:115Houghton, Daniel, 2:239Houssa, Africa, 2:239HOVs. See Human Occupied

Vehicles

How I Found Livingstone in Central Africa (Stanley), 1:190

Howland, O.G., 2:246Hubbard, Gardiner Greene,

2:216Hubbard Medal, 1:142Hubble, Edwin, 2:308Hubble Space Telescope, 2:298,

302, 308–9, 308, 338Hudson, Henry, 1:26, 27, 105,

111–12Hudson Bay, Canada, 1:26, 27,

105, 112Hudson River, United States,

1:112, 182Hudson Strait, 1:112Hudson’s Bay Company, 2:193Hughes Bay, Antarctica, 1:22Human Occupied Vehicles

(HOVs), 1:37See also specific HOV

Humboldt, Alexander von, 1:xiii, 5, 7, 152–58, 154

Humboldt-Stiftung foundation, 2:268

Hunt, James, 1:68Hunt, John, 1:122Hunter, George, 1:xiii, 113–17Huxley, Aldous, 2:266Huxley, Thomas, 2:335Huygens (space probe), 2:302,

316Hydrographic Expedition of the

Arctic Ocean, 1:28Hydrographic Office, U.S.,

2:204Hydrographic survey, 1:47Hydrothermal vents, 1:31,

33–34, 37, 37Hygrometers, 1:156Hypsilophodontids, 1:151–52

Iberian Peninsula, 1:xiIBG. See Institute of British

Geographers

Ice mass, 1:23Ice stations, drifting, 1:26,

28–29, 30, 30Icebergs, 1:26Iceland, 1:26Idaho, 1:181Idrisi, Mohammed al-, 2:199,

200Iguanas, 1:99IGY. See International

Geophysical YearIlios: The City and Country of the

Trojans (Schliemann), 2:262

Illiad (Homer), 2:259, 261Illinois Museum of Natural

History, 2:246Illinois River, Illinois, 2:246Illustrations of British

Entomology (Stephens), 1:98

Imperial Trans-Antarctica Expedition, 2:283

Imperialism, British, 1:53–54, 169; 2:250–51

In a Province (Van der Post), 2:328

Inca Land (Bingham), 1:58Incas, 1:55, 56–57, 144, 146;

2:200, 218 Spanish conquest of, 1:56–

57, 105, 110Incas of Peru, The (Markham),

1:56Independence Fjord, 2:242India, 2:214, 285 unmanned space exploration

by, 2:311Indian Ocean, 1:42, 107, 185;

2:221, 347 See also specific voyage/

expeditionIndochina, 2:209Indonesia, 1:87, 133, 134;

2:328–29Indus River, 1:138, 148


Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), 2:307

Infrared satellites, 2:307Infrared Space Observatory,

2:307Inman, Mason, 1:100Inner Africa Laid Open

(Cooley), 1:131Inner Mongolia, 1:16, 19Insects. See specific speciesInstitute for Archaeological

Oceanography, 1:38Institute for Exploration, 1:36Institute of British Geographers

(IBG), 2:250, 251Institute of Marine Research

(Berlin), 2:227Integrated Ocean Drilling

Program (IODP), 2:231, 237

Interior Department, U.S., 1:118

International Council for Science, 1:160

International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, 2:215

International Council of Scientific Unions, 1:23, 158

International Geographical Congress, 2:204

International Geophysical Year (IGY), 1:21, 23–24, 29, 30, 74, 158–60, 159; 2:303–4

International Polar Foundation, 1:161

International Polar Year (1932–1933), 1:159

International Polar Year (2007–2008), 1:160–61, 161

International Space Station (ISS), 2:287, 296, 297, 298, 299–300, 300

Internationalism, 1:60

Inuit (Eskimos), 1:11, 12, 26, 28, 140–41; 2:211, 213, 243

Investigator, HMS, 1:42, 126–27

IODP. See Integrated Ocean Drilling Program

Ionian Sea, 2:260Iran, 2:322Iraq, 1:51, 53–54, 120, 142,

148; 2:199, 322Iraqi Archaeological Museum

(National Museum of Iraq), 1:51, 54

IRAS. See Infrared Astronomical Satellite

Irkutsk, Russia, 2:257Irvine, Andrew, 1:122Irwin, James, 2:294Isabella, Queen of Spain, 1:xi,

108Islam, 1:xi, 107Island Life (Wallace), 2:334Isle of Pines, 1:88Isothermal lines, 1:156ISS. See International Space

StationIssyk Kul, Lake, Russia, 1:136Italian city states, 1:107Ithaca, Greece, 2:260, 264Ituri forest, Africa, 1:189Ivanovna, Anna, Czarina of

Russia, 2:254Iwo Jima, USS, 2:294

Jackson, Frederick, 2:215Jacobsen, Christian, 2:282Jaketen pa Odin (The Search for

Odin; Heyerdahl), 1:148James Caird (boat), 2:283James Island, 1:50, 99James Webb Space Telescope,

2:309Jameson, Robert, 2:270Japan, 1:17, 149; 2:237, 254,

285, 299, 307, 308

Japan (continued) unmanned space exploration

by, 2:310Japan, Sea of, 2:258Japanese Experiment Module

( JEM; Kibo), 2:297Japen Islands, 1:80Jason Junior (JJ; underwater

vehicle), 1:35JASON Projects, 1:35–36Jebel Mountain, 1:51Jefferson, Thomas, 1:114–15,

116, 155, 175–77, 180, 182, 183; 2:194

JEM ( Japanese Experiment Module; Kibo), 2:297

Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 2:313

Jewett, Ezekiel, 2:205“JIM Dive,” 1:117, 118–19JIM suit, 1:118–19JJ. See Jason JuniorJohanssen, Hjalmar, 2:213–15JOIDES Resolution (ship),

2:228, 237Joint Oceanographic Institutions

for Deep Earth Sampling ( JOIDES), 2:222, 227–28

Jolliet, Louis, 1:110–11Jones, Albert José, 1:162–63Joseph, Benjamin, 1:112Journal of a Voyage to Australia

and Round the World, for Magnetical Research (Scoresby), 2:272

Journal of a Voyage to the Northern Whale-Fishery, Including Researches and Discoveries on the Eastern Coast of West Greenland (Scoresby), 2:269, 271

Journal of an Expedition Across Venezuela and Colombia, 1906–1907, The (Bingham), 1:56


Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nile (Speke), 2:317, 320

June, Harold, 1:72Jung, Carl, 2:327, 329Jupiter, 2:302

unmanned exploration, 2:315

Jurassic Park (film), 1:152Jurassic Park III (film), 1:152Jussieu, Antoine de, 1:126

K-19: The Widowmaker (film), 2:217

Kaguya (lunar probe), 2:310Kaibab limestone, 2:248Kalahari Desert, Africa, 1:184,

185; 2:324, 326, 327, 329

Kalgan, 1:18Kama Sutra (Burton, translator),

1:69Kamalia, Africa, 2:239, 240Kamchatka (ship), 2:256Kamchatka Peninsula, 2:253,

254, 254, 255Kangaroo Island, 1:127Kansas River, United States,

1:178Kant, Immanuel, 1:154Kara Sea, 2:221, 258Karlskrona, Sweden, 2:221Kashgar, China, 1:136Katie Hines (ship), 1:140Kattwinkel, Wilhelm, 1:173Kayak Island, 2:254Kazakhstan, 2:288, 304Kealakekua Bay, Hawaii, 1:82,

89Kebrabasa Rapids, Africa, 1:185Kennedy, John F., 1:38; 2:289,

290, 292Kenya, 2:318, 326, 329Kenya Wildlife Service, 1:174Kenyanthropus platyops (human

ancestor), 1:170, 175

Kepler Space Telescope, 2:316–17

Kerguelen Islands, 1:21Kerwin, Joseph, 2:295Kew Gardens, 1:42Keynes, John Maynard, 2:328Khartoum, Sudan, 1:63; 2:267–

68, 319Khmer Empire, 2:209–10, 210Kibo ( Japanese Experiment

Module; JEM), 2:297Kikuyu people, 1:170Kimeu, Kamoya, 1:174King Edward VII Land,

Antarctica, 2:280King Haakon VII’s Plateau,

Antarctica, 1:14King Point, Canada, 1:12King snakes, 1:46King William Island, 1:11, 28Kingdom and the People of Siam,

The (Bowring), 2:209Kingdoms, classifying, 1:40Kingdon-Ward, Frank, 1:163–

65Kings. See specific kingKingsley, Mary Henrietta, 1:xii,

165–70, 167Kirishima (ship), 1:36Kíthira island, 2:264Kittis, Finland, 2:202Knorr (ship), 1:34, 35, 160, 161Koettlitz Glacier, Antarctica,

2:276Kolobeng, Bechuanaland, 1:185Kolyma River, Russia, 2:252,

257Komandorski Islands, 1:27Komarov, Vladimir, 2:291Kon-Tiki (Heyerdahl), 1:142,

147Kon-Tiki (raft), 1:142, 145, 146,

146, 147Kon-Tiki (sun god), 1:144Koobi Fora, 1:174, 175Korea, 1:17

Korean devilfish, 1:17Korean War, 1:162Korolyov, Sergey Pavlovich,

2:288, 303Kroepelin, Bjarne, 1:143Kubasov, Valeri, 2:295Kuiper Belt, 2:316Kurds, 1:54Kuro Shiro ( Japan) Current,

1:149Kuruk Daria, China, 1:136–37Kuwait, 1:120

La Boudeuse (ship), 1:60La Salle, René-Robert Cavelier,

Sieur de, 1:105, 111Labrador, 1:38, 39, 83, 131;

2:343–44Labrador Sea, 1:27Laetoli, 1:174Laika (dog), 2:301, 303, 304Lake Regions of Central Africa

(Burton), 1:68Lalor, William G., Jr., 1:29Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste, 1:91,

102Lamont-Doherty Earth

Observatory, Columbia University, 2:227, 228

Lancaster Sound, 1:112Land Nationalisation Society,

2:331, 335Land of Eagles, The (R.

Hanbury-Tenison), 1:134

Land of the Blue Poppy (Kingdon-Ward), 1:164

Land reform, 2:335Landsat satellites, 2:199, 203,

204, 308Landsat 1, 2:308Landsat 7, 2:308

Laos, 2:211Lapatin, Kenneth D.S., 2:263Lapland, 2:202Larsen, Ole Aanderud, 2:282


Latitude, 2:200–201, 201, 202Lava flows, 1:31, 33, 36Lawrence, Charles L., 1:73Lawrence, T.E. (Lawrence of

Arabia), 1:52, 53, 54Lawson, Nicholas, 1:50, 100Le Géographe (ship), 1:126, 127Le Naturaliste (ship), 1:126Le Roy, Pierre, 1:67Le Suroit (ship), 1:34League of Nations, 2:211, 215Leakey, Louis Seymour Bazett,

1:170–74, 171, 172; 2:218

Leakey, Louise, 1:170, 172, 175Leakey, Mary Douglas Nicol,

1:170, 171–74, 172; 2:218

Leakey, Meave Epps, 1:170, 175Leakey, Richard, 1:170, 172,

174–75Leakey family, 1:xii, 170–75;

2:218Lebanon, 1:62; 2:321, 322Leeuwin, Cape, Australia, 1:127Leidy, Joseph, 1:90Lena River, Russia, 2:252, 254,

255Leonov, Alexei, 2:287, 289, 295Leopold II, King of Belgium,

1:189–90Leslie, Lionel, 2:344L’Etoile (ship), 1:60Lewin, Roger, 1:174Lewis, Meriwether, 1:xiii, 114,

175–83, 177, 179; 2:194Lewis and Clark expedition,

1:xiii, 113, 114, 175–84, 177, 179; 2:194

Liberty Bell 7 (Mercury space capsule), 2:289

Libya, 1:4Libyan Desert, 2:267, 268Life (magazine), 2:340Life, origin of, 1:31, 33Lindbergh, Charles, 1:124

Linnaeus, Carl, 1:39, 40, 154Linnean Society, 1:46, 104;

2:333, 335Lion Gate Project, Mycenae,

2:259, 262Litke, Fyodor Petrovich, 2:252,

256–57Little America (Byrd), 1:74Little America, Antarctica, 1:71,

72Little Sam (rhesus monkey),

2:305Liv Glacier, Antarctica, 1:72Livingstone, David, 1:xii, 166,

184–87, 187, 188, 189, 190; 2:251, 251, 252

Liwei, Yang, 2:300Lizarraga, Agustin, 1:57Logan, Mount, Canada, 2:218Logan Museum of

Anthropology, 1:16Lohit gorge, 1:165Lolo Trail, United States, 1:181London Missionary Society,

1:184London Sunday Telegraph, 1:133London Times, 1:80, 134, 138Long, Thomas, 2:257Longitude, 2:200, 201, 201, 203Longstaff, Cedric, 2:279Lonicera hildebrandiana

(honeysuckle), 1:165Lop Desert, China, 1:138Lop Nur, China, 1:136–37Lord, Walter, 1:32Lord Sandwich (ship), 1:86Lorestan Province, Persia, 2:322Lost City of the Incas (Bingham),

1:58Lost World, The (film), 1:152Lost World of the Kalahari, The

(Van der Post), 2:329, 330

Louis XV, King of France, 1:60Louisiana (West Florida),

1:113–14

Louisiana Purchase, 1:175–76Louisiana Territory, 1:111, 113,

114, 116, 176, 183Loulan, China, 1:129, 135, 136,

136Lovell, James, 2:290, 291,

293–94Loyalty Review Board, 1:58LRO. See Lunar Reconnaissance

OrbiterLualaba River, Africa, 1:186,

189Luanda, Africa, 1:184, 185Lucania, Mount, Canada, 2:336,

337Lumholtz, Carl, 1:123Luna program, 2:301, 309–10Lunar orbiters, 2:301, 302, 309,

310–11Lunar Prospector (spacecraft),

2:310Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter

(LRO; spacecraft), 2:302, 310

Lunar rovers, 2:294Lusitania, RMS, 1:36Lyell, Charles, 1:49, 102, 104

Machu Picchu, Citadel of the Incas (Bingham), 1:58

Machu Picchu, Peru, 1:55, 56–57, 57; 2:218

Mackay, Alexander, 2:194Mackenzie, Alexander, 1:176;

2:193–95Mackenzie Pass, Canada, 2:193,

194Mackenzie River, Canada, 2:193MacMillan, Donald Baxter,

1:70, 73Madeira Islands, 1:85, 107Magellan (Venus orbiter), 2:312Magellan, Ferdinand, 1:105,

110; 2:232Magnetism, 2:271–72Mahdi, 1:189


Maiasaura (dinosaur), 1:150M. peeblesorum, 1:151

Mailu people, 2:195, 196Makela, Bob, 1:150Makololo tribe, 1:185Malakhov, Mikhail, 1:29Malaria, 1:7, 66Malawi (Nyasaland), 2:326,

329Malawi, Lake, Africa, 1:186Malay Archipelago, 2:332, 333Malay Archipelago, The: The

Land of the Orang-Utan and the Bird of Paradise (Wallace), 2:334

Malaysia, 2:266Maldive Islands, 1:148Malekula Island, 1:79Malinowski, Bronislaw, 2:195–

99, 196Mallory, George Leigh, 1:120,

122Malolo Island, 2:347Malthus, Thomas, 1:101–2,

103; 2:333Maly Taymyr Island, 2:258Mammals

fossils, 1:173; 2:206See also specific species

Manchuria, 2:258Mandan, Fort, North Dakota,

1:178, 180, 181, 182Mandan Indians, 1:178Mangbetu (Mombuttoo) people,

2:268Maori people, 1:50, 85Maps and mapmaking, 1:xiii;

2:199–204, 214aerial photography and,

2:339Beagle, Voyage of, 1:48conformal, 2:201–2Cook, 1:84distortion in, 2:200, 201equal-area, 2:201–2Heyerdahl, 1:146

Maps and mapmaking (continued)

Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1:179

Livingstone and Stanley, 1:188

National Geographic and, 2:217

oceanographic, 2:224, 224, 226

satellite imagery, 2:199, 203, 204

topographic, 2:199, 203–4 Washburn, 2:336, 339 Wilkes, 2:348, 349March of the Penguins (film),

2:216, 217Mare Serenitatis, Moon,

2:309Mariana Islands, 2:233Mariana Trench, 2:222, 227,

231, 235, 236, 236, 237Marias River, United States,

1:183Marie Byrd Land, Antarctica,

1:72Marine archaeology, 1:53, 93 Ballard, 1:31–38 See also OceanographyMarine Biological Laboratory,

2:226Marine biology, 2:225–26Marine chronometers, 2:203Marine ecosystems, 1:162,

163Mariner planetary probes,

2:301, 311, 312–13Mariners’ compass, 2:269, 270,

271Markham, Clements, 1:56;

2:273, 279Marquesas Fracture Zone,

2:235Marquesas Islands, 1:79, 142,

143, 144, 149; 2:232Marquette, Jacques, 1:110–11

Mars, 2:301, 302unmanned exploration,

2:312–15Mars Exploration Rovers

(MERs), 2:302, 313, 314–15

Mars Global Surveyor (orbiter), 2:314

Mars Pathfinder (planetary probe), 2:302

Marsh, Othniel Charles, 1:xii, 80–81, 90, 91; 2:205–7, 206

Marshall, Eric, 2:280Marshall Islands, 2:235Marsili Seamount, 1:35Martin, Charles, 2:217Martinique, 2:218Martius, Carl Friedrich Philipp

von, 1:5, 7Maspero, Gaston, 1:76Mastodons, 1:182Matterhorn, 2:337Mattingly, Thomas, 2:294Maud (ship), 1:15Maupertuis, Pierre Louis

Moreau de, 2:202Mauritania, 1:107Mauritius, 1:127–28Maury, Matthew Fontaine,

2:222, 223, 224–25, 224

Mauv limestone, 2:248May, Harriet, 1:32Mayas, 2:200Mazandaran Province, Persia,

2:322Mazatlán, Mexico, 2:207,

208McAuliffe, Christa, 2:297McClure, Robert, 1:28McIntyre, Loren, 1:5, 8McKinley, Ashley C., 1:72McKinley, Mount, Alaska,

2:244, 336, 338, 339McMurdo, Archibald, 1:24


McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, 1:13, 22, 24, 24; 2:273, 275, 276, 279, 280, 283

McMurdo Station, Antarctica, 1:24, 24, 25

McNairn, Stuart, 1:57McNish, Henry, 2:283Mead, Margaret, 2:286Meaning of Evolution, The

(Simpson), 2:229Mecca, Saudi Arabia, 1:64, 65Meconopsis betonicifolia (blue

poppy), 1:163, 164–65Medicine Bow Mountains,

Wyoming, 1:80Medina, Saudi Arabia, 1:64, 65Mediterranean, 2:199Mediterranean Sea, 1:93, 95,

107; 2:199, 200, 223, 228

Meet Your Ancestors (Andrews), 1:20

Melanesia, 2:196, 232Melbourne, Australia, 1:86Mendaña de Neira, Álvaro de,

2:231, 232Mendocino Escarpment, 2:235Mendoza, Argentina, 1:98Mercator, Gerardus, 2:199, 201,

201Mercury, 2:302 unmanned exploration,

2:311Mercury Project, 2:288–89,

296, 305Merin, 1:18MERs. See Mars Exploration

RoversMesopotamia, 1:148Mesozoic era, 1:81MESSENGER probe, 2:311Messner, Reinhold, 1:123Meteor expedition, 2:222, 227Meteorology, 1:15Mexia, Ynes Enriquetta Julietta,

2:207–9

Mexico, 1:109, 110, 155; 2:198, 207, 208, 265, 285

Mexico, Gulf of, 1:105, 111, 118; 2:225

Mexico City, 1:156Meyer, Grant, 2:230Miami, University of, 2:227Michel, Jean-Louis, 1:31, 34–35Michelin, Robert, 2:344Michigan, Lake, 1:110Mid-Atlantic Ridge, 1:32; 2:227Middle Ages, 1:xiiMiddle East, 1:137; 2:321, 322 Bell, 1:51–54, 52 Stark, 2:321–23, 322Midway, Battle of, 1:36Military Intelligence, British,

1:53Milky Way Galaxy, 2:307, 308,

316Mimicry, 1:44, 45–46Miocene period, 1:172Mir space stations, 2:295–96,

300Misha (dog), 2:325Missile Warning Center, 2:306Missionary Travels and

Researches in South Africa (Livingstone), 1:186

Mississippi River, United States, 1:105, 111, 113, 115, 176, 177, 178, 181; 2:246

Missouri, 1:176Missouri Democrat, 1:186Missouri River, United States,

1:177, 178, 182, 183Mockingbirds, 1:50Mogao Caves, China, 1:129Molucca Islands, 2:234, 333Mombuttoo (Mangbetu) people,

2:268Mongolia, 1:18, 129–30, 130Mongolian Academy of

Sciences, 1:130Monroe, Louisiana, 1:113

Mont Blanc, 2:337Montana, 1:181, 183; 2:230 Great Falls of, 1:181Montcalm-Grozon, Louis-

Joseph de, 1:59Montevideo, Uruguay, 1:49Montezeuma II, Aztec emperor,

1:110Montreal Protocol, 1:25Moon Apollo project, 2:287, 289,

290–94 scientific experiments on,

2:292–93, 294 unmanned exploration,

2:301–2, 309–11Moors, 1:xi; 2:240Morgan, J.P., 1:18Morison, Samuel Eliot, 1:108–9Morocco, 1:4, 142, 162, 163Morris Jesup, Cape, Greenland,

1:28; 2:242Morrison formation, 1:81Mosul, Iraq, 1:53Motorized sleds, 2:275, 276Mouhot, Henri, 2:209–11Mount McKinley: The Conquest

of Denali (Washburn), 2:340

Mount McKinley National Park (Denali National Park), 2:207, 208

Mountaineering Everest expeditions, 1:xiii,

120–23, 121 Washburn, 2:336–39, 337Mountains of the Moon, Africa,

1:62Mozambique, 1:107Mubarak, Sidi, 1:66Muir, John, 2:248Muller, Fritz, 1:46Mulu, Borneo, 1:133, 134Mulu: The Rain Forest (R.

Hanbury-Tenison), 1:134


Mundurucú Indians, 1:45Muravyov-Amursky, Nikolay

Nikolayevich, 2:252, 257, 257

Murray, James, 2:280Murray, John, 2:225, 234Murray Fracture Zone, 2:235Museum of Natural History

at Princeton University, 1:150, 151

Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, 1:126

Museums. See specific museumMushrooms, psychedelic,

2:265Muslims. See IslamMutesa, King, 2:319Muztagata Mountain, China,

1:136Mweru, Lake, Africa, 1:186My Life as an Explorer

(Amundsen), 1:9Mycenae, Greece, 2:259, 262–

64, 263Myth in Primitive Psychology

(Malinowski), 2:197

Namibia, 2:325Nanai tribe, 2:258Nansen, Fridtjof, 1:xii, 9, 28;

2:211–16, 212, 222, 242 diplomatic career, 2:211,

215Nansen Cordillera, 2:214Napo River, South America,

1:5, 6Napoleon I, Emperor of France,

1:126Nares, George Strong,

2:251“Nariokotome Boy,” 1:174Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island,

2:346Narrative of the United States

Exploring Expedition (Wilkes), 2:349

Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro, A (Bates and Wallace), 2:331, 332

NASA. See National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Naskaupi River, Labrador, 2:344Natal Advertiser, 2:327Natchez, Mississippi, 1:113–14,

115, 116National Academy of Sciences,

2:207National Advisory Committee

on Oceans and Atmosphere, 1:119

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), 1:118; 2:288–92, 294–98, 304, 309, 311–17, 313

National Archaeological Museum, Athens, 2:263

National Association of Black Scuba Divers (NABS), 1:163

National Geographic, 1:23, 33, 57; 2:216, 217, 218, 218, 286, 339, 340

National Geographic Adventure, 2:217

National Geographic Expeditions Atlas, 2:218–19

National Geographic Explorer, 1:36

National Geographic Kids, 2:217National Geographic News,

1:100National Geographic Society,

1:xiii, 7, 8, 36, 38, 72, 94, 95, 142, 173; 2:216–19, 218, 244, 245, 337

scientific exploration sponsored by, 2:218–19

television and film, 2:216, 217

National Geographic Traveler, 2:217

National Herbarium, U.S., 2:349

National Marine Sanctuaries, U.S., 1:117, 120

National Maritime Museum, 1:86

National Museum of Iraq, 1:51, 54

National Museums of Kenya, 1:174, 175

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), 1:117, 118, 120, 160

National Science Foundation (NSF), 1:37, 118, 151

National Wildlife Federation, 1:120

Nationalism, 1:60Native Americans, 1:116, 177,

178, 180, 182, 183; 2:194, 248, 249

European contact with, 1:108–9

languages, 2:246, 249See also specific native people

Natural selection, 1:44, 45–46, 47, 50, 96–97, 97, 101–5; 2:206, 331, 335

Naturalist on the River Amazon, The (Bates), 1:46

Naturaliste, Le (ship), 1:126Nature, holistic view of, 1:153–

54, 157Nautilus (submarine), 1:26, 29Navy, U.S., 1:23–24, 32, 34, 36,

118; 2:227, 346Nazi Germany, 1:139; 2:198Near-Infrared Camera

and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS), 2:309

Nebraska, 2:206


Negro Explorer at the North Pole, A (Henson), 1:140, 142

Negroland of the Arabs Examined and Explained, The (Cooley), 1:131

Nelson, David, 1:42Nepal, 1:121; 2:339Nephila spiders, 1:79Neptune, 2:315


Netherlands, the/Dutch, 2:307

voyages of, 2:232, 233Netsilik people, 1:12Nevado Mismi, Peru, 1:8New Caledonia, 1:80, 88New England Museum of

Natural History, 2:336, 339

New Guinea, 1:79–80, 87; 2:195, 196, 233, 235

New Hampshire, 2:336New Hebrides (Vanuatu), 1:60,

78, 79; 2:231, 234New Holland. See AustraliaNew Horizons (space probe),

2:302, 315, 316New Mexico, 2:229New Orleans, Louisiana, 1:113,

116New Siberian Islands, 1:27New South Wales, Australia,

1:42; 2:347New Theoretical and Practical

Treatise on Navigation, A (Maury), 2:224

New York Bay, United States, 1:112

New York Herald, 1:186, 187, 189; 2:207

New York Times, The, 1:29, 56, 104, 130; 2:244, 245, 325

New Yorker, The, 1:95

New Zealand, 1:41, 50, 82, 83, 85, 89, 101, 125, 149; 2:231, 233, 234, 235, 237, 275, 280, 349

Newfoundland, 1:38, 39, 82, 83, 131; 2:244

Newton, Isaac, 2:202Nez Perce Indians, 1:180, 181Ngami, Lake, Africa, 1:184,

185Niam-Niam people, 2:268Nicaragua, 1:140; 2:242NICMOS, 2:309Niger (ship), 1:38, 39Niger River, 1:3, 4; 2:238,

239–41, 268Nigeria, 2:241Night of the New Moon, The

(Van der Post), 2:328Night to Remember, A (Lord),

1:32Nile River, 1:5, 184; 2:264,

267–68Bruce, 1:61, 62–63Burton and Speke, 1:65–68,

69; 2:317, 318–21, 318Nile River Valley, 1:75Niles, Blair (Mary Blair Rice),

2:285Nilsen, Thorvald, 1:13Nimrod expedition, 2:278,

279–81Niña (ship), 1:108, 109Nipishish, Lake, Labrador,

2:344Nippur, 2:199NOAA. See National Oceanic

and Atmospheric Administration

Nobel Peace Prize, 2:211, 215

Nobile, Umberto, 1:8, 15, 28Nome, Alaska, 1:12, 15Nootka Indians, 1:90Nootka Sound, British

Columbia, 1:89

Nordenskjöld, Nils Adolf Erik, 1:15, 28; 2:219–22, 220, 258

Nordic Genetic Research Center, 1:31

Norell, Mark A., 1:130Norfolk, HMS, 1:126Norfolk Island, 1:88Norge (dirigible), 1:15Norsemen, 1:26North America, 2:200, 201

British colonization, 1:132Dunbar-Hunter Expedition,

1:xiii, 113–17Lewis and Clark Expedition,

1:xiii, 114, 175–84, 177, 179

Mackenzie, 2:193–95Pacific Coast, 1:175–78,

177; 2:193, 194, 253–54, 256, 258, 347

Powell, 1:xiii; 2:245–49, 247

Russian exploration, 1:27; 2:253–54, 256, 258

See also specific locationNorth American plate, 2:235North Dakota, 1:178North East Land, 2:220–21North Equatorial Current,

1:149North Magnetic Pole, 1:8, 9,

11–12, 14, 28North Pole, 1:11, 13, 15, 26,

28–29, 29, 30, 69Byrd, 1:70, 70Henson, 1:40, 41–42, 41;

2:243Nansen, 2:211, 212, 213–15Nordenskjöld, 2:220–21Peary, 1:140, 141–42, 141;

2:218, 242–45North Pole-1, 1:28, 30North Pole-2, 1:30North Pole-32, 1:30, 30North Sea, 1:119


North Warning System, 1:29

North West Company, 2:193, 195

North West River, Labrador, 2:344

North Western Shipping Company, 2:278

Northeast Passage (Northern Route), 1:15, 28, 135; 2:219, 220, 221–22, 253, 258

Northwest Passage, 1:9, 26–28, 42, 82, 89, 132, 176; 2:193, 194, 253

Amundsen, 1:8, 10–13 Baffin, 1:112 Cook, 1:88–89 Hudson, 1:111–12Norway, 1:8, 9, 15, 161; 2:213,

215Norwegian Archaeological

Expedition, 1:147Notebooks on the Transmutation

of Species (Darwin), 1:101

Notes of a Botanist (Spruce), 2:265

Nova Scotia, 2:256Novaya Zemlya, Russia, 2:252,

256Noville, George O., 1:70NR-1 (submarine), 1:36NSF. See National Science

FoundationNunavut, Canada, 1:11Nyasaland (Malawi), 2:326,

329

Oakes Ames Orchid Herbarium (Harvard University), 2:265, 266

Oates, Lawrence, 2:276–77Oaxaca, Mexico, 2:198, 208,

265Ob River, 2:254

Observations on the Coast of Van Diemen’s Land (Flinders), 1:126

Ocean currents, 1:15, 149Ocean Drilling Program, 2:237Ocean floor, 2:224, 226, 227–

28, 231, 235–36Oceanic Institute, 1:32Oceanographic Museum,

Monaco, 2:222, 226–27Oceanography, 1:xiii; 2:204,

222–29, 224, 226, 231 Ballard, 1:31–38; 2:218 Cousteau, 1:92–96, 93;

2:218 Earle, 1:117–20, 118, 124;

2:228–29Jones, 1:162–63nineteenth century, 2:223–

26twentieth century to present,

2:226–29Oceans, The (Prager and Earle),

2:228–29Odysseus, 2:260Odyssey (Apollo 13 command

module), 2:293–94Odyssey (Homer), 2:259Office of Coast Survey,

2:242Office of Naval Research,

1:32Ogowe River, French Congo,

1:167–68Ohio River, United States,

1:111, 115; 2:246Old Southwest, United States,

1:113, 115Old Way, The: A Story of the

First People (Thomas), 2:324, 326

Olduvai Gorge, Tanganyika, 1:171, 173–74

Olsen, George, 1:16, 19Olympus Mons, Mars, 2:301,

313

“On the Anomaly in the Variation of the Magnetic Needle” (Scoresby), 2:270

“On the Habits of Butterflies of the Amazon Valley” (Wallace), 2:333

On the Hunt for Paradise (Heyerdahl), 1:143

On the Origin of Species (Darwin), 1:45–46, 97, 103, 104; 2:334

“On the Tendency of Species to Form Varieties; and on the Perpetuation of Varieties and Species by Natural Means of Selection” (Darwin and Wallace), 1:104; 2:335

“On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type: Instability of Varieties Supposed to Prove the Permanent Distinctness of Species” (Wallace), 2:333

On the Trail of Ancient Man (Andrews), 1:20

Ontario, Lake, 1:111Oodaaq Qeqertaag, Greenland,

2:242Operation Deep Freeze, 1:69,

74Opportunity (Mars rover), 2:302,

315Orbis Terrarum (Ortelius),

2:200Orchomenus, Greece,

2:264Orders, classifying, 1:40Oregon, 1:89, 175, 181Orellana, Francisco de, 1:5, 6Origin of the Fittest, The: Essays

on Evolution (Cope), 1:92


Origins (Leakey and Lewin), 1:174

Orinoco River, South America, 1:7, 133, 152, 154, 155

Orion (space capsule), 2:299Orkney Islands, 1:160Orodromeus makelai (dinosaur),

1:152Ortelius, Abraham, 2:200Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 1:18,

21Oslo, Norway, 1:9Ossokmanuan, Lake, Labrador,

2:344Ostrom, John H., 1:xii, 152;

2:229–31Ottoman Empire, 1:51, 54, 62Ouachita River, United States,

1:113, 116Outer Mongolia, 1:19Oviraptor (dinosaur), 1:19Oxford University, 1:64Ozone hole, 1:24, 25

Pacific exploration, 2:231–38Beagle (ship), 1:47–51, 48,

49, 96, 97, 97, 98–101, 102; 2:225, 234

Bougainville, 1:58–61, 59Challenger Expedition,

2:231, 232, 234, 235, 237

Cheesman, 1:78–80early period, 2:232–34, 235,

237Flinders, 1:124–28modern period, 2:237–38ocean floor, 2:227, 228, 231,

235–36Trieste (bathyscaphe), 2:222,

227, 231, 236, 236, 237Wilkes Expedition, 2:347,

348, 349See also Cook, James

Pacific Northwest, 1:149, 176British claims in, 2:194

Pacific Northwest (continued)Native Americans, 1:144

Pacific Ocean, 1:181; 2:193, 194, 226, 226, 228

currents in, 1:149See also specific voyage/

expeditionPacific Plate, 2:231–32, 235Paez, Pedro, 1:63Pageos satellite, 2:204Paine, Thomas, 1:57Pakistan, 1:142, 148Paleontology, 2:205–7, 206

Andrews, 1:16–21, 30Como Bluff, 1:80–81, 91Cope, 1:81, 90–92; 2:205,

207 Gobi Desert, 1:29–30, 30 Horner, 1:150–52; 2:230,

231 Marsh, 1:80–81, 90, 91;

2:206 Ostrom, 1:152; 2:229–31Palestine, 1:51Palmyra, Syria, 1:62Pamir Mountains, 1:136Pampas Indians, 1:49Pan American Airways, 2:342,

345Papanin, Ivan, 1:26, 28, 30Papilio memnon butterfly, 1:46Papua New Guinea, 1:78, 79Para (Belém), Brazil, 1:44, 45Paris, France, 1:156Paris Institute, 1:155Paris Peace Conference, 1:53Park, Mungo, 1:xii, 3, 4; 2:238–

41, 239Parkinson, Sydney, 1:41Parry, J.H., 1:xiiParry, William, 1:11Parsnip River, Canada,

2:194Participant observers, 2:197Pasha, Emin (Eduard

Schnitzer), 1:184, 189

Passive Seismic Experiment Package (PSEP), 2:293

Patagonia, 1:47Pathfinder (Mars lander),

2:313–14Patsayev, Viktor, 2:295Pattern of Peoples, A: A Journey

Among the Tribes of Indonesia’s Outer Islands (R. Hanbury-Tenison), 1:134

Paul Block Bay, Antarctica, 1:72Paulet Island, 2:283Payne, Katy, 2:325PBS. See Public Broadcasting

SystemPeabody, George, 2:205Peabody Museum of Natural

History, Yale University, 2:205–6, 230

Peace River, Canada, 2:194Peacock, USS, 2:346, 347Peale, Charles Willson, 1:178,

182, 182museum of, 1:182, 182, 183

Peary, Robert Edwin, 1:xii, 11, 13, 26, 28, 29, 124, 140–42, 141; 2:218, 222, 242–45, 243

Peary Land, Greenland, 2:242Pechora River, Russia, 2:258Peck, Annie, 2:286Peel Sound, Canada, 1:11Pelée, Mount, Martinique,

2:218Peloponnese, 2:264Pembroke (ship), 1:82Penikese Island, Massachusetts,

2:226People of the Lake (Leakey and

Lewin), 1:174People’s History of the United

States, A (Zinn), 1:109Peress, Salim Joseph, 1:119Persia, 1:51, 136, 138; 2:321,

322


Persian Gulf, 1:120, 148Personal Narrative of a

Pilgrimage to Al-Medinah and Meccah, A (Burton), 1:65

Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent (Humboldt), 1:155

Peru, 1:5, 6, 7, 8, 56, 142, 143–44, 146, 147, 154; 2:207, 208, 347

Petchaburi, Thailand, 2:211Peter I “the Great”, Czar of

Russia, 1:27; 2:253, 254Petrie, Flinders, 1:75Petropavlovsk, Russia, 2:256Peyote, 2:265Pfennig, David, 1:100Philadelphia, University of, 1:91Philadelphia Academy of

Natural Sciences, 1:90–91

Philippines, 1:17, 110; 2:232, 347

Philosophia Botanica (Linnaeus), 1:40

Philosophical Transactions, 1:46Phipps, Constantine John, 1:39Phoebe (Saturn moon), 2:302,

316Phoenix, Howard, 1:53Photography, 2: 204, 336, 337,

337, 338, 339–40See also Cameras; Satellites,

imageryPhotojournalism, 2:216, 217Photosynthesis, 1:34Physical Geography of the Sea,

The (Maury), 2:222, 225Physical Society of London,

2:274Piccard, Auguste, 2:236Piccard, Jacques, 2:227, 236,

237Pickering, Charles, 2:347

Pickering, William, 1:159Pietowski, Andrew, 1:5, 8Pikes Peak, Colorado, 2:245,

246Pinta (ship), 1:108, 109Pioneer (solar probes), 2:311,

312, 315Pioneer (Venus probes),

2:312Pisania, Africa, 2:239, 240,

241Pitcairn, Robert, 2:234Pitcairn Island, 2:234Pitt, Fort, Pennsylvania, 1:113Pizarro, Francisco, 1:105, 110Planetary orbiters, 2:301, 302,

314Planetary probes, 2:301–2,

311–15Plankton, 2:227Plant geography, 1:154Plants

medicinal uses, 2:265–66taxonomy, 1:40

Plants of the Gods: Origins of Hallucinogenic Use (Schultes and Hofmann), 2:265

Plate tectonics, 1:32, 33, 37; 2:231

Platte River, United States, 1:178

Player, Ian, 2:329Pleistocene period, 1:173Plesiosaur (dinosaur), 1:91Pluto, 2:302


Pogue, William, 2:295Polar Plateau, Antarctica, 2:274,

276Polish Institute of Arts and

Sciences, 2:198Pollution, 1:92, 95–96, 148,

160–61, 163; 2:342Polo, Marco, 1:108, 129

Polynesia/Polynesians, 1:142–44, 146, 147–48, 149; 2:232, 233, 347

Pompeii, Italy, 2:260Pond, Peter, 2:193Porpoise, HMS, 1:127Porpoise, USS, 2:346Portugal/Portuguese, voyages

of discovery by, 1:xi–xii, 3, 6, 105, 106–7, 110; 2:232

Portuguese Angola, 1:185Potsherds, 1:53Powell, Emma, 2:246Powell, John Wesley, 1:xiii, 123;

2:245–49, 247Powell, Ric, 1:163Powell, Walter, 2:246Powell expeditions, 2:245–49Prager, Ellen J., 2:228–29Preobraschenie Island, 2:221Priam, 2:261“Priam’s Treasure,” 2:259, 261Pribilof Islands, 2:256Primates, 1:53, 103

See also specific speciesPrime meridian (Greenwich

Mean Time), 2:203Prince of Wales, Cape, Alaska,

1:27Prince of Wales Island,

2:255Prince William Sound, Alaska,

1:27, 89, 120Princeton University, Museum

of Natural History at, 1:150, 151

Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation, The (Hakluyt), 1:131, 132, 132

“Principle of continentality” (Humboldt), 1:157

Principles of Geology (Lyell), 1:102


Proceedings (Royal Geographical Society), 2:251

Proconsul africanus (hominid species), 1:170, 172

Project FAMOUS, 1:33Project Mercury, 2:288–89Pronchishchev, Maria, 2:256Pronchishchev, Vasili, 2:252,

255–56Protoceratops (dinosaur), 1:19,

129, 130Providence, HMS, 1:125Providential Cove, Australia,

1:126Prussia, King of, 1:152Przhevalsky, Nikolai, 1:136PSEP (Passive Seismic

Experiment Package), 2:293

Psychedelic mushrooms, 2:265PT-109 (boat), 1:38Pterodactyl, 2:206Ptolemy, 1:62; 2:200Public Broadcasting System

(PBS), 2:305Puerto Rico, 1:126Puget Sound, 2:347Pursh, Frederick, 1:183

Quebec, 1:82Queen Elizabeth Islands, 1:30Queen Hatshepsut, temple of,

Egypt, 1:75Queen Maud Mountains,

Antarctica, 1:22, 71, 72

Queens. See specific queenQuest (whaling ship), 2:284Quest of the Snow Leopard

(Andrews), 1:20Question of Survival for the

Indians of Brazil, A (R. Hanbury-Tenison), 1:134

Quinn, Patricia, 1:161Quito, Ecuador, 1:5, 6, 155

Quivedo, Ecuador, 1:146Quivira, Kansas, 1:110

Ra (boat), 1:148Ra II (boat), 1:142, 147–48Ra Expeditions (Heyerdahl),

1:148Rainbow Falls, Tibet, 1:164Rain forests, 1:134; 2:266

See also specific locationRait, Alexander, 1:113Raleigh, Sir Walter, 1:132Ramses VI, tomb of, Egypt,

1:76Ramsey, William, 1:52Ranger lunar probes, 2:310Raroia Island, 1:147Ras Michael, King of Abyssinia,

1:63Raven, Peter H., 2:218–19“Reciprocity,” 2:198Reck, Hans, 1:173Red Canyon, Utah, 2:246Red River, United States, 1:114,

116Red Sea, 1:62, 94, 95, 148, 162,

163; 2:267Redwall limestone, 2:248Reeve, Bob, 2:338Reinach, Saloman, 1:52Reindeer Moon (Thomas),

2:325Reliance, HMS, 1:125, 126Relief, USS, 2:346Reptiles. See specific speciesResolution, HMS, 1:22, 42,

82, 87, 89; 2:222, 234, 269–70

Resolution Cove, British Columbia, 1:89

RGS. See Royal Geographical Society

Rhode Island, 2:346Rhode Island, University of,

1:38Rhododendrons, 1:165

Rice, Mary Blair (Blair Niles), 2:285

Ride, Sally, 2:297Rift valley, Africa, 1:32Right whales, 1:16, 17Riiser-Larsen, Hjalmar, 1:15Ringapat, King, 1:79Rio da Duvida (River of Doubt),

Brazil, 1:7–8Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2:347Río de la Plata (River Plate),

South America, 1:49Rio Grande, 1:110Ripon Falls, Africa, 2:317, 319River of Disappointment

(Mackenzie River), Canada, 2:193

River of Doubt (Rio da Duvida), Brazil, 1:7–8

River Plate (Río de la Plata), South America, 1:49

Robb, George, 1:53Robinson, George, 2:233Robinson Crusoe (Defoe), 1:125Rockefeller, John D., Jr., 1:18Rockefeller Mountains,

Antarctica, 1:71Rocky Mountains, North

America, 1:176; 2:206, 246

Roggeveen, Jakob, 1:144, 148Rohlfs, Gerhard, 2:268Rome, ancient, 1:35, 36, 62Rondon, Cândido Mariano da

Silva, 1:7Roosevelt, Anna, 1:124Roosevelt, Eleanor, 2:286Roosevelt, Theodore, 1:5, 7–8Roosevelt, USS, 2:243, 243Rosenstiel School of Marine

and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, 2:227

Ross, Alexander, 1:113Ross, James Clark, 1:11, 12,

14, 24


Ross, John, 1:11, 28, 113Ross Ice Shelf, Antarctica, 1:13,

21, 23, 71; 2:277, 280Ross Island, Antarctica, 1:24Ross Sea, Antarctica, 1:22, 24,

72; 2:228Rowett, John Quiller, 2:284Royal African Society, 1:169Royal Charter (ship), 2:271Royal Entomological Society.

See Entomological Society of London

Royal Geographical Society (RGS), 1:xiii, 3, 5, 65, 66, 121, 134, 138, 169, 186, 187; 2:209, 250–52, 251, 273, 279, 280, 281, 285, 317, 318–19, 320, 321, 335, 343, 345

Royal Horticultural Society, 1:43, 165

Royal Magazine, 2:279Royal Navy, 1:82Royal Scottish Geographical

Society, 1:165; 2:279, 323

Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, 1:38, 39, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 46, 58, 59, 83, 88; 2:238, 270, 271, 273, 331, 335

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, 2:220

Royds, Cape, Antarctica, 2:280RPM Nautical Foundation, 1:53Rubber trees, 2:266Rush, Benjamin, 1:178Rusinga Island, 1:172Rusizé River, Africa, 1:187Russell, Israel C., 2:218Russia, 1:xiii, 22, 26, 27, 148,

161; 2:211, 215, 285, 299, 307, 308

exploration by, 1:27; 2:252–58

Russia (continued) manned space exploration

by, 2:287See also Soviet Union

Russian Geographical Society, 2:256

Ruvuma River, Africa, 1:186Ruwenzori Mountains, Africa,

1:189

Sacagawea, 1:178Sage grouse, 1:177Sahara Desert, 1:133Sahlquist, Gustava, 1:9St. Helens, Mount, Washington,

2:218St. Lawrence Bay, Nova Scotia,

2:256St. Lawrence Island, 1:27St. Lawrence River, 1:82, 105,

110St. Louis, Missouri, 1:115, 175,

181, 183St. Matthew Island, 2:256St. Paul (ship), 2:254, 255St. Peter (ship), 2:254–55Salyut 1 space station, 2:287,

295Samoa, 1:60; 2:231, 234, 235,

347, 349Samplers, 2:228San Andreas Fault, California,

2:235San Francisco, California, 2:347San Juan Basin, New Mexico,

2:229San Salvador, 1:50Sanders, Robert, 1:151Sandwell, David, 2:228Sansanding, Africa, 2:241Santa María (ship), 1:108, 109;

2:236Santarém, Brazil, 1:45Santiago, Chile, 1:56, 98Santiago Island, 1:50São Francisco River, Brazil, 1:68

Sarawak, 1:134Satellites, 2:296, 298, 302–9

defense-related, 2:306Hubble Telescope, 2:298,

302, 308–9, 308imagery, 2:199, 203, 204,

226, 228, 237infrared, X-ray, and remote-

sensing, 2:307–8lunar orbiters, 2:301, 302,

309, 310–11planetary orbiters, 2:301,

302Sputnik program, 2:301,

303–5spy, 2:304, 306television, 2:301, 305,

306weather, 2:301, 306–7

Saturday Club, 1:3Saturn, 2:302

unmanned exploration, 2:315–16

Saudi Arabia, 1:51, 52, 54Sauropods, 1:130Saville, Marshall, 1:123Schirra, Walter “Wally,” 2:290,

291Schliemann, Heinrich, 1:xii;

2:259–64, 261, 263Schmitt, Harrison, 2:294Schnitzer, Eduard (Emin

Pasha), 1:184, 189Schomburgk, Robert, 2:251Schools. See specific schoolSchroder, B.H., 2:260Schultes, Richard Evans, 1:xiii;

2:265–67Schweinfurth, Georg August,

2:267–69Scientific Results of a Journey in

Central Asia, 1899–1902 (Hedin), 1:135, 138

Scientific revolution, 1:xii, xiii; 2:200

Scoresby, William, 2:269–72


Scorpion, USS (submarine), 1:34

Scott, David, 2:294Scott, James Maurice, 2:344Scott, Robert Falcon, 1:xii, 13,

14, 22, 22, 23; 2:272–77, 273, 278, 279

Scottish Renaissance, 1:113Scripps Institution of

Oceanography, 2:227, 228

Scuba, 1:92, 93, 94, 117, 162Scurvy, 1:85; 2:255–56, 279SDI (Strategic Defense

Initiative), 2:306Sea bears, 2:256Sea Gull, USS, 2:346Sea of Japan, 2:258Sealers, 1:22Search for Odin, The (Jaketen pa

Odin; Heyerdahl), 1:148SEASAT satellite, 2:226Second Boer War, 1:169Sedgwick, Adam, 1:97Seed and the Sower, The (Van der

Post), 2:328Semliki River, Africa, 1:189Sen, Gertrude Emerson, 2:285Senate, U.S., 1:55, 58Senegal River, Africa, 1:3Serengeti Plains, Africa, 1:173Seven Years’ War, 1:59, 62, 82Severnaya Zemlya archipelago,

1:28; 2:258Sextants, 2:194, 212, 214, 246Sexual Life of Savages in North-

Western Melanesia, The (Malinowski), 2:197

Shackleton, Ernest, 1:xii, 13–14, 22–23, 124; 2:273, 278–84, 281, 282

Shackleton-Rowett Expedition, 2:278, 284

Shelagski, Cape, Russia, 2:252, 257

Shelby, Gertrude Mathews, 2:285

Shells, fossilized, 2:247Shenzhou 5 (spacecraft), 2:287,

300Shepard, Alan, 2:287, 288–89,

305St. See entries under SaintSherpas, 1:122–23Shih Chan-chun, 1:122Shiites, 1:53Shilluk people, 2:268Shiloh, Battle of, 1:186; 2:246Shire River, Africa, 1:186Shoshone Indians, 1:178Siam (Thailand), 2:209Siberia, 1:26, 27, 89, 153, 156;

2:252–53, 254, 255, 256, 257–58

Sibiryakov, Aleksandr Mikhaylovich, 2:252, 257–58

Sierra Leone, 1:166Sierra Madre Mountains,

Mexico, 2:208Sikhote-Alin mountain range,

2:258Silent World, The (Cousteau),

1:92, 94Silent World, The (film), 1:93, 95Silk Road, 1:129, 136, 137Simpson, George Gaylord,

2:229Singapore, 2:347Sino-Swedish Expedition

(1926–1935), 1:139Sitka, Alaska, 2:256Sixth International

Geographical Conference (1895), 1:22

Skate, USS (submarine), 1:29Skylab 1; 2:295, 296Skyward (Byrd), 1:74Slava Rossii (ship), 1:26, 27Slave trade, 1:3, 66, 163, 185Slaves/slavery, 1:4, 113, 114

Slayton, Donald “Deke,” 2:295Sleds dogsleds, 1:11; 2:213, 243,

244–45, 275, 276, 277 motorized, 2:275, 276Slice of Spice (M. Hanbury-

Tenison), 1:134Small-pox, 1:6Smith, Donaldson, 1:123Smith, Walter, 2:228Smithsonian Institution, 2:349Snake River, United States,

1:181Snakes coral, 1:46 king, 1:46Snowflakes, 2:270Social Lives of Dogs, The: The

Grace of Canine Company (Thomas), 2:326

Society Islands, 1:149Society of Woman Geographers

(SWG), 2:285–86Sojourner (Mars rover), 2:302,

314Sokoto River, Nigeria, 2:241Solander, Daniel Carl, 1:38,

39, 41Solar system, unmanned

exploration, 2:311–16Solar wind, 2:293Solomon Islands, 1:60; 2:231,

232, 234Somalia, 1:65–66Somaliland, 2:317, 318Sonar, 2:227South Africa, 2:326–27, 347South America, 1:55–56, 98,

133, 149; 2:200, 201, 207, 265–66, 285, 286, 331, 332, 333, 340–42, 347

Humboldt, 1:57, 152, 154–55, 154, 156

See also Amazon River and Basin; specific location


South American plate, 2:235South Asia, 1:133South Equatorial Current,

1:149South Georgia Island, 1:21;

2:278, 283–84South Magnetic Pole, 2:281South Pole, 1:8, 12, 21, 22–23,

22Amundsen, 1:10, 13–15;

2:272, 275, 276, 277, 282

Byrd’s flights over, 1:69, 70, 71–72, 73, 74

Scott, 2:272, 273, 274–77, 279

Shackleton, 2:278, 279, 280–81

South Sandwich Islands, 1:21“South-Wales Farmer, The”

(Wallace), 2:331Southampton Island, 1:112Southeast Asia, 2:209, 238–39Southern Gates of Arabia, The

(Stark), 2:321Southern magnetic hemisphere,

2:269, 271–72Southern Tibet (Hedin), 1:138Soviet Union, 1:23, 29, 158,

159manned space exploration

by, 2:287, 288, 288, 289, 291, 294–96

unmanned space exploration by, 2:301–5, 306, 307, 309–10, 311–12

See also RussiaSoyuz Project (spacecraft),

2:287, 291Soyuz 1, 2:291Soyuz 3, 2:291Soyuz 4, 2:287, 291Soyuz 5, 2:287, 291Soyuz 11, 2:295Soyuz 19, 2:287, 295Soyuz TM-21, 2:296

Space exploration, manned, 1:xiii; 2:287–301

Apollo Project, 2:287, 290–94, 296

Gemini Project, 2:287, 289–91, 296

International Space Station, 2:287, 296, 297

Mercury Project, 2:288–89, 296

scientific research, 2:290, 292–93, 294, 295–97, 297, 298, 299–300, 300

Soyuz Project, 2:287, 291, 295

space shuttles, 2:285, 286, 287, 296–99, 338

space stations, 2:287, 294–96

Space exploration, unmanned, 1:xiii; 2:301–17

Moon, 2:301–2, 309–11planetary, 2:311–16planetary probes, 2:301–2,

311–13scientific research, 2:302–4,

308–17Sun, 2:311See also Satellites

Space shuttles, 2:285, 286, 287, 296–99, 302, 309, 338

Space stations, 2:287, 294–96“Space transportation system”

(STS). See Space shuttlesSpacelab, 2:297, 298Spacewalks, 2:287, 289, 290,

309Spain/Spanish, 1:105 voyages of discovery and

conquest by, 1:xi–xii, 6, 105, 107, 108–11; 2:232–33

Species, classifying, 1:40Speke, John Hanning, 1:xii, 65–

68, 69, 186, 189; 2:251, 317–21, 318

Spencer Gulf, Australia, 1:127Sperm whales, 1:117, 118Sphacteria Island, 2:264Spice Islands (East Indies), 1:xi,

xiii, 110; 2:232Spirit (Mars rover), 2:302,

314–15Spiritualism, 2:331, 335Spitsbergen Island, 1:15, 31;

2:215, 219, 220–21, 343Spix, Johann Baptist von, 1:5, 7Spöring, Herman, Jr., 1:41Spruce, Richard, 2:265Sputnik program (satellites/

spacecraft), 2:301, 303–5

Sputnik 1, 1:158, 159; 2:301, 303

Sputnik 2, 2:288, 301, 303, 304

Sputnik 3, 2:303, 304 Sputnik 4, 2:304 Sputnik 5, 2:304 Sputnik 7, 2:305 Sputnik 8, 2:305 Sputnik 9, 2:305 Sputnik 10, 2:305Spy satellites, 2:304, 306Sri Lanka, 1:148; 2:266Stafford, Thomas, 2:290, 295Stanley, Henry Morton, 1:xii,

184, 186–90, 187, 188, 189; 2:251

Star Town (Zvezdny Gorodok), Russia, 2:288

Star Wars program (SDI), 2:306

Stark, Freya Madeleine, 2:321–23, 322

Starokadomsky Island, 2:258Stegosaurus (dinosaur), 1:80Steller, Georg Wilhelm, 2:254–

55, 256Stephens, J.F., 1:98Strait of Georgia, 1:176Strait of Juan de Fuca, 2:347


Strait of Magellan, 2:234Strategic Defense Initiative

(SDI), 2:306Stromness, South Georgia

Island, 2:284STS (“Space transportation

system”). See Space shuttles

Submarines, 1:29, 31, 32, 34, 35, 36

Submersibles, 1:31, 32–33, 35, 37, 37, 119, 134; 2:222, 227, 236, 236, 237

Sudan, 1:63, 184, 189; 2:267–68, 319

Suez Canal, 2:221Sullivan, Kathryn D., 1:124;

2:285, 286Sulzberger Bay, Antarctica, 1:72Sumatra, 2:238–39Sumerians, 1:148Sun, 1:24; 2:302 unmanned exploration,

2:311Sundance formation, Wyoming,

1:81Sunnis, 1:54Supai formation, Grand

Canyon, 2:248Suroit, Le (ship), 1:34Surveying, 2:202 topographic, 2:199, 203–4Surveyor (lunar probes), 2:301,

310Survival International, 1:133;

2:327Survival of the fittest, 1:103Sustainable Seas Expeditions,

1:117, 120Sutlej River, Tibet, 1:138Sverdrup, Harald, 1:15Swallow, HMS, 2:234Sweden, 1:149; 2:215Swedish Academy, 2:222Swedish Museum of Natural

History, 2:220

SWG (Society of Woman Geographers), 2:285–86

Swigert, John, 2:293–94Switzerland, 2:337Sydney, Australia, 1:85, 125Symmes, John Cleves, Jr., 2:346Syria, 1:51, 62; 2:322Syria: The Desert and the Sown

(Bell), 1:51, 52System Naturae (Linnaeus),

1:40System of Mineralogy (Dana),

2:347

Tabei, Junko, 1:120, 123Tae Kwan Do, 1:162Tagging Along (M. Hanbury-

Tenison), 1:133–34Tahiti, 1:40, 41, 50, 79, 85, 87,

89, 101, 125, 143; 2:231, 233, 234

Bougainville, 1:58, 59, 60–61

Cook, 1:83Talcahuano, 1:98–99Tana, Lake, Africa, 1:63Tanganyika, Lake (Sea of Ujiji),

Africa, 1:64, 66–67, 69, 184, 187, 189, 190; 2:317, 318–19

Tanzania (Tanganyika), 1:66, 171, 173; 2:318

Tapajós River, Brazil, 1:45Tapeats sandstone, 2:248Tarim River, China, 1:136–37,

138Tasman, Abel Janszoon, 2:231,

233Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land),

1:14, 125, 126; 2:231, 233

Tatum, Bill, 1:34Taxidermy, 1:16; 2:342Taxonomy, 1:40Taymyr Peninsula, Russia, 1:27;

2:255, 258

Tectonic plates, 1:32, 33, 37; 2:231

Tehran, 1:136Teixeira, Pedro, 1:5, 6Tektite underwater project,

1:118Telescopes, 2:194

Hubble, 2:298, 302, 308–9, 308, 338

infrared, 2:307James Webb, 2:309Kepler, 2:316–17X-ray, 2:307

Television and Infrared Observation Satellite (TIROS 1), 2:301, 306–7

Television satellites, 2:301, 305, 306–7, 306

Teller, Alaska, 1:15Telstar 1 (satellite), 2:301, 305,

306Telstar 2 (satellite), 2:305Temple Butte, Grand Canyon,

2:248Tenochtitlán, Mexico, 1:105,

110Tenzing Norgay, 1:120, 121,

122Tereshkova, Valentina, 2:287,

289Terra Australis, 2:201Terra Nova (ship), 1:22; 2:272,

274–75Terra Nova expedition, 2:274–

77Terror, HMS, 1:24Testament to the Bushmen (Van

der Post), 2:330Thagard, Norman, 2:296Thailand (Siam), 2:209Tharp, Marie, 2:228Thatcher, Margaret, 2:330Theodolites, 1:156; 2:212, 214Theory of Winds (Wilkes),

2:349


Thermometers, 2:214, 246, 270Thomas, Elizabeth Marshall,

2:324–26Thomas, Lowell, 1:124Thomson, Charles Wyville,

2:225, 234Thomson, Joseph, 2:251Thousand and One Churches, A

(Bell and Ramsey), 1:52Thresher, USS (submarine),

1:31, 34, 35Through the Dark Continent

(Stanley), 1:190Tibet, 1:121, 122, 124, 138,

163, 164–65; 2:339Tidal dynamics, 1:15Tierra del Fuego, South

America, 1:47, 49–50, 88

Tiger (ship), 1:112Tigris (boat), 1:142, 148Tigris River, 2:199Timbuktu (Tombouctou), 1:4;

2:239, 240Time (magazine), 2:313Tin Goose (airplane), 1:71–72,

73, 73Tinian Island, 2:233TIROS 1 (satellite), 2:301,

306–7Tiryns, Greece, 2:264Titan (Saturn moon), 2:302,

316Titanic, RMS, 1:31, 32, 33,

34–35, 34; 2:218Titanic Historical Society, 1:34Titov, Gherman, 2:288Tobol River, 2:258Tobolsk, Kazakhstan, 2:252,

258Tokelau, 2:233Tom Thumb (boat), 1:126 Tonga, 2:235Tonga-Kermadec Trench,

2:235Tonti, Henri de, 1:111

Topographic surveys, 2:199, 203–4

Torell, Otto, 2:220Torne River, Finland, 2:202Tornia, Finland, 2:202Toroweap limestone, 2:248Torres Strait, 2:233Tortoises, 1:50, 99–100Toscanelli, Paolo, 1:108Trade, 1:169, 185

fur, 2:193slave, 1:3, 66, 163, 185

Trade routes, 1:36, 107, 129, 137; 2:193, 239

Transactions (American Philosophical Society), 1:114

Transhimalaya (Hedin), 1:138Transit of Venus, 1:40–41, 82,

83, 85, 88Travels in the Interior Districts of

Africa (Park), 1:4; 2:239, 239, 240

Travels in West Africa (Kingsley), 1:165, 168, 169

Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile in the Years 1768–1773 (Bruce), 1:63

Trees, rubber, 2:266Tribe of the Tiger, The: Cats and

Their Culture (Thomas), 2:326

Trieste (bathyscaphe), 2:222, 227, 231, 236, 236, 237

Trieste, Italy, 1:64, 68Trieste II (bathyscaphe), 2:236Tripolitania, 1:4Tristão, Nuno, 1:107Tritonia (diving suit), 1:119Trobriand Islanders, 2:195,

196–98, 196Trojan Antiquities (Schliemann),

2:262Trojan War, 2:259, 262, 264

Troy, 2:259, 260–62, 261, 264

Troy and Its Remains (Schliemann), 2:262

Truth, Sojourner, 2:314Tuamotu Archipelago, 1:79,

147, 149; 2:233Tucker, H.Z., 1:56Tugtilik, Greenland, 2:345Tunis, 1:62Tunisia, 1:4Turkana, Lake, Africa, 1:174,

175Turkey, 2:215, 259, 260, 261Tutankhamen, King curse of, 1:76 mummy of, 1:77, 77, 78 tomb of, 1:75, 76–78, 77;

2:218Twenty Thousand Leagues

Under the Sea (Verne), 1:32

Two Medicine Formation, Montana, 1:150

Two Trips to Gorilla Land (Burton), 1:166

Tyrannosaurs Rex (dinosaur), 1:150, 152

U.S. Antarctic Program. See Antarctic Program, U.S.

U.S. Botanic Garden. See Botanic Garden, U.S.

U.S. Civil War. See Civil War, U.S.

U.S. Geological Survey. See Geological Survey, U.S.

U.S. Hydrographic Office. See Hydrographic Office, U.S.

U.S. Interior Department. See Interior Department, U.S.

U.S. National Herbarium. See National Herbarium, U.S.


U.S. National Marine Sanctuaries. See National Marine Sanctuaries, U.S.

U.S. Navy. See Navy, U.S.U.S. Senate. See Senate, U.S.Ubangi River, Africa, 2:268UDC (University of the District

of Columbia), 1:162–63Uele (Welle) River, Africa,

2:267, 268Uganda, 2:318, 319, 324, 325Uhuru (satellite), 2:307Ujiji, Sea of (Lake Tanganyika),

Africa, 1:64, 66–67, 69, 184, 187, 189, 190; 2:317, 318–19

Ujiji, Tanzania, 1:67–68, 187Ukhaa Tolgood fossil field,

Mongolia, 1:130Ukhaidir, Mesopotamia, 1:52Ultraviolet rays (UVBs), 1:25Ulysses (planetary probe),

2:315Ulysses (solar probe), 2:298Under a Lucky Star (Andrews),

1:20Undersea World of Jacques

Cousteau, The (television specials), 1:95

Underwater Adventure Seekers (UAS), 1:162

Union-Castle Line, 2:279United Nations Human Rights

Council, 2:327United States, 1:29 manned space exploration

by, 2:287, 288–99, 297 unmanned space exploration

by, 2:301–2, 304–9, 310–17

See also entries under U.S.; specific location

United States Exploring Expedition. See Wilkes Expedition

University of Miami, 2:227

University of Philadelphia, 1:91

University of Rhode Island, 1:38

University of the District of Columbia (UDC), 1:162–63

Unknown Coast, Australia, 1:125, 126–27, 128

Unknown River, Canada, 2:342, 343–44

Upper atmosphere, 1:24Upper Atmosphere Research

Satellite, 2:298Ural Mountains, 1:153; 2:219,

252, 258Uranus, unmanned exploration,

2:316Urubamba River, Africa, 1:57USS Flying Fish. See Flying Fish,

USSUSS Iwo Jima. See Iwo Jima,

USSUSS Peacock. See Peacock, USSUSS Porpoise. See Porpoise, USSUSS Relief. See Relief, USSUSS Roosevelt. See Roosevelt,

USSUSS Scorpion. See Scorpion, USSUSS Sea Gull. See Sea Gull, USSUSS Skate. See Skate, USSUSS Thresher. See Thresher, USSUSS Vincennes. See Vincennes,

USSUSS Washington. See

Washington, USSUSS Yorktown. See Washington,

USSUssuri River and basin, 2:253,

258Utah, 2:246Utopian philosophers, 1:58UVBs (ultraviolet rays), 1:25

V-2 rocket, 2:301, 302Váez de Torres, Luis, 2:233

Vahsel Bay, Antarctica, 2:283Valdivia, Chile, 1:98Valles Marineris, Mars, 2:313Valley of the Kings, Egypt, 1:76,

77Valleys of the Assassins, The

(Stark), 2:321Van Allen, James, 1:159; 2:304Van Allen radiation belts, 1:159;

2:304Van der Post, Laurens, 2:326–

30Van Diemen, Anthony, 2:233Van Diemen’s Land. See

TasmaniaVan Putten, Mark, 1:120Van Veen sampler, 2:228Vanuatu (New Hebrides), 1:60,

78, 79; 2:231, 234Variation of Animals and Plants

Under Domestication, The (Darwin), 1:105

Vega (ship), 2:221Velociraptor (dinosaur), 1:130Venera (planetary probes),

2:301, 311–12Venezuela, 1:7, 154, 155Venture to the Interior (Van der

Post), 2:326, 329Venus, 2:301, 302

transit of, 1:40–41, 82, 83, 85, 88; 2:234

unmanned exploration, 2:311–12

Venus Express (planetary probe), 2:312

Verne, Jules, 1:32Vertebrata of the Tertiary

Formations of the West, The (Cope), 1:92

Vesconte, Petrus, 2:199, 200Vespucci, Amerigo, 1:109;

2:200Vestiges of the Natural History

of Creation (Chambers), 1:102


Victoria, Lake, Africa, 1:67–68, 69, 172, 184, 187, 189; 2:317, 318–19, 318

Victoria, Queen of England, 2:250

Victoria Falls, Africa, 1:185Victoria Land, Antarctica,

2:274Vietnam War, 1:32Viking (planetary probes),

2:313Viking (ship), 2:212Vilcabamba, Peru, 1:56Vilkitsky, Boris, 2:253, 258Vilkitsky Island, 2:258Vincennes, USS, 2:346Vine, Allyn, 1:37Virgin Islands, 1:126Virginia, 1:132Vishnu schists, 2:248Vision for Space Program,

2:310Vladivostok, Russia, 2:258Volcanoes, 1:155Volkov, Vladislav, 2:295Voskhod 2, 2:289Vostok 1, 2:287, 288, 288Vostok 6, 2:287, 289Voyage of the Vega, The

(Nordenskjöld), 2:219, 222

Voyage to Terra Australis: Undertaken for the Purpose of Completing the Discovery of that Vast Country, and Prosecuted in the Years 1801, 1802, and 1803, in His Majesty’s Ship the Investigator (Flinders), 1:128

Voyage Up the River Amazon, Including a Residence at Para (Edwards), 1:44

Voyager planetary probes, 2:315, 316

Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Lawrence Through the Continent of North America to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans in the Years 1789 and 1793 (Mackenzie), 1:176; 2:194

Voyageurs, 2:193

Waguha people, 1:190Waigeo Island, 1:80Waldseemüller, Martin, 2:199,

200Wallace, Alfred Russel, 1:xiii,

44, 97, 97, 103–4; 2:252, 331–36, 333, 335, 341

“Wallace’s Line,” 2:332Wallis, Samuel, 2:231, 233–34Walsh, Don, 2:227, 236, 237Walsh, Henry Collins, 1:123Walsh Glacier, 2:338Wanderings in South America

(Waterton), 2:340, 341Wang Yuanlu, 1:129Ward Hunt Island, 1:29Warrior Herdsmen, The

(Thomas), 2:324, 325Washburn, Barbara, 2:339Washburn, Bradford, 1:xiii;

2:336–40, 337, 339Washington (state), 1:176Washington, George, 1:182Washington, Mount, 2:336Washington, USS, 1:36Waterton, Charles, 2:340–42Watkins, Henry George “Gino,”

2:342–45Watson, H.C., 1:104Wayne, Anthony, 1:177Weather satellites, 2:301,

306–7Weber, Richard, 1:29Weddell Sea, Antarctica, 2:282,

283Wedgwood, Josiah, 1:97

Weitz, Paul, 2:295West Africa, 1:3–5, 165, 166West African Studies (Kingsley),

1:165, 169West Florida (Lousiana),

1:113–14West Indies (Caribbean), 1:xiii,

113, 126, 163; 2:226West Road Valley, Canada,

2:194Westall, William, 1:127Western America, Including

California and Oregon (Wilkes), 2:349

Whale Hunting with Gun and Camera (Andrews), 1:20

Whale Island, 2:194Whales California gray, 1:17 right, 1:16, 17 sperm, 1:117, 118Whales, Bay of, Antarctica,

1:13, 71; 2:280What Led To the Discovery of

the Source of the Nile (Speke), 2:320

Wheeler, George, 1:91White, Edward, 2:290White Nile River, 1:62, 63, 68,

186, 187, 189; 2:268White Sea, 1:27Wichita, Kansas, 1:31, 32, 110Wild, Frank, 2:280Wilkes, Charles, 2:225, 345–50,

347Wilkes, James, 1:22Wilkes Expedition, 2:345–50,

348 scientific discoveries by,

2:349–50Wilkes Land, Antarctica, 1:24;

2:237Wilkins, George Hubert, 1:23Willow Creek, Montana,

1:150–51


Wilson, Edward, 2:273, 276–77, 279

Winter Quarters Bay, Antarctica, 2:273

Wisherd, Edwin “Buddy,” 2:217Wisting, Oscar, 1:13, 15Wolfe, James, 1:82Wolves, 2:325Women’s rights, 1:169Woods Hole, Marine Biological

Laboratory at, 2:226Woods Hole Oceanographic

Institution, 1:32, 34, 34, 36, 37, 161; 2:227

Woolf, Leonard, 2:328Woolf, Virginia, 1:54; 2:328Worcester (ship), 2:238Worden, Alfred, 2:294Wordie, James, 2:343World Data Centers, 1:159World Meteorological

Organization, 1:160World War I, 1:36, 53, 54, 70;

2:322World War II, 1:36, 38, 144;

2:266, 302, 323, 328World Wilderness Congress,

2:326, 330World Without Sun (film), 1:95

Worsley, Frank, 2:284Wrangel, Ferdinand Petrovich,

2:252, 257Wrangel Island, 2:257Wreck Reef, Australia, 1:127Wyoming Territory, 2:246, 247

X-ray satellites, 2:307Xi’an (Chang’an), China, 1:137Xingu people, 1:133Xinjiang Autonomous Region,

1:137XMM-Newton (X-ray

telescope), 2:307

Yakutska (ship), 2:255Yale University, 1:56, 57

Peabody Museum of Natural History, 2:205–6, 230

Yangtze River, 1:164Yarlung Zangbo River, 1:164,

165Yeager, Chuck, 1:124Yelcho (tug), 2:284Yellowstone National Park,

1:115Yellowstone River, United

States, 1:183

Yemen, 2:323Yenisei River, 2:221, 254, 255Yeniseysk, Russia, 2:257Yorktown, USS, 1:36Yorktown, Virginia, 1:61Young, Brigham, 1:68Young, John, 2:290, 294, 296Yugor Strait, 2:221Yukon Territory, 2:337Yunnan Province, China, 1:164

Zalambdalestes (early mammal species), 1:19

Zambezi River, Africa, 1:184, 185, 186

Zambia, 1:187Zanzibar, 1:66, 187; 2:318, 319,

320Zenit (satellite), 2:306Zinjanthropus boisei. See

Australopithecus, A. boiseiZinn, Howard, 1:109Zoological Society of London,

2:209Insect House, 1:79

Zoology, Wilkes Expedition, 2:349

Zvezdny Gorodok (Star Town), Russia, 2:288


scientific exploration and expeditions (gnv64)

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