David Livingstone (1813-1873) has been revered as one of the world's greatest explorers and missionaries, the first European to cross Africa and the first to find Victoria Falls and the source of the
The Arrernte people of Central Australia first encountered Europeans in the 1860s as groups of explorers, pastoralists, missionaries, and laborers invaded their land. During that time the Arrernte we
The Arrernte people of Central Australia first encountered Europeans in the 1860s as groups of explorers, pastoralists, missionaries, and laborers invaded their land. During that time the Arrernte we
The story of California is the story of dreamers—explorers, gold miners, immigrants, ranchers, moviemakers, farmers, and everyday Americans who headed west for a fresh start. The first native inhabita
In 1880, the Royal Geographical Society commissioned Sir Clements R. Markham, a noted British geographer and the Society's secretary, to write a history of its formation, and of the many expeditions it had supported since 1830, to celebrate its fiftieth anniversary. Published in 1881, The Fifty Years' Work of the Royal Geographical Society consists of twelve chapters. The first five are a condensed history of the original group of geographers who called themselves the Raleigh Club, and the events leading up to the Society's official formation. Chapters 6 and 7 recount the activities of past presidents, secretaries and leading members of the Society, with the rest of the book detailing the fascinating scientific expeditions the Society sponsored financially from the Arctic to Antarctica, the explorers who took part in them, and the various publications the Society published to advance natural science and exploration.
Captured by slavers as a boy, freed by the Royal Navy, and raised at a mission, Samuel Crowther in 1864 became the first African to be ordained as an Anglican bishop. As a priest, he accompanied the Scottish merchant MacGregor Laird on his expedition to West Africa in 1854, and celebrated Sunday services in a variety of bizarre locations and perilous conditions. This 1855 book is Crowther's detailed record of his journey aboard the steamboat Pleiad. Written from the unusual perspective of an African-born, London-educated clergyman, it is a congenial and evocative account of the day-to-day difficulties confronting the explorers, their interactions with native peoples, and encounters with slavery and civil war. Crowther, a keen linguist, went on to publish several books on African languages including Nupe, Igbo and Yoruba. This book includes a substantial appendix comparing the grammar and vocabularies of the languages he encountered.
The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. This 1881 volume contains accounts by William Baffin (1584–1622) and others of Baffin's voyages exploring the coasts of Greenland and Spitsbergen, and his search for the North-West Passage. Although he did not find a route east, he got considerably further north than previous navigators, and provided much useful information on the conditions and natural resources of the area. His meticulous chart making and record keeping, and his use of lunar observations to calculate longitude, were groundbreaking and remarkably accurate, as later explorers found.
The publications of the Hakluyt Society (founded in 1846) made available edited (and sometimes translated) early accounts of exploration. The first series, which ran from 1847 to 1899, consists of 100 books containing published or previously unpublished works by authors from Christopher Columbus to Sir Francis Drake, and covering voyages to the New World, to China and Japan, to Russia and to Africa and India. The Canary Islands have been known to European countries since the Roman era. In 1402, the kingdom of Castile sent an expeditionary force, led by French explorers Jean de Béthencourt (1362–1425) and Gadifer de la Salle (1340–1415), to conquer the islands. This volume, first published in English in 1872, contains a contemporary account of the conquest written by Pierre Bontier and Jean Le Verrier, both members of the expedition; it contains valuable details of the indigenous inhabitants of the islands.
The Mohawks were the largest group in the Iroquois confederacy of Native American tribes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Living in what is now upstate New York and along the Canadian border, they held political control over north-eastern America before the colonial period, and were one of the first native American groups to have contact with European explorers. First published in 1938, this work contains a history of the Mohawks and the Iroquois confederacy from the period 1704 to 1807 taken from the archives of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded in 1704 and at first active mainly in North America. J. W. Lydekker provides a detailed history of the Mohawks' co-operation and alliance with the British colonists during the wars of the mid-eighteenth century and during the Revolutionary War, seen from the perspective of the missionaries from the Society.
Make every museum trip a new adventure! Take Me To Museums is the first book in an exciting new series of guided journals for young explorers. With its stylish design, zingy illustrations and hand
First published in 1890 in a run of just 200 copies, anthropologist Henry Ling Roth's The Aborigines of Tasmania provides a comprehensive account of native Tasmanians' life and culture. Roth, writing in the wake of the Tasmanian Aborigines' extinction, produces 'an approach to absolute completeness' that relies on the accounts of the explorers, colonisers, and anthropologists who preceded him. His work covers an exhaustive range of detail, from the Tasmanians' mannerisms to their psychology, origin, and language. Compiling his predecessors' observations and arguments, Roth often sets opinions in opposition to highlight the lack of consensus amongst those who encountered the Tasmanians. Roth's book is additionally valuable for the 'vocabularies' included in his appendices. The 1899 edition (225 copies) revises and expands the first, adding photographs to the first edition's illustrations as well as new appendices. It made an innovative and lasting contribution to an established research
Henri Coudreau (1859–1899) was one of the greatest explorers of the nineteenth century. He was highly regarded in his own time as a thoroughly modern expedition leader, and his reports on the anthropological and geographical features of the region were of great value in the expansion of French colonial power. In this magisterial two-volume work, Coudreau describes the history of French settlement and rule in Guyana, and its people, flora and fauna, drawing particular attention to the natural resources ready to be exploited in the region. Based on four years of observations dating from his arrival in Cayenne in 1881, and drawing on extensive field work, the first volume is an informative survey of French Guyana, enlivened by personal experience and opinion, intended to give politicians in France an up to date account of the state of affairs in the colony.
The perfect companion for children eager to understand the world outside, Nature Explorers Box Set contains four fantastic first books on Birds, Weather, Woodland and Forest and the Seashore. Explore
The Open Polar Sea was one of the most prevalent myths of nineteenth-century Arctic exploration. Several explorers had hypothesised a stretch of ice-free sea between Greenland and the North Pole, and several expeditions set out in search of it. One of these was planned and led by Isaac Israel Hayes (1832–81), an American physician and explorer. This account of the expedition, first published in 1866, was compiled from his journals. Having left Boston in a small schooner so overloaded with equipment that a passenger could lean over the deck rail and touch the sea, Hayes and his crew almost faced shipwreck off Nova Scotia and regularly saw their cabins flooded on their way to Greenland, where, in calmer weather, they encountered the first palatial ice floes. Written for the general reader rather than for scientific purposes, this book still serves as an accessible, entertaining guide to the voyage.
Sir Samuel Baker (1821–93) was one of the most famous Victorian explorers and hunters. First published in two illustrated volumes in 1866, this account of his most celebrated expedition is amongst the most important works of its type. Baker promises 'to take the reader by the hand, and lead him step by step … through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle … until I bring him, faint with the wearying journey, to that high cliff … from which he shall look down upon the vast Albert Lake and drink with me from the sources of the Nile!' Volume 2 finds Baker a prisoner of a native king. Baker offers a number of 'gifts' to buy his release, and after an arduous journey, with his wife in a coma, in March 1864 he reaches Luta N'zige, which he renames in memory of Prince Albert. A compelling account of an historic adventure.
Sir Joseph Hooker (1817–1911) was one of the greatest British botanists and explorers of the nineteenth century. He succeeded his father, Sir William Jackson Hooker, as Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and was a close friend and supporter of Charles Darwin. His journey to the Himalayas and India, during which he collected some 7,000 species, was undertaken between 1847 and 1851 to increase the Kew collections; his account of the expedition (also reissued in this series) was dedicated to Darwin. In 1855 he published Flora Indica with his fellow-traveller Thomas Thomson, who became Superintendent of the East India Company's Botanic Garden at Calcutta. Lack of support from the Company meant that only the first volume of a projected series was published. However, the introductory essay on the geographical relations of India's flora is considered to be one of Hooker's most important statements on biogeographical issues.
C. E. Raven (1885–1964) was an academic theologian elected Regius Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge in 1932, who developed an interest in natural history and the history of scientific thought. First published in 1947, this volume demonstrates how changing attitudes to the natural world reflected and influenced the transformations in scientific thought between the medieval period and the eighteenth century. Raven's focus on the field of 'natural history' reveals how the scientific ideas behind modern biological studies developed from the richly illustrated and often fantastical bestiaries of the medieval world. The subjects of this volume are grouped chronologically into Pioneers, Explorers and Popularisers, with biographical details woven together with discussions of their academic work. The book provided a wealth of new information concerning the founders of natural history and remains a valuable contribution to this subject.
To infinity and beyond! This out-of-the-world adventure takes young explorers on a voyage of discovery across the universe. From the first satellites to the Moon landings, and from Mars rovers to the
Sir Samuel Baker (1821–93) was one of the most famous Victorian explorers and hunters. First published in two illustrated volumes in 1866, this account of his most celebrated expedition is amongst the most important works of its type. Baker promises 'to take the reader by the hand, and lead him step by step … through scorching deserts and thirsty sands; through swamp and jungle … until I bring him, faint with the wearying journey, to that high cliff … from which he shall look down upon the vast Albert Lake and drink with me from the sources of the Nile!' Volume 1 covers the first two years of the expedition, from Cairo to southern Sudan. Leading a party of 96 people, including his wife, and dealing with Arab duplicity, native aggression, and frequent mutinies amongst his porters, he maintains his resolve and writes with clarity and great colour.
Trek across the incredible Galapagos Islands, come face to face with the wildlife and discover the amazing explorers - and pirates! - who first explored these landscapes.