AWARENESS OF DIRECTION 



signal for bed time. But we should test human beings in displacement ex- 

 periments as Matthews has done with shearwaters, gulls, and Pigeons. 



Robert H. Smith and Edward G. Wellein, pilot biologists for the U.S. 

 Fish and Wildlife Service, have had much experience with low-level fly- 

 ing over the Arctic, where charts are often in error, the compass unreli- 

 able, and the landscape monotonous. Both contend that the sun is an im- 

 portant cue to navigation and that they are aware of the variation in arc 

 and schedule as they move across degrees of latitude and longitude, so 

 that by the sun they maintain an awareness of their relation to their base of 

 operations. Wellein tells me that on several occasions he has sensed his 

 position relative to the sun but followed his compass — and has found that 

 his own awareness of position was the truer guide to position. 



But the sun, especially in some regions of the Arctic during the sum- 

 mer, is not always available as a cue, and men, like birds, must make refer- 

 ence to the world about them. Robert H. Smith says (letter): "An inex- 

 perienced pilot is frequently lost because he can't pinpoint himself on the 

 map at a given time. As experience is acquired, he worries less about the 

 exact position, and is more concerned with the broad features of the ter- 

 rain—drainage patterns, mountain ranges, large lakes, coastlines and dis- 

 tinctive features of culture. There is hardly any place where one is not 

 bracketed in by a combination of these — and this is all that is really im- 

 portant on long cross-country flights. I believe I could fly from Aklavik, 

 Northwest Territories, to Mexico City by following my usual routes, without 

 charts, radio or compass, using my knowledge of details of terrain and cul- 

 ture near places where I must land for fuel, and relying on broad land- 

 marks for the areas between. To do this would require flying at a reason- 

 able height with good visibility." 



Home, in all its individual and geographic varieties, means the same 

 thing to every man in terms of his inborn appetities for those acts and 

 stimuli of parenthood (or childhood) that for each human being can be 

 satisfied at only one place: this territory of home. Wherever he is, how- 

 ever modern his age, the home, grand or humble, is the ultimate goal in 

 the travels of all mankind. 



As with birds, the circle of geographic learning extends outward from 

 the home. The corner store is the edge of the universe for the two-year- 

 old who cannot comprehend the father's travels. And yet in due course, 

 in the natural way of lif e that no elder can ever explain to a child, the wide 

 unknown becomes familiar. Modern transportation methods, guiding instru- 



203 



