PART FOUR 



PHYTOGEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION 



Who among us has not been excited by tales of strange 

 places and people? Even the Sunday afternoon drive attests 

 to mans desire to get away from it all. Those of us who have 

 read of the incredible journeys of men in search of the cin- 

 chona tree for its malaria-curing bark, of the bringing back of 

 the breadfruit tree and the subsequent mutiny on the Bounty, 

 and of the start of the East Indian rubber plantations from 

 seeds "smuggled" out of South America, have wished that we 

 might have been able to take such journeys. Some people 

 feel that the last frontier has been crossed and there is really 

 nothing new to see. Actually, there are many places in this 

 hemisphere that have never had a white man visit them. 



Our four explorers, to follow, are (or were) scientists who 

 go to far-off places for a purpose. We still thank Humboldt 

 for his pioneer work on curare, an arrow poison now used to 

 relieve some types of paralysis. Professor Gray not only 

 showed the similarity of two floras but he made deductions 

 as to why they were similar, thereby solving a problem of long 

 standing. Dr. Maguires work in South America and Dr. 

 Polunin's work in the Arctic will be of value to future genera- 

 tions. The United States Government also sends out explorers 

 for new plants, more resistant strains, for new oils, and so 

 forth. Exploration, in short, is finding out more about the 

 planet upon which we live and making it a pleasanter and 

 safer abode for Homo sapiens. 



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