August 31, 1905] 



NA TURE 



449 



Cadiz and Great Britain would make little of the difficulties 

 of the African seas. 



The limit of easy navigation from and to the Red Sea is 

 Sofala. I do not thinli that it is too great a use of im- 

 agination to suppose that it would be from information 

 received in what is now North Rhodesia that it was learnt 

 that to the westward lay the sea again, and that this 

 led to the attempt to reach it by the south. 



Once started from the neighbourhood of Sofala, they 

 would find themselves in that great oceanic stream, the 

 Agulhas Current, which would carry them rapidly to the 

 southern extremity of Africa. 



1, as a sailor, can also even conceive that finding them- 

 selves in that strong current they would be alarmed and 

 attempt to turn bacli, and that after struggling in vain 

 against it they would have accepted the inevitable and 

 gone with it, and that without the Agulhas Current no 

 such complete voyage of circumnavigation would have been 

 made. 



.^s Major Rennell in the last century pointed out, once 

 past the Cape of Good Hope, the periodic winds, and over 

 a great part of their journey the currents, would help 

 them up the West African coast ; and the general con- 

 ditions of navigation are favourable the whole way to 

 the Straits of Gibraltar, the ships keeping, as they would 

 do, near the land ; but we can well understand that, as 

 recorded, the voyage occupied nearly three years, and that 

 they halted from time to time to sow and reap crops. I 

 should say that it is highly probable that either Simon's 

 Bav or Table Bay was selected as one of these stopping- 

 places. 



No reference to this voyage has been found amongst the 

 hieroglyphic records, and, indeed, so far few such records 

 of Necho, whose reign was not for long, are known ; but 

 that it was regarded at the time as historical is evident, 

 for Xerxes, a hundred years later, sent an expedition to 

 repeat it in the contrary direction. 



This, however, failed, and the unfortunate leader, 

 Sataspes, was impaled on his unsuccessful return. 



This attempt shows that the greater difficulty of the 

 circumnavigation from west to east, as compared with 

 that from east to west, was not realised, and points to 

 the concealment of any details of the successful voyage. 



Of Hanno's voyage from the Straits of Gibraltar to 

 about Sierra Leone, the date of which is uncertain, but 

 from 500 to 600 B.C., we should know little had not good 

 fortune preserved the record deposited in a Carthaginian 

 temple. 



But the well-known secrecy of the Phoenicians in all 

 matters connected with their foreign trade and voyages 

 would explain why so little was known of Necho's voyage, 

 and our present knowledge of the extensive ancient gold 

 workings of Rhodesia shows how much went on in those 

 times of which we are wholly ignorant. 



1 have dwelt perhaps too long on this subject, but it has 

 to me a great interest ; and as it has not, so far as I 

 know, been dealt with by a seaman who is personally well 

 acquainted with the ways of seamen in sailing ships and 

 with the navigation of the coasts in question, I hope I may 

 be excused for putting my views on record. 



There are several references in Greek and Latin historians 

 to other circumnavigations, but none of them can be 

 trusted, and apart from Necho's voyage we hear nothing 

 of the east and south coasts of Africa until the arrival 

 of the Portuguese at the end of the fifteenth century. But 

 they found a thriving civilisation along the coast from 

 Sofala northward, Shirazi, Arab, and Indian. 



Ruins exist in many places which have not yet been 

 properly investigated, and we are quite unable to say from 

 what date we are to place the earliest foreign settlements, 

 nor how many breaks existed in the continuity of the gold- 

 mining, which apparently was proceeding at or very shortly 

 before the Portuguese visit. 



.\fter the recommencement of exploration by sea in the 

 fifteenth century, seamen slowly gathered enough informa- 

 tion to draw the lines of the coasts they passed along, and 

 in time — that is, by the middle of the eighteenth century — 

 most lands were shown with approximately their right 

 shapes. But of true accuracy there was none, for the 

 reason I have before mentioned, that there was no exact 

 method of obtaining longitude. 



NO. 1870, VOL. 72] 



If we look at a general world chart of a.d. 1755 — and to 

 get the best of that period we must consult a French 

 chart — we shall find on this small scale that the shape 

 of the continents is fairly representative of the truth. 

 But when we examine details we soon see how crude it all 



I have compared with their true positions the positions 

 of thirty-one of what may be taken as the fundamental 

 points in the world as given in the larger scaled French 

 charts of 1755, from which the general one is drawn, and 

 I find that on an average they are forty-eight miles in 

 error. The errors vary from 160 miles to two miles. If 

 the delineation of the coast-lines between be considered the 

 inaccuracies are very much greater. 



Very shortly after this date more accurate determinations 

 began to be made. The method of lunar distances was 

 perfected and facilitated by tables published in the various 

 astronomical " ephemerides," and seamen and explorers 

 commenced to make use of it. Still the observation re- 

 quired constant practice, and the calculation, unless con- 

 stantly made, was laborious, and it was used with com- 

 plete success by the few. The great Captain Cook, who 

 may be looked upon as the father of modern methods of 

 surveying, did much to show the value of this method ; 

 but the chronometer came into use shortly after, and the 

 principal advance in exact mapping was made by its aid, 

 as I have already stated. 



There is a vast amount yet to be done for Geography. 

 L'ntil we possess publications to which we can turn for 

 full information on all geographical aspects of things on 

 this globe of ours, there is work to be done. Seeing that 

 our present publications are only now beginning to be 

 worthy of being considered trustworthy for the very small 

 amount of knowledge that we already possess, geographical 

 work in all its branches is practically never-ending. 



But of e.\ploration pure and simple very little remains to 

 be done. The charm of travelling through and describing 

 an entirely new country which may be practically service- 

 able to civilised man has been taken from us by our pre- 

 decessors, though limited regions still remain in Central 

 Asia and South America of which we know little in detail. 



I must except the Polar regions, which are in a some- 

 what special category, as their opening-up affords few at- 

 tractions to many people. But a knowledge of the past 

 history of our globe — fit study for human thought — can only 

 be gained by study of the portions still under glacial con- 

 ditions. 



What is there round the South Pole — a continent or a 

 group of large islands? What is going on there? What 

 thickness does ice attain? Have these regions always been 

 glaciated; and if not, why not? Can we get any nearer the 

 mystery of magnetism and its constant changes by study 

 at or near the magnetic poles? All these and many other 

 scientific questions can only be solved by general geo- 

 graphical research in these regions, and all interested in 

 such questions have been delighted at the recent attempts 

 to gain more knowledge. 



The object of these expeditions was frankly and purely 

 scientific. .AH hope of remunerative whale or seal fisheries 

 had been dispelled by the visit of the Norwegian whalers 

 in 1S92 to the region south of Cape Horn, and the known 

 general condition of the land forbade any expectation of 

 other profitable industries, unless indeed gold and other 

 valuable minerals should be found, which is always possible. 

 Beyond the fact that exploring expeditions of this character 

 keep alive the spirit of enterprise and bring out the finest 

 characteristics of a race — which is a point by no means to 

 be despised — no immediate practical benefit was to be 

 expected. 



Progress under the conditions must be slow, but I think 

 that Great Britain may well be satisfied with the inform- 

 ation collected in the .\ntarctic by Captain R. F. Scott 

 and his gallant companions. The unfortunate detention of 

 the Discovery by an unfavourable summer prevented the 

 further coastal exploration which was part of the pro- 

 gramme, but gave opportunity for further detailed ex- 

 amination of the inland conditions, which was carried out 

 in defiance of the severest atmospheric and topographical 

 difficulties, and with the greatest zeal and intelligence; 

 and it may be doubted whether Science in the end has not 



