Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 10.djvu/205

Rh ssians iberia. ins of "ages. EIGHTEENTH CE.'1‘URY.] by the Russians, for they succeeded in delineating the whole of the northern coast of Siberia. Some of this work, indeed, was done at a still earlier date. The Cossack l)eschneﬁ' made an extraordinary voyage, in the summer of 1618, from the river liolyma, through Behring Strait to Anadyr, a performance which has never since been equalled. Between 1738 and 1750 the mates Mania and Sterlegoff made their way in small sloops from the mouth of the Ycnisei as far north as 75° 15' N. The land from Taimyr to C-.1pc(',‘helyuskin, the most northern extremity of Siberia, was mapped by the mate Chelyuskin, who discovered the extreme point in May 1742. To the east of Cape Chelyus- kin the Russians encountered greater difﬁculties. They built small vessels at Yakutsk on the Lena, 900 miles from its mouth, whence the first expedition was des- patched under Lieutenant l’rontsehichel1' in 1735. He sailed from the mouth of the Lena to the mouth of the Olonek, where he wintered, and on September 1, 1736, he got as far as 77“ 29' NC, within ﬁve miles of Cape C-helyuskin, which is in 77’ 3-1’ N. Both he and his young wife died of scurvy, and the vessel returned. A second expedition, under Lieutenant Laptieff, started from the Lena in 1739, but encountered masses of drift ice in Chatanga bay, and with this ended the voyages to the westward of the Lena. Several attempts were also made to navigate the sea from the Lena to the Kolyma. In 1736 Lieutenant Lctptielf sailed, but was stopped by the drift ice in August, and in 1739, during another trial, he reached the mouth of the Indigirka, where he wintered. In the season of 1710 he continued his voyage to beyond the Kolyma, 'i11tc1‘il]g at Nijni Kolymsk. In 1725 Vitus Behring, a Dane in the Russian service, received his instructions from Peter the Great a few days before the czar’s death. Two vessels were built for Behring at Okhotsk, and sailing in July 1728, he ascertained the existence of the strait between Asia and America which bears his name. In September 1710 Behring again sailed from Okhotsk, with Steller on board as naturalist. In June 1711 Commodore Behring named the magniﬁcent peak on the coast of North America Mount St Elias, and explored the Aleutian Islands. In November the ship was wrecked on Behring Island; and the gallant Dane, worn out with scurvy, died there on the 8th of December 1741. In March 1770a merchant named Liakhoff saw a large herd of reindeer coming from the north to the Siberian coast, which induced him to start in a sledge in the direction whence they came. Thus the New Siberian Islands were discovered, and for years afterwards the seekers for fossil ivory resorted to them. The Russian Captain Vassili Tchitschakoff in 1765 and 1766 made two persevering attempts to penetrate the ice north of Spitz- bergen, and reached to 80° 30' N., and Russian parties twice wintered at Bell Sound. But the result was the same as all others have obtained before and since; the Spitz- bergen route is evidently not the way to the Pole. The 18th century saw great progress in the collection and arrangement of geographical material, and in the Work of surveying and 1nap—making. Collections of voyages and travels were brought together in the four quarto volumes of Astley (171-5) and the two folios of Harris (1764) ; while Dr Hawkesworth edited the Government voyages to the Paciﬁc in 1773. Sir Joseph Banks was the great patron of geography in England, aided by the indefati- gable labours of such critical geographers as llennell, Dalrymple, and Barrington ; while in France the great cartographer D’Anville introduced a habit of critical ac- curacy, and caused a complete revolution in the art of map- making. Towards the close of the century it was recognized that geography served more extensive and important uses than had ever before been supposed. The route survey was GEOGRAPHY 191 suflicient for the traveller or soldier, while accurate charts guided the mariner across the ocean. the basis of statistics and of administration, and rigorous accuracy became necessary. Surveys on a trigonometrical basis, which have been proceeding in all the countries in Europe (except Turkey) and in India during the present, were commenced in the last century. In Great Britain the Ordnance Survey was begun in April 1781, when General Boy measured a base line on Hounslow Heath. The triangulation of the British Isles was commenced in 1781 and completed in 1852. aspect of the whole globe, but at present they are neces- sarily conﬁned to those nations which are in the front rank of civilization. Countries which are not so advanced are still obliged to be content with such maps as sufﬁced for all the world in the last century, before the results of trigonometrical surveys were available. These secondary maps are adapted for the requirements of the countries which use them, being based on positions ﬁxed by astro- nomical observations, on cross bearings, and often on chained distances. The third class of maps includes the work of explorers of unknown or little known regions, and of geo- graphers who delineate the features of such regions by compilation and by intelligent collation of the work of travellers. There are thus three grand divisions in the character and uses of maps. There are ﬁrst those which aim at minute accuracy, and which are intended as docu- ments for administrative purposes, and in pursuing exact statistical investigations. Secondly, there are maps which are based on less accurate surveys of countries less populous or less advanced in civilization ; these are useful for political, geographical, and military purposes, but are not to be relied on to the same extent or in the same way as is the case with those based on trigonometrical surveys. Thirdly, there are the roughly compiled maps of little known regions, which are constantly in course of improve- ment, and which do the work of pioneers. In treating here of the progress of geographical discovery in the present century, it is to those who prepare the last class of maps, to the pioneers———the diseoverers——that we must mainly, though not exclusively, conﬁne our attention. We propose to review the work of diseoverers and explorers of the 19th century in two sections as regards time,—ﬁrst during the ﬁrst thirty, and secondly during the last forty- eight years. The Royal Geographical Society was founded in 1830, and forms a landmark. In each period we shall take ﬁrst the work done in Asia, then Africa, then America, then Australia, then Polynesia, and ﬁnally the Arctic and Antarctic regions. At the beginning of the century British rule in India was Workin extended over the plains of the Ganges almost to the Sutlej, and the attention of explorers was drawn to the mighty mass of the Himalayas. Captain Herbert, in 1818, at- temped to give a general view of the physical character of this great range, and Mooreroft reached the Mansarowa lake, and the upper courses of the Indus and Sutlej ; while Mr Manning, in 1811, was the only Englishman who ever visited Lassa, the capital of Tibet. The mission of Sir John Malcolm to Persia in 1808 led to much geographical work being achieved. On his staff was Macdonald Kinneir, who wrote a valuable memoir on the geography of Persia: while at the same time Lieutenant J. Macartney, under 1‘vIOl111tStl1ﬂI't Elphinstone, was collecting materials for a map of Afghanistan. In 1810 Pottinger and Christie made an important journey through Baluchistan by different routes, Christie afterwards visiting Herat and Yezd ; and in 1827 Mr Stirling of the Bengal Civil Service crossed the Hazarah mountains. The close of the war in 1815 led to numerous efforts for But surveys are also Surveys. Maps based on tl'lgOI10II1etl‘lCa.1Classesof surveys may eventually explain and illustrate the physical mﬂP-'>'-