LITTLE MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE

Christopher Columbus.

EXPLORERS

Christopher Columbus	Charles Wilkes
Lewis and Clarke	Clarence King
Zebulon M. Pike	John Wesley Powell

PREFACE

The love of adventure, the expectation of theunexpected, have ever prompted men stout ofheart, and ready of resource, to brave the perilsof wilderness and sea that they might set theirfeet where man never trod before. The worldowes much to the explorers who have faced hostilesavages, stood in jeopardy from the cobraand the lion, the foes as deadly which lurk in thebrook which quenches thirst. A traveller likeClarke takes his life in his hands. He breaksa path which leads he knows not whither: it maybring him to a shore whence he has no shipto sail from; it may end in an abyss he cannotbridge. The thickets rend and sting him, poisonmay colour a tempting grain or berry, frost maydeaden his energies and lull him to the sleep thatknows no waking. He has but little aid fromscience: beyond food and medicine he carrieslittle more than a watch, a compass, a rifle,and a cartridge belt. Beyond all instrumentsand weapons are his skill, agility, gumption,diplomacy. And these resources in no meanmeasure are shared by the man for whom heprepares the way, the immigrant, who, in theearly days of settlement, requires a constancyeven higher than the explorer's own. It is onething to traverse a wilderness under the excitementof hourly adventure; it is another thing tostay there for a lifetime and convert it to a home.

The race of American explorers is not extinct.Major Powell is with us to-day, hale and heartystill. Peary, in the prime of his powers, is ascapital an example of courage and resource asever threw themselves upon the riddle of thefrozen north. Beyond the Arctic and Antarcticcircles little remains unknown on earth. Whenat last every rood of ground and knot of sea ismapped and charted, whither shall the explorerdirect his steps? He cannot repeat the conquestsof Lewis and Clarke, Pike and Peary,but he need not on that account fold his handsso long as a brave heart and a quick wit arewanted in the world.

George Iles

CONTENTS