Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/180

 only such remnants that our most cultivated imaginations can scarce build a superstructure worthy to raise upon the ruins.

But a new era is opening, the intelligence of later years is spreading over these once fruitful fields, and slowly but surely modern ideas are advancing into the midst of the unknown chaos, and in time will restore the great advantages that have lapsed in the ignorance of ages. The nations of Europe vie with one another to extend their possessions, and in the mad race for precedence are reclaiming even the waste places as footholds by which they hope to reach the power and wealth they see may be developed in the future. Explorers have brought back wondrous tales that have excited the cupidity of those who profit in the barter of nature's products, until vast schemes have been projected to seize the wealth believed to be within easy grasp.

Daring spirits discover new countries, and through the reports of the marvels they have seen, inspire their more cautious countrymen to venture into unknown fields in the hope of gain. The discontented, too, seek isolation and fancied independence in new regions, and thus is formed the nucleus that parent countries seize upon, encourage, and develop into colonies, that in time may revolutionize a continent, and seek a place among the nations of the world. This sequence of events has been gradually progressing in Africa, and has been greatly accelerated by the discoveries of recent years. A large section of the interior has now been opened to trade and colonization in the formation of the "Congo free State." It marks an era in the development of the continent that promises to be fruitful of rapid advance. The Geographic journals have contained many pages of notes during the year, showing the activity of explorers in supplying the Geographical details of the more accessible regions. But there is an area nearly half as large as that of the United States through which the explorer has not yet penetrated; a field of great interest to Geographers, but they may have years yet to wait, before they may read the story.

In the East Indies and among the islands of the Pacific there is still work for the Geographer of the most interesting character, and, indeed, for the explorer too. Those who depend upon charts of the great ocean realize too frequently the imperfect determination of the positions of many of these isolated landmarks, and the dangers surrounding them. This is more properly work for governments than for individuals, and we may hope the day is