Exploration

“ I have said they are all of one type, regarded as explorers. There is only one word which fitly describes that type—magnificent. We may well ask have we any explorers like them in these days? We know well enough that we have the raw material in plenty for fashioning them, but alas! opportunity is wanting. Exploration in these days is becoming so professional and so scientific that modern methods hardly admit of the dare-devil, face-to-face intermixing with ix savage breeds and races that was such a distinctive feature in the work of these heroes of an older age. ”

“ Every one when first exploring the world of books, and through them the larger world of reality, is attracted by travels and voyages. These are peculiarly interesting to country people, to whom the idea of exploration is natural. ”

“ This primitive travel was moreover in the truest sense exploration, for these travelers were the first to penetrate into lands wholly unknown and previously untrodden by the feet of man. Once the greater part of the world was overrun, however, the need for travel was by no means at an end. Intensive exploration in the search for the best hunting grounds and fishing places, or, with the advent of agriculture, for suitable and fertile soils, must have continued for generations. ”

“ They are the exception and not the general rule,—the magnificent reward of long and toilsome exploration, or, it may be, the chance discovery that brings wealth to the humble home of some rustic laborer. ”

“ The glory of an explorer, I need hardly say, results not so much from the extent, or the marvels of his explorations, as from the consequences to which they lead. Judged by this test, my little list of discoveries has not been unfavoured of fortune. ”

“ Under these two formulæ may be classified all the phenomena which properly belong to this period. The discovery of the world divides itself into two branches—the exploration of the globe, and the systematic exploration of the universe which is in fact what we call Science. ”

“ Exploration is the physical expression of the Intellectual Passion. ”

“ There never was, until Flinders applied himself to the task, any deliberately-planned, systematic, persistent exploration of any portion of the Australian coast. The continent grew on the map of the world gradually, slowly, almost accidentally. It emerged out of the unknown, like some vast mythical monster heaving its large shoulders dank and dripping from the unfathomed sea, and metamorphosed by a kiss from the lips of knowledge into a being fair to look upon and rich in kindly favours. ”

“ This review of the advance of the century in the study of land forms, the habitations of all the higher forms of life, might have been concerned wholly with the concrete results of exploration, as was implied in an earlier paragraph. Travels in the Far East of the Old World, or in the Far West of the New, have yielded fact enough to fill volumes. ”

“ Having a vast and virgin field for exploration, a sufficient number of collectors, some of whom have devoted much of their lives to the work, and a refinement of technique that permitted the preservation of the fragmental and ill conserved as well as the finer specimens, the results could hardly have been otherwise. ”

“ It is a fascinating subject for speculation, but the field offered for actual exploration is still more fascinating, and further research on the ground promises to supply facts worth more than volumes of dissertation built upon insufficient premises. ”

“ As that down-growing process advances we assure ourselves, more and more confidently, that all the really important, the vital part of such explorations belongs to us, at{3} least as much as to the explorers themselves. ”

“ In order, however, to properly ascertain and make known the natural resources of the great tracts lying beyond the borders of civilization, such explorations and surveys as are undertaken must be of a truly scientific character. ”

“ The unscientific explorers of a hundred years ago may have left discoveries to future workers as important as those which remained for so many years after the early explorations in the neighbouring great cave. ”

“ But the time is coming when, imbued with a taste for science and a spirit of research, they will become ardent explorers of the regions in which they sojourn. Freighted with the knowledge which observation only can impart, and enriched with collections of objects precious to the student of nature, their return after the perils of a distant voyage will then be doubly joyful. ”

“ If I were a man, I should be an explorer, or maybe a discoverer of new lands—places where no one had ever been before." She turned to him eagerly, "Why don't you become an explorer, and find old cities or—or the North Pole, or something?" ”

“ The explorer indeed should be possessed of a good few accomplishments—amongst these I may enumerate that he should be able to make a pie, shoe himself or his horse, jerk a doggerel verse or two, not for himself, but simply for the benefit or annoyance of others, and not necessarily for publication, nor as a guarantee of good faith; he must be able to take, and make, an observation now and again, mend a watch, kill or cure a horse as the times may require, make a pack-saddle, and understand something of astronomy, surveying, geography, geology, and mineralogy, et hoc, simile huic. ”

“ Suppose further, that the first exploring party has set forth on a voyage of discovery, and has reached a point high in our sky from which objects on the earth’s surface begin to be distinguishable. Of course the huge landmarks, cities, lakes, and rivers, have been in view for a long while, and now the explorers are on the lookout for signs of living things. They are watching, just as we would be, for moving objects. ”

“ In the course of my research anomalies have sprung up in every direction. I have felt like a traveler, navigating some mighty river in an unexplored continent. I have seen to the right and the left other channels opening out, all claiming investigation, and promising rich rewards of discovery for the explorer who shall trace them to their source. Time has not allowed me to undertake the whole of a task so vast and so manifold. ”

“ Where is the dawn of geography—the knowledge of our earth? What was it like before the first explorers made their way into distant lands? Every day that passes we are gaining fresh knowledge of the dim and silent past.
Every day men are patiently digging in the old heaps that were once the sites of busy cities, and, as a result of their unwearying toil, they are revealing to us the life-stories of those who dwelt therein; they are disclosing secrets writ on weather-worn stones and tablets, bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at. ”

“ Great Activity of Explorers in the Nineteenth Century
At the end of the century a very different tale could be told. The hundred years had been marked by an extraordinary activity in travel, adventure, and discovery; daring men had penetrated the most obscure recesses of continents and islands, climbed the most difficult mountains, ventured among the most savage tribes, studied the geographical features and natural productions of a thousand regions before unknown, and learned more about the conditions of the earth than had been learned in a thousand years before. ”

“ No part of matter would then escape the scrutinizing disposition of man, he would explore the ocean and the rivers, the mountain and the valley, the forest and the plain, the bowels of the earth and its atmosphere, and even the surface and atmosphere of other orbs to gratify his scientific and laudably insatiate curiosity. The blade of grass, the leaf, the tree, its fruit, the flower-bed with all its vivid tints and animating effluvia, with all the infinite variety both in the vegetable and animal world, would alike form matter for his scientific research, and objects for him to explore. ”

“ He was particularly fond of the science of Natural History, and of exploring those labyrinths in which nature delights to involve her operations, where she has made man, both the habitant of a region of wonders, and a link in their mysterious chain. ”

“ He was like an explorer now who has reasoned that certain natural features must present themselves, and, beating up a broad river, finds here the tributary that he expected, there the fertile, populated plains, and further on the mountains. When some great discovery is made the world is surprised afterwards that it was not accepted at once, and even on those who acknowledge its truth the effect is unimportant. ”

“ It has been my aim in the present lecture to give you the result of latest information on the earlier man of North America, and at the same time to indicate some of the different branches of science which it is necessary for us to pursue in order to understand anthropology or the study of man. We have called upon geology to describe the strata in which we find the relics of man, and to explain their probable age and the manner of their deposition. ”

“ Without our accounting for it, each of the numerous discoveries of science—whether affecting history, anthropology, geography, geology, medicine, physics, chemistry, astronomy or the rest—changes our accustomed atmosphere and adds some essential thing to an image which we do not yet distinguish, but which we see looming above us, occupying the whole horizon, and which we feel, by a presentiment, to be enormous. ”

“ The investigators into the early history of mankind are like explorers in search of the source of one of those mighty rivers which traverse whole continents: we have departed from the homes of modern civilization in ascending the stream, and arrived at a spot where traces of human existence are but few, and animal life has assumed strange and unknown forms ”

“ But perhaps the survey of a wider field may lead us to think that they contain in germ the solution of the problem. To that wider survey we must now address ourselves. It will be long and laborious, but may possess something of the interest and charm of a voyage of discovery, in which we shall visit many strange foreign lands, with strange foreign peoples, and still stranger customs. The wind is in the shrouds: we shake out our sails to it, and leave the coast of Italy behind us for a time. ”

“ Such a grievous misconception of the true scope of Geography will, I trust, be removed in future. And when it no longer exists Geography will require for its pursuit the exercise of the finest faculties of the soul as well as the strictest qualities of the intellect. It will call forth capacity for the closest and most accurate observation and the highest powers of description. To us adventure-loving and Nature-loving Englishmen it should of all subjects be the most popular. ”

“ You may travel for the sake of great horizons, and travel all your life, and fill your memory with nothing but views from mountain-tops, and yet not have seen a tenth of the world. Or you may spend your life upon the religious history of East Rutland, and plan the most enormous book upon it, and yet find that you have continually to excise and select from the growing mass of your material. ”

“ So the first point I have to put before you is that we geographers should regard the object of our science not as a magnified billiard-ball, but as a living being—as Mother-Earth. Not as hard, unimpressionable, dull, and inert, but as live, supple, sensitive, and active—active with an intensity of activity past all conceivability. Yet with no chaotic activity, but with activity having coherence and direction, and that direction towards excellence. ”

“ Why can't we go under the sea for anything we choose? There it lies. These explorers of yours who have found the poles have merely mapped out the earth. They appear to suppose that all the work is done. ”

“ For, like many other men, he had something of the explorer's spirit about him—something that responded eagerly to the charm of the strange, the vague, the new,—something that makes the would-be explorer of the terra incognita ignore all thought of danger, and dream only of the beauty of virgin forests, strange flowers, and fabled fountains of youth and love eternal! ”

“ It does not, as far as we could ascertain, establish any new or interesting principle in Geology, or discovery in Geography. But in such a journey one naturally expects rather a sentimental than a scientific interest. ”

“ But the growth of a belief in the natural origin of all the features of the earth has grown faster than the capacity of science to guide it. Nowhere may the lasting influence of scenery on the imagination be more strikingly recognised than in the vague tentative efforts of the popular mind to apply what it supposes to be scientific method to the elucidation of these more impressive elements of topography. ”

“ Natural features of sea or forest or mountain or desert have something to do with the character and ideas of a people; so, also, the material wealth in lands and buildings. But to understand the great movements of history, we must look at the great psychical factors. ”

“ Imagine for a moment all that is involved in thorough knowledge of the whole world, and you will marvel at the results achieved by the efforts of so many explorers and martyrs, you will grasp the importance of their discoveries and the intimate relations between geography and all the other sciences. ”

“ There were men devoted to geographical discovery, and an enthusiastic sympathy attended them, whether struggling with the Ice-king in his Polar strongholds or with the fiery demons of the Desert, dealing sunstrokes and launching the simoom among tropical sands. Then more and more scientific objects arose; and more and more men went forth to accomplish them. ”

“ From the geographical point of view—and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply—we must rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature. ”

“ The first explorer, the original discoverer on a world scale, was primitive man. He had covered the earth before the Europeans of to-day set for themselves the highly interesting task of rediscovering it and him. ”

“ The principal object of my expedition was scientific. I desired to examine the geography, natural history, and statistics of that country, by taking directions on the road with the compass, and by determining the principal points by astronomical observations. I made a rich collection of quite new and undescribed plants. ”