In deference to the author's advisers, two exceptions have been made--Du Chaillu and Stanley, Americans by adoption--otherwise African exploration, so wondrously successful in this generation and so fruitful in its results, would have been unrepresented. Again, the unparalleled growth and progress of our American republic owes no small debt to the wealth of physical vigor and strong intellectuality contributed by its sturdy emigrants. These men, American in idea, purpose, and action, whose manhood outgrew the slow evolution of freedom in their natal country, merit recognition. What thousands of other naturalized citizens have industrially wrought of the wonderful and great in this country, these selected representatives have equalled in African exploration. A chronological arrangement appeared best suited to these sketches, which from Joliet to Frémont exhibit the initiation, growth, and development of geographic discovery in the interior and western portions of the United States. Since the sketches rest very largely on original narratives some current errors at least have been avoided. Generalization and criticism have been made always with reference to later exploration, which necessarily enhances or diminishes the importance of any original work. CONTENTS PAGE I. LOUIS JOLIET, Re-discoverer of the Mississippi, 9 II. PETER LE MOYNE, SIEUR D'IBERVILLE, Founder of Louisiana, 41 III. JONATHAN CARVER, the Explorer of Minnesota, 71 IV. CAPTAIN ROBERT GRAY, the Discoverer of the Columbia River, 88 V. CAPTAIN MERIWETHER LEWIS AND LIEUT. WILLIAM CLARK, First Trans-Continental Explorers of the United States, 105 VI. ZEBULON MONTGOMERY PIKE, Explorer of the Sources of the Mississippi and Arkansas Rivers, 163 VII. CHARLES WILKES, the Discoverer of the Antarctic Continent, 194 VIII. JOHN CHARLES FRÉMONT, the Pathfinder, 212 IX. ELISHA KENT KANE, Arctic Explorer, 240 X. ISAAC ISRAEL HAYES, and the Open Polar Sea, 272 XI. CHARLES FRANCIS HALL, and the North Pole, 293 XII. GEORGE WASHINGTON DE LONG, and the Siberian Arctic Ocean, 312 XIII. PAUL BELLONI DU CHAILLU, Discoverer of the Dwarfs and Gorillas, 330 XIV. STANLEY AFRICANUS AND THE CONGO FREE STATE, 349 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FULL-PAGE FACING PAGE GENERAL A. W. GREELY, U. S. A., (_Frontispiece._) ON THE SHORES OF THE PACIFIC, 96 A BLACKFOOT TEPEE, 112 CASTLE ROCK, ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER, 140 CHARLES WILKES, 194