The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900Various
Science
The Popular Science Monthly, June, 1900: Vol. 57, May, 1900 to October, 1900
Various
Science -- Periodicals; Technology -- Periodicals
[C] Examples of insects are given in Darwin’s ‘Journal,’ and of
birds in Wallace’s ‘Malay Archipelago.’
Discovery is chiefly the work of private enterprise. It was Phœnician
and Greek traders who explored the northern and western coasts of
Africa, of Spain, of Gaul, and of Britain. Scandinavian mariners,
Norman and English fishermen, discovered North America. Spanish
adventurers found the Canaries. The host of travelers have explored
on their private account. Yet there are animals, like Mr. Thompson’s
Lobo, the wolf, and Spot, the crow, able generals and leaders of large
bands, who seem to direct exploratory movements. So after a while
governments lend their aid when they have ends of their own or their
aid is needed. The two most memorable exploring expeditions of modern
times, and the most momentous in their results, were either in great
part or wholly equipped by their respective governments. Two of the
vessels of Columbus were impressed ships, and the equipment proceeded
from the Castilian treasury, the third being fitted out by merchant
mariners of Palos. The expedition of Captain Cook, which practically
added a new continent to the globe, was altogether a state enterprise,
and its celebrated commander was not, like Columbus, its designer
and organizer, but only its director. The Portuguese discoveries
of the Azores and the Cape were also state-aided. From this time
forward Spanish and Portuguese adventurers received a royal license to
discover, and the South American continent, with Mexico and Peru as
its brightest jewels, was discovered by just such adventurers. Where a
government refuses itself to discover, it may, like the States-General
of Holland, assure to the enterprising a terminable monopoly of trade
with newly discovered lands, and to this assurance the exploration of
New York and its neighborhood and the discovery of Connecticut were
due. Merchant companies have naturally a keen eye to the main chance,
but those English and Dutch merchants can not be accused of timidity
who chartered Cabot, Gilbert, Hudson and other daring mariners to seek
a northwest passage to the East. Kings, in their private capacity,
newspaper proprietors and rich individuals, from generous motives,
sometimes equip and support explorers like Stanley and Winwood Reade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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