Makch 1, 1897.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



61 



investigation. Carl Bitter, the father of modern scientific 

 geography, and Heinrich Berghaus, the founder of the 

 famous physical atlas, were in Berlin ; Humboldt, the 

 ideal geographer of the period, graced the fashionable 

 world of Paris ; Jomard, D'Avezac, and Vivien de St. 

 Martm were amongst the more prominent of the numerous 

 French geographers ; Kruseustern, who watched over the 

 vast family of Pacific islands as if they were his children, 

 and Wrangel, of Arctic fame, worthily represented Russia ; 

 while Paul Chaix, happily still in full mental vigour, was 

 prominent in Switzerland. Maury, in America, was en- 

 gaged in the studies which led to his great work on the 

 physical geography of the sea ; and in Great Britain, 

 Parry, Franklin, Back, and Ross were famous Arctic 

 heroes ; Biscoe had reawakened interest in the Antarctic 

 seas, Vidal had given his name to the extension of the 

 Continental shelf beyond the British Islands, Murchison 

 and Charles Darwin were already recognized as clever 

 observers, and the great Arrowsmith was producing his 

 exquisitely engraved maps, such as have not gladdened 

 the eyes of geographers for a generation past. As regards 

 British travellers, they were in all parts of the Earth. 

 Ainsworth was exploring Asia Minor ; he died in Decem- 

 ber, 1896, the doi/cn of British explorers, and second in 

 seniority among European travellers only to the veteran 

 D'Abbadie, who still survives. Everest was pushing on the 

 great Trigonometrical Survey of India, which has fixed his 

 name on the greatest mountain in the world ; Africa had 

 just claimed as a victim the intrepid Davidson, while 

 making his way across the Sahara to Timbuktu ; Alex- 

 ander had penetrated from Cape Colony to Namaqualand ; 

 and British surveying ships were engaged in constructing 

 for the whole coast of Africa charts which " may be said 

 to have been drawn and coloured with drops of blood," so 

 terrible was the mortality among the crews before the 

 elements of tropical hygiene had been learned. The Hud- 

 son Bay Company's officers were exploring the Arctic 

 coast of America, and the Danish Antiquarian Society had 

 just published the first absolute proof of the discovery and 

 colonization of America by the Northmen in the tenth 

 century. Schomburgk was engaged in surveying the fron- 

 tier regions of British Guiana, and stirring up a controversy 

 the end of which it is, perhaps, not unduly optimistic to 

 look forward to in the sixty-first year of Her Majesty's 

 reign. In Australia numerous exploring parties were in 

 the field, and a town called Melbourne was founded on 

 Port PhiHp Bay, in the south of New South Wales. 



"Within the space of a single article it is only possible to 

 glance at one aspect of the progress of geography during 

 the sixty years of the Victorian era ; and, perhaps, the 

 best aspect to adopt for such a purpose is that of discovery 

 and exploration, for in it British work has been pre- 

 eminent. In other aspects the comparison of British 

 geography in 1837 and 1897 might produce disappointing 

 results. The problems of general scientific geography 

 formulated by the President of the Royal Geographical 

 Society in 1837, and put forward by him as deserving of 

 immediate attention, are to a discouraging extent still 

 problems of the future. This has been largely due to the 

 lack of international co-operation, and the mutual inde- 

 pendence of the workers in different countries — a state of 

 things which the development of international congresses 

 in recent years may be hoped soon to improve. 



In attempting to sketch the main lines of the progress 

 of geographical exploration, we must leave out of account 

 the steady progress in surveying and mapping the countries 

 of Europe and other continents which have resulted in 

 such triumphs of cartography as the Ordnance Survey of 

 the United Kingdom and the great Trigonometrical Survey 



of India ; nor can we refer in detail to the charting of the 

 coasts of the world by the surveying ships of Europe and 

 America. 



Arctic exploration has always been viewed with interest 

 and often enthusiasm, but never have the romance and 

 tragedy of exploration held so sustained a hold upon the 

 world as during the fifteen years which followed the 

 despatch of Sir John Franklin in 181-5. In that year the 

 Erebus and Terror, just returned from the Antarctic, sailed 

 to complete the survey of the Arctic coast of America and 

 achieve the North- West Passage. Towards the end of the 

 summer they were seen by a whaler in Melville Bay, and 

 this was the last direct news. In 18i8 Sir James Clarke 

 Ross started on the first search expedition, and during the 

 next few years ship after ship went out through Lancaster 

 Sound on the east and Bering Strait on the west, while 

 land-parties imder the guidance of Hudson Bay Company's 

 officials descended the northern rivers and searched along 

 the coast. The Arctic archipelago was very fully explored 

 in this way ; in 1850 no less than fifteen vessels were 

 prosecuting the search for the missing ships. In that year 

 Captain McClure, who had entered by Bering Strait in the 

 Invcstiijator, discovered the North- West Passage — -the vain 

 dream of the merchants of the sixteenth century — but he 

 found the ice conditions so severe that he had to abandon 

 his ship and return by one of the vessels pursuing the 

 Franklin search from the eastward. In 185.3, after 

 the discovery of undoubted relics of the lost ships by 

 Dr. Rae, the British Government abandoned the search ; 

 but the devotion of Lady Franklin, and the determination 

 of the public to discover fuller details, led to the splendid 

 private expedition of the Fox, from 1857 to 1859, in which 

 Sir Leopold M'^Clintock and Sir Allen Young explored 

 nearly a thousand miles of new coast-line under conditions 

 of the greatest difficulty, and discovered the only document 

 throwing light on Franklin's fate which has been found. 

 It proved that to Franklin belongs the honour of first 

 discovering the famous North-West Passage. 



In 1871, Captain Hall, in the American steamer Polaris, 

 entered Smith's Sound and reached the highest latitude 

 so far attained — 82'' 16' N. In the following year an 

 Austro-Hungarian expedition under Payer and Weyprecht 

 were carried by drift ice from Nova Zemlaya and discovered 

 Franz Josef Land, the remote region in which the English 

 explorer Jackson and his party have been at work for the 

 last three years. The great British Government expedition 

 of the Alert and Discovert/, under Sir George Nares, pene- 

 trated Smith Sound in 1875 ; and Commander A. H. 

 Markham led a sledge party to 83° 20' N., which remained 

 the highest observed latitude until Lockwood, of Greely's 

 American expedition, reached 83° 21' north of Greenland, 

 in 1882. In 1878-79 the Swedish professor Baron Nor- 



I denskiold accomplished the North-East Passage in the 

 Vega, and circumnavigated the continent of Eurasia for 



' the first and only time. Peary in three successive years 

 made some of the finest journeys every accomplished over 

 the inland ice of Northern Greenland. Great as these 

 achievements were, they have been excelled by the scien- 

 tifically planned expedition of Dr. Fridtjof Nansen in 

 the Fraiii. By relinquishing the time-honoured plan of 

 following a coast-line, or fighting against drifting ice-fioes, 



j and allowing the moving ice of the Polar basin to carry 

 his ship, he succeeded in drifting from near the New 

 Siberian Islands to Spitzbergen, across an absolutely 

 unknown area. In his sledge journey, alone with his 

 companion Johansen, he reached 86° 14' in 1895, an 

 advance of nearly two hundred miles on the farthest north 

 ever made before ; and his expedition in its safety, success, 



1 and exact conformity to the plans previously laid down 



