A Book of Discovery The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole

An American had placed the Stars and Stripes on the North Pole in 1909. It was a Norwegian who succeeded in reaching the South Pole in 1911. But the spade-work which contributed...

The death of Livingstone, the faithfulness of his native servants in carrying his body and journals across hundreds of miles of wild country to the coast, his discovery of the g...

Still greater light was shed on the size of the world by Alexander the Great on his famous expedition to India, by which he almost doubled the area of the world known to the peo...

But now a new era was about to begin--a new age was dawning--and we open a wonderful chapter in the history of discovery, perhaps the most wonderful in all the world. In Portuga...

But while the names of Torres, Carpenter, Tasman, and Dampier are still to be found on our modern maps of Australia, it is the name of Captain Cook that we must always connect m...

Perhaps no land in the world has in modern times exercised a greater influence over the imagination of men than the mysterious country of Tibet. From the days of Herodotus to th...

Now Venice at this time was full of enterprising merchants--merchants such as we hear of in Shakspere's _Merchant of Venice_. Among these were two Venetians, the brothers Polo....

Perhaps one of the strangest facts in the whole history of exploration is that Africa was almost an unknown land a hundred years ago, and stranger still, that there remains to-d...

"I hope," he said, "to ascend the Rovuma, and shall strive, by passing along the northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the wate...

"Call him on the deep sea, call him up the sound, Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; Where the old trade's plyin' and the old flag flyin', They shall find him ware an' wakin...

One would have thought that the revelation of this immense sheet of water on the far side of America would have drawn other explorers to follow, but news was slowly assimilated...

No names are better known in the history of Arctic exploration than those of Nansen and the _Fram_, and although others have done work just as fine, the name of Nansen cannot be...

The North-West Passage, for the accomplishment of which so many brave lives had been laid down, had been discovered. It now remained for some explorer to sail round the North-Ea...

Although the importance of his discoveries was not realised at this time, Cook was given command of two new ships, the _Resolution_ and _Adventure_, provisioned for a year for "...

Was there some vexation in the heart of the "Admiral of India" when the command of the new fleet was given to Pedro Cabral? History is silent. Anyhow, in the March of 1500 we fi...

Bruce died in the spring of 1794. Just a year later another Scotsman, Mungo Park, from Selkirk, started off to explore the great river Niger--whose course was as mysterious as t...

Now in Syria--the highway between Babylonia and Egypt--dwelt a tribe of dusky people known as Phoenicians. Some have thought that they were related to our old friends in Somalil...

Meanwhile Franklin and Parry started on another expedition in the same month and year. While Parry's orders were to proceed from east to west, Franklin was to go from west to ea...

Such were the words of one of the greatest explorers of Africa in the nineteenth century. Determination was the keynote of his character even as a young boy. At the age of ten h...

For seven years it thrived under the careful management of Governor Phillips, who was then replaced by one Hunter. With the new governor from England arrived two young men desti...

They had left Seville on 20th September 1519. A week later they were at the Canaries. Then past Cape Verde, and land faded from their sight as they made for the south-west. For...

Every event in the eventful life of Christopher Columbus is of supreme interest. We linger over all that leads up to the momentous start westwards: we recall his birth and early...

And now we leave the fierce energy of the Northmen westwards and turn to another energy, which was leading men toward the east, to the lands beyond the Euphrates, to India, acro...

He is a traveller as well as a writer. He has journeyed as one eager for knowledge, with a "hungry heart" and a keen, observant eye. He tells us what he has seen with his eyes,...

The success of Cortes and his brilliant conquest of Mexico gave a new impulse to discovery in the New World. The spirit of exploration dominated every adventurous young Spaniard...

But while all this wonderful development westwards was thrilling the minds of men, other great discoveries were being made to the East, whither the eyes of the Portuguese were s...

England was now awaking from her sleep--too late to possess the Spice Islands--too late for India and the Cape of Good Hope--too late, it would seem, for the New World. The Port...

With the third failure of John Davis to find the North-West Passage the English search for Cathay came to an end for the present. But the merchants of Amsterdam took up the sear...

Since the days of Flinders, much discovery had been done in the great new island-continent of Australia. The Blue Mountains had been crossed, and the river Macquarie discovered...

No story is complete unless it begins at the very beginning. But where is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geography--the knowledge of our earth? What was it like before the...

Henry Hudson was another victim to perish in the hopeless search for a passage to China by the north. John Davis had been dead two years, but not till after he had piloted the f...

But if the Sindbad saga is based on the stories of Mohammedan travellers and sum up Arab adventure by sea in the tenth century, we must turn to another Arab--Massoudy by name--f...

Our next explorer is Julius Caesar. As Alexander the Great had combined the conqueror with the explorer, so now history repeats itself, and we find the Roman Caesar not only con...

It is a relief to turn from the icy north to the tropical climate of Central Africa, where Mungo Park had disappeared in 1805. The mystery of Timbuktu and the Niger remained uns...

The two names of Ibn Batuta and Sir John Mandeville now conclude our mediaeval period of travel to the Eastward. Both the Arab and the Englishman date their travels between the...

In the great work of Arctic exploration during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is to England and Russia that we owe our knowledge at the present day. It is well know...

The whole coast-line of North America had now been charted, but the famous North-West Passage, for which so many lives had been laid down, had yet to be found. Sir John Barrow,...

The efforts of Arctic explorers of past years, Frobisher, Davis, Baffin, Behring, and Cook, had all been more or less frustrated by the impenetrable barrier of ice, which seemed...

The first attempt to discover the North-West Passage by means of steam instead of sail was made by Captain Ross, who, since his expedition in 1819, had been burning to set off a...

Still, although the men of ancient time were learning fast about the land and sea, they were woefully ignorant. Hesiod, a Greek poet, who lived seven hundred and fifty years bef...

But even while Drake was sailing round the world, and Frobisher's search for a north-west passage had been diverted into a quest for gold, men's minds were still bent on the ach...

The departure of Columbus six months later on his second voyage was a great contrast to the uncertain start of a year ago. The new fleet was ready by September 1493. The three l...

"In March 1861," he tells us, "I commenced an expedition to discover the sources of the Nile, with the hope of meeting the East African expedition of Captains Speke and Grant th...

The 6th April 1909 is a marked day in the annals of exploration, for on that day Peary succeeded in reaching the North Pole, which for centuries had defied the efforts of man; o...

It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier--the...

All the nations of Europe were now straining westward for new lands to conquer. French sailors had fished in the seas washing the western coast of North America; Verazzano, a Fl...

For some centuries past men had been pushing eastward, and to west, vast lands lay unexplored, undreamt of, amongst them a little far-off island "set in a silver sea." Pytheas w...

To discover a passage westward was still the main object of those who made their way up the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. This, too, was the object of Samuel Champlain, known as "th...

A gigantic army landed near the spot where Caesar had landed just a hundred years before. The discovery and conquest of Britain now began in real earnest. The Isle of Wight was...

While the French and English were feverishly seeking a way to the East, either by the North Pole or by way of America, the Dutch were busy discovering a new land in the Southern...

Livingstone had just left Loanda and was making his way across Africa from west to east, when an English expedition set forth to find the Great Lakes still lying solitary and un...

Strabo wrote his famous geography near the beginning of the Christian era, but he knew nothing of the north of England, Scotland, or Wales. He insisted on placing Ireland to the...

to the appearance of pipe-sticks." But, emaciated as he was, he made his way onwards, till the explorers were rewarded by finding a "beautiful sheet of water lying snugly within...

A more interesting force than the pilgrim travellers now claims our attention, and we turn to the frozen north, to the wild region at the back of the north wind, for new activit...

The northern shores of North America were not yet explored, and Franklin proposed another expedition to the mouth of the Mackenzie River, where the party was to divide, half of...

It is said that Ferdinand Magellan, the hero of all geographical discovery, with his circumnavigation of the whole round world, had cruised about the Spice Islands, but what he...

Patrick had been a pilgrim to Rome from the banks of the Clyde, where he lived, and, having seen the Pope, he had returned to Ireland by sea, landing on the Wicklow coast in the...

In far-off Roman province of Syria, the Christ had lived, the Christ had died. And His words were ringing through the land: "Go ye and make disciples of all the nations, preach...

But though Prince Henry was dead, the enthusiasm he had aroused among Portuguese navigators was not dead, and Portuguese ships still stole forth by twos and threes to search for...

It is pleasant to turn from the icy regions of North America to the sunny South, and to follow the fortunes of that fine Elizabethan gentleman, Sir Walter Raleigh, to "the large...

So once more we turn back to the East. Jerusalem is still the centre of the earth. But a change has passed over the world, which influenced not a little the progress of geograph...

While Mungo Park was attempting to find the course of the Niger, the English were busy opening up the great fur-trading country in North America. Although Captain Cook had taken...

Two years only after the tragedy of Henry Hudson, another Arctic explorer appears upon the scene. William Baffin was already an experienced seaman in the prime of life; he had m...

Burton and Speke had not yet returned from central Africa, when Livingstone left England on another expedition into the interior, with orders "to extend the knowledge already at...

Now, while explorers were busy opening up Australian inland, Ross was leaving the Australian waters for his voyage to the south. Four years after the return of the Ross polar ex...

It was no longer possible for the Old World to keep secret the wealth of the New World. English eyes were already straining across the seas, English hands were ready to grasp th...

Lander, the "faithful attendant of the late Captain Clapperton," as he is called in his instructions, was burning to be off again to explore further the mysterious Niger. No pec...

At this time Anthony Van Diemen was governor at Batavia, and one of his most trusted commanders was Abel Tasman. In 1642, Tasman was given command of two ships "for making disco...

So far the expeditions of Willoughby, Chancellor, and Jenkinson had all failed to reach the Far East. The Spanish had a way thither by Magellan's Strait, the Portuguese by the C...

Parry had left England the preceding April in an attempt to reach the North Pole by means of sledges over the ice. To this end he had sailed to Spitzbergen in his old ship the _...

And so we reach the days of Ptolemy--the last geographer of the Pagan World. This famous Greek was born in Egypt, and the great Roman Empire was already showing signs of decay,...

We cannot pass from the subject of mediaeval exploration without a word on the really delightful, if ignorant, maps of the period, for they illustrate better than any descriptio...

Even while Vancouver was making discoveries on the western coast of North America, Alexander Mackenzie, an enthusiastic young Scotsman, was making discoveries on behalf of the N...

While Livingstone was discovering Lake Nyassa, Speke was busy preparing for a new expedition to find out more about the great sheet of water he had named Victoria Nyanza and to...