Logo
Prev
Bookmark
Rotate
Print
Next
Contents
All Pages
Related Articles
Browse Issues
Help
Search
Home
'
National Geographic : 1909 Jan
Contents
THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE Japan. This was accomplished after the overtures of Portugal, Holland, Eng land, Spain, and Russia had failed, by the untiring industry and consummate tact of Commodore Matthew Perry. The history of Perry's negotiations and final success in this delicate task is an enduring example of prudence and per sistance. The Frigid Zone and the region of the North Pole, the objective point of recent expeditions, has been from time to time penetrated by expeditions under the au thority of the Navy Department, and within the last half century new lands have been added to the map of the world, the whaling industry has received a pow erful impetus, and new species of ani mals and valuable minerals have been discovered. The Jeanette expedition set out from San Francisco in 1879, under the com mand of Lieutenant Commander De Long, to whose enthusiasm for Polar research the inception of the expedition was due. The Jeanette was crushed in the ice north of Siberia, and the party, after traversing the ice on sledges, set out for the land in boats, of which one was lost, a second reached the Lena River with but two survivors, and a third, containing Chief Engineer Mel ville and Lieutenant Danenhower, ar rived at the Lena in October, 1881, and after months of search found the bodies of De Long and his companions, which were brought to New York and interred with military honors. General Greely, in 1881, was appointed to establish thirteen circumpolar stations in the Arctic regions, and a division of his party reached the farthest point north up to that time. The survivors of Gree ly's party were rescued by the naval re lief expedition under Rear Admiral Schley in 1884. But of all the expeditions into the Arctic region none surpass in brilliancy those of a civil engineer in the Navy, Robert E. Peary. In 1886 and 1887 he made a reconnaissance of the Greenland coast. In 1893 and 1895 he made an other voyage to the Arctic Highlands. In 1906 he reached 87 degrees 6 minutes, the nearest approach to the North Pole in the American Arctic cruise, the results of which may prove of tremendous in terest and value to the world. Endowed with the experience of similar service and a thoroughly modern equipment, his present effort should go far toward the reclamation of the great ice-locked North. In 1882 another cruise under the au thority of the Department was made in Bering Sea and the north coast of Alaska, and a valuable report was made concerning the currents and the move ments of the ice in those waters. And in 1899, when the results of the first ex pedition through the Amazon had long been reflected in the profitable trade in rubber, cocoa, and nuts, the U. S. S. Wilmington ascended the same great river for 2,300 miles, gathering new geo logical and commercial information, and in general examining into the feasibility of penetrating the South American Con tinent. Besides the great world-wide benefits that have accrued from these expeditions, out of a great number of which only a few of the important ones have been mentioned, they have proven of inesti mable value in the more technical mat ters of the laws of storms, the climatol ogy of the oceans, the ocean currents, fog conditions, and the construction and publication of charts. Special study and research along these lines is being con tinuously and with increasing efficiency carried on by the Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory. The fruits of these expeditions of re search and of the specialized work of the Department Bureaus do not fall to the United States alone, but to the family of nations, and it is possible to consume much more than the time allotted to me in the multiplication of these peaceful achievements of our Navy. Suffice it to mention, in concluding this phase of the subject, the laying of the Atlantic and Pacific cables, and the famine and relief cruises of the Jamestown and Constella tion to Russia and Ireland. The scope of the Navy's activities in its peaceful calling is broad. In the gov-
Links
Archive
1909 Feb
1908 Dec
Navigation
Previous Page
Next Page
