GEOGRAPHIC CONQUESTS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. 429 



accepted by all the scientific explorers of the nineteenth century 

 Later, Spix and Martins botanized in Brazil, Schoniburgk explored 

 Britisii Guiana, Crevaux and Chandless investigated the niio-hty ti-ihu- 

 taries of the Amazon, Castelnau explored the Paraguay, and ILitclier 

 in 1S9S, made important discoveries in Patagonia. 



ASIA. 



Marco Polo was the only European who before ISOO had tra\'crsed 

 any considerable part of Asia. But during the nineteenth century the 

 continent was overrun hy explorers of every nationality, Avho ha^•e 

 made the map of the continent in the larger details quite accurate. 

 Russia from the northeast sent numberless explorers, and England vied 

 with her from the south. In one respect, perhaps, the geographic 

 conquest of Asia has been more remarkable than that of Africa 



Fig. 11. — A.sia us known in 1800. 



Australia, or North /imerica, for to penetrate this giant continent the 

 explorer has had to contend against hundreds of millions of people — 

 all prejudiced against his advance and of quite a different character 

 from the naked savages of the ''Dark Continent.'' 



Humboldt, in 1829, invaded Central Asia and the country of the 

 Caspian Sea. The French missionary. Hue, succeeded in traversing 

 Tibet in 1844-45 and lived several months at Lha.sa. Palgra\'e, in 

 the early sixties, journeyed across Arabia. The adventurous Garnier, 

 in 1866-1868, surveyed the course of the great Mekong and traversed 

 over 5,000 miles in Cambodia and China, almost all of which was pre- 

 viously unknown to European geographers. Ney IClias at the same 

 time was ascending the mighty Yangtze and penetrating western 

 Mongolia. Fedchenko, in Pamir, and the untiring Prjewalski, in 

 Mongolia and western China, were rapidly mapping these regions. 



