RECENT GEOGRAPHIC ADVANCES, 

 ESPECIALLY IN AFRICA 



By Major General A. 



WITH the reasonable assurance 

 that the Arctic Pole is sur- 

 rounded by a deep, extended 

 sea, and with the knowledge that its 

 Antarctic antipodes is in practically the 

 center of the greatest land-mass of the 

 world, it is obvious that man's persistent 

 activity has outlined the general contours 

 of all seas and continents. It thus fol- 

 lows that the heroic phase of geographic 

 exploration has passed for all time, and 

 that men eager for recognition turned 

 some time since their energies to re- 

 searches which promise either scientific 

 results or commercial advantages. 



In considering geographic advances, it 

 is pertinent, and perhaps not devoid of 

 popular interest, to present the base- 

 maps of modern geography. As novel to 

 many, there is (p. 388) reproduced a map 

 of the world, drawn from a catalogue of 

 J. W. Hiersemann, Leipzig. It is from 

 Francesco Berlinghieri's Italian Geogra- 

 phy, Geographic, in terza rima et lingua 

 toscana, Florence, i478-'8o, probably the 

 second oldest of printed atlases. Ber- 

 linghieri naturally continued Ptolemy's 

 error of undercalculating by one-third 

 the distance between Europe and the east 

 coast of Asia, and it may well be that 

 this very map from a home atlas encour- 

 aged Columbus in believing the unex- 

 plored distance to be navigable. 



As illustrative of the vast advances in 

 geography during the following half cen- 

 tury after the voyage of Columbus, there 

 is also reproduced the new world-chart, 

 Universale Novo, from the work of 

 Pietro Andrea Mattiolo, La GeograHa di 

 Claudio Ptolemeo Alesandrino (with ad- 

 ditions by Sebastian Munster and Jacob 

 Gastaldo), Venice, 1548. Although Ma- 

 gellan had circumnavigated the world, 

 Asia, Europe, and America (as yet un- 

 named) are herein charted as one un- 

 broken land-mass. These maps of four 



W. Greely, U. S. Army 



centuries since furnish means for inter- 

 esting comparisons with the surface of 

 the world as we know it today (p. 389). 



DISCOVERIES OF NEW EANDS 



Man's success in the explorative con- 

 quest of the world is forcibly illustrated 

 by the statement in a leading editorial 

 that the year 1910 had been quite devoid 

 of actual geographic achievement, there 

 being one notable addition only — the 

 Antarctic discoveries of Charcot. Of all 

 men, Dr. Charcot takes a broader view 

 of geographic science and is unwilling 

 to measure its progress by mere addi- 

 tions of hitherto unknown surface areas 

 of the earth, welcome as such knowl- 

 edge is. 



It will be remembered that Charcot 

 in 1905 by discovery extended Palmer 

 (or Graham) Land southwest to Loubet 

 Land, 67 0 south, 71 0 west. His expedi- 

 tion of i909-'io was specially fitted for 

 scientific research in botany, geology, 

 glaciology, hydrology, magnetism, me- 

 teorology, and oceanography. Reaching 

 in the Pourquoi Pas? his farthest point 

 of 1905, Charcot successfully worked his 

 ship through the ice to the southwest, 

 and, reaching the hitherto unvisited Ade- 

 laide Island (Biscoe, 1832), accurately 

 located its position. It is an island 70 

 miles long, not a mere islet of less than 

 10 miles, as previously reported. Con- 

 tinuing his running survey, Charcot 

 found that Alexander I Land (Bellings- 

 hausen, 1821) is a continuation of Pal- 

 mer Land, indented by a vast gulf along 

 whose glacier-lined shores he traced 120 

 miles of new land. Altogether the new 

 discoveries extend the local southing 

 from 65 0 30' to 68° 45' south, and traverse 

 a previously unknown sea between 104 0 

 and 128 0 west, save only as intersected 

 at 108 0 west by Cook in 1774. Charcot's 

 discoveries have an especially important 



