422 OCEANOGRAPHY. 



use of were slowly divulged, spread, and reached the ears of scientists, 

 who arranged them and disseminated them with the power that had 

 arisen with the recent invention of the art of printing. 



Interest and curiosity awoke in proportion as knowledge developed. 

 The era of geographic discoveries passed because there were no more 

 empires to conquer. Competition died out and there began a period 

 during which a passion for natural history seized the nations, while 

 individuals bore proudly the title of naturalists. Travelers visited 

 unknown islands and continents, gazed with wonder at the curiosities 

 of these lands, and wished to describe them in detail. They did not at 

 first consider whether or not this would be of any practical advantage, 

 but confined themselves to the knowledge that these things existed, 

 that the forms of plants and of animals were unusual, and this was suffi- 

 cient to interest them. It was the epoch of enthusiasm. From the 

 middle of the last century until about the middle of the present the 

 world was enamored of social ideas, of political ideas, of art, litera- 

 ture, science, and even geography. They were taken by everything. 

 Like children in infancy, they rejoiced almost without suspecting it 

 in the supreme happiness of possessing a faith — often, indeed, two or 

 three rather than one. Setting out boldly to discover the Utopia 

 of their dreams, so long known and yet always so new and so full 

 of charm, they traversed the oceans. Great voyages were made. In 

 1772 Cook went to Tahiti, accompanied by the naturalist Forster, 

 to observe the transit of Venus. In 1815 the Russian Kotzebue 

 went round the world on the Rurik, with the naturalist Chamisso; 

 in 1820 the future Admiral Fitzroy took Darwin aboard his ship, the 

 Beagle; Bougainville on the Boudeuse, De Freycinet on the Uranie in 

 1827, Vaillaut on the Bonite in 1836, and still others studied the natu- 

 ral history of all climates and brought back large collections. There 

 was the same enterprise on land as on sea. Victor Jacquemont went 

 to India overflowing with ardor, intoxicated with love of science at the 

 aspect of the wonders and grandeur of nature. Those who were born 

 half a century ago look back on a childhood and youth brightened by 

 the last gleams of these emotions. We did not then have encyclope- 

 dias of scientific romances, the quintessence of human knowledge con- 

 tained in 500 pages as the meat of an entire ox is concentrated into 

 one small pot, and we were, for want of more or less substantial nour- 

 ishment, forced to feed our minds with fancies. We began with the 

 history of Sindbad the Sailor, the old man of the sea, the valley of 

 emeralds and of rubies, over which the roc hovered, beating the air 

 with great outspread wings. We went on with the library of voyages — 

 Cook, Dampier, Carteret, Laperouse, the reminiscenses of Jacques 

 Arago, the blind man, and the adorable letters of Victor Jacquemont. 

 With our books of pictures — and what pictures they were! — we could 

 bask in the dazzling light of the equatorial sun ; we breathed the odors 

 of primeval forests, where the lofty cocoa palm waved its leafy top 



