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National Geographic : 1904 Oct
Contents
394 THE NATIONAL GE Slacum traveled through Mexico to Guaymas, and left that port on the ist of June, 1835, intending to reach Oregon by land, but being informed of the imprac ticability of using the land route at that season of the year, he proceeded by sea, and after many vicissitudes only reached the mouth of the Columbia River Decem ber 22, 1836. Here he surveyed and plotted a chart of the mouth of that river, and also compiled a chart, from in formation gained, of the coast and coun try south of the Columbia. The four rivers, Klamath, Coos, Rogue, and Ump qua, which had never before been charted, appear on this map and were thus made known to geographers through his efforts. THE WILKES EXPLORING EXPEDI TION The most complete exploring expedi tion ever fitted out from America up to the time of its departure was that which left the United States in 1838. The expedition sailed under the command of the then Lieutenant, afterwards Rear Admiral, Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., who was aided by a most intelligent band of officers well prepared for its onerous duties. The difficulties which attended Wilkes' expedition can hardly be con ceived at the present time, when steam relieves the sailor of many cares and clears him from numerous dangers against which his predecessor had to battle formerly with sails only. On August 19, 1838, the vessels left Chesapeake Bay, and after stopping at Madeira and the Cape Verde Islands arrived at Rio Janeiro, Brazil, from which it sailed on the 6th of the fol lowing January. From Rio Janeiro they proceeded to Rio Negro, in Pata gonia, and Nassau Bay, in Tierra del Fuego. From this place two schooners attached to the expedition made cruises in different directions toward the South Pole, one of them, the Flying Fish, reaching latitude 700 14' S., nearly the highest latitude attained by Captain GRAPHIC MAGAZINE Cook and not far from the same longi tude reached by him; but the season had already advanced too far for the best results, and they rejoined the squadron at Valparaiso in May, 1839. The Vincennes in the meantime was oc cupied with a survey of Nassau Bay. The schooner Sea Gull was lost in a gale soon after leaving Nassau Bay. From Valparaiso the vessels sailed to Callao, Peru, where the Relief, being ill-adapted to the voyage, was sent to the United States. On the 12th of July the squadron left the coast of South America and visited and surveyed 14 or 15 of the Paumotu Islands, two of the Society Islands, and all of the Navigator Group, and reached Sidney, New South Wales, on the 28th of November, 1839. The vessels next proceeded on their second Antarctic cruise, discovering land in longitude 1600 E. and latitude 66° 30' S. It should be said of Wilkes' discover ies in Antarctica that the recent expe ditions of Captain Scott of the British Antarctic expedition, Dr von Drygalski of the German, Captain Bruce of the Scottish, and Captain Nordenskjold of the Swedish, all confirm the correctness of Admiral Wilkes' work in the frozen south, and as Mr Edwin Swift Balch said of him in a recently published arti cle in the NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE, " show what a remarkably acute and accurate geographical ob server Admiral Wilkes was." Let us not forget in our felicitations for these later gallant voyagers of the present generation how much we owe to the intrepid pathfinder who first announced to the world his discovery of the Ant arctic Continent in 1840, nor the fact that his almost miraculous voyages were made in ships some of which would hardly be trusted outside of port at the present date. During the absence of the expedition about two hundred and eighty islands were surveyed, besides eight hundred
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