394 The National Geographic Magazine 



Slacurn traveled through Mexico to 

 Guaymas, and left that port on the ist of 

 June, 1 835, intending to reach Oregon by 

 land, but being informed of the imprac- 

 ticability of using the land route at that 

 season of the year, he proceeded by sea, 

 and after many vicissitudes only reached 

 the mouth of the Columbia River Decem- 

 ber 22, 1836. Here he surveyed and 

 plotted a chart of the mouth of that 

 river, and also compiled a chart, from in- 

 formation gained, of the coast and coun- 

 try south of the Columbia. The four 

 rivers, Klamath, Coos, Rogue, and Ump- 

 qua, which had never before been 

 charted, appear on this map and were 

 thus made known to geographers 

 through his efforts. 



THE WILKES EXPLORING EXPEDI- 

 TION 



The most complete exploring expedi- 

 tion ever fitted out from America up to 

 the time of its departure was that which 

 left the United States in 1838. The 

 expedition sailed under the command of 

 the then Lieutenant, afterwards Rear 

 Admiral, Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., who 

 was aided by a most intelligent band of 

 officers well prepared for its onerous 

 duties. The difficulties which attended 

 Wilkes' expedition can hardly be con- 

 ceived at the present time, when steam 

 relieves the sailor of many cares and 

 clears him from numerous dangers 

 against which his predecessor had to 

 battle formerly with sails only. 



On August rg, 1838, the vessels left 

 Chesapeake Bay, and after stopping at 

 Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands 

 arrived at Rio Janeiro, Brazil, from 

 which it sailed on the 6th of the fol- 

 lowing January. From Rio Janeiro 

 they proceeded to Rio Negro, in Pata- 

 gonia, and Nassau Bay, in Tierra del 

 Fuego. From this place two schooners 

 attached to the expedition made cruises 

 in different directions toward the South 

 Pole, one of them, the Flying Fish, 

 reaching latitude 70 14' S., nearly the 

 highest latitude attained by Captain 



Cook and not far from the same longi- 

 tude reached by him ; but the season 

 had already advanced too far for the 

 best results, and they rejoined the 

 squadron at Valparaiso in May, 1839. 

 The Vincennes in the meantime was oc- 

 cupied with a survey of Nassau Bay. 

 The schooner Sea Gull was lost in a 

 gale soon after leaving Nassau Bay. 



From Valparaiso the vessels sailed to 

 Callao, Peru, where the Relief, being 

 ill-adapted to the voyage, was sent to 

 the United States. 



On the 1 2th of July the squadron left 

 the coast of South America and visited 

 and surveyed 14 or 15 of the Paumotu 

 Islands, two of the Society Islands, and 

 all of the Navigator Group, and reached 

 Sidney, New South Wales, on the 28th 

 of November, 1839. 



The vessels next proceeded on their 

 second Antarctic cruise, discovering 

 land in longitude 160 E. and latitude 

 66° 30' S. 



It should be said of Wilkes' discover- 

 ies in Antarctica that the recent expe- 

 ditions of Captain Scott of the British 

 Antarctic expedition, Dr von Drygalski 

 of the German, Captain Bruce of the 

 Scottish, and Captain Nordenskjold of 

 the Swedish, all confirm the correctness 

 of Admiral Wilkes' work in the frozen 

 south, and as Mr Edwin Swift Balch 

 said of him in a recently published arti- 

 cle in the National Geographic 

 Magazine, "show what a remarkably 

 acute and accurate geographical ob- 

 server Admiral Wilkes was." Let us 

 not forget in our felicitations for these 

 later gallant voyagers of the present 

 generation how much we owe to the 

 intrepid pathfinder who first announced 

 to the world his discovery of the Ant- 

 arctic Continent in 1840, nor the fact 

 that his almost miraculous voyages were 

 made in ships some of which would 

 hardly be trusted outside of port at the 

 present date. 



During the absence of the expedition 

 about two hundred and eighty islands 

 were surveyed, besides eight hundred 



