286 GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH IN THE UNITED STATES 



which pointed the way to and stimulated other discoveries. 

 These are still unfinished, and within the limits of the United 

 States some tracts still exist which have never been seen by the 

 white man. Of other tracts, though seen and long vaguely 

 known, our knowledge is still dim and shadowy. 



For a century after Cabot small advance was made in our 

 knowledge of the continent formally taken possession of by him 

 in the name of his sovereign lord, King Henry VII. Thd out- 

 line of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts were crudely delineated, 

 but of the Pacific coast north of California our maps until about 

 1750 were either blank or filled with fabled lands or monsters. 

 Bering's voyage of 1741 yielded the first definite knowledge of 

 northwestern America, but it was not until nearly 40 years later, 

 in 1778, that Cook, the great English navigator, gave to the world 

 the general outlines of Alaska as we now know them. The gen- 

 eral features of the coast of western North America obtained bj'' 

 Cook were some 16 years later vastly improved, from southern 

 California to Kadiak, by another English navigator, the equal 

 if not the superior of Cook, whom every American student 

 delights to honor, Capt. George Vancouver. 



The period of the war for independence in the last quarter of 

 the last century was one of great geographic activity and stimu- 

 lated the production of maps of the revolted colonies. The 

 numerous and excellent, for their time, maps by the English 

 geographer, Jefferys, ma}'^ be taken as the best exponent of Amer- 

 ican geography one hundred years ago. The}" show fairly well 

 the Atlantic coast line from the maritime provinces of Canada to 

 Georgia, and so much of the interior as was the scene of hostil- 

 ities ; but west of the Appalachian mountain chain the delinea- 

 tion was conjectural. The existence of the Great Lakes, of the 

 mighty Mississippi, and of the fertile valley drained by it were 

 barely known. 



Such was the world's geographic knowledge of what is now the 

 United States when those states united m 1789. The knowledge 

 subsequently acquired is the work of the United States, the in- 

 dividual states, private persons, and corporations. 



The General Land Office. — One of the earliest agencies b}'' which 

 geographic knowledge was increased was the General Land Office. 



The general government found itself in 1783 possessed of a re- 

 gion called the Northwest Territory, lying beyond the mountains. 

 Into this region settlers came about the beginning of the century. 

 That they might acquire title to land for their homes, the gov- 



