VoyagesSCIENTIFIC CIRCUMNAVIGATIONS 1679-1859

An Exhibit of Rare Books from the Linda Hall Libraryof Science, Engineering, and Technology

“La Favorite: under sail for Bourbon [Réunion Island] at the approach of the secondhurricane”, from Laplace. Voyage autour du monde. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1833-39.

On his way to explore the Indian Ocean, Laplaceencountered ferocious hurricanes after roundingthe tip of Africa. The ship finally was able to sailnorth to its destination, Réunion Island, which liessoutheast of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.

VoyagesSCIENTIFIC CIRCUMNAVIGATIONS 1679-1859

An Exhibit of Rare Books from the Linda Hall Library

September 2001 - January 2002

CYNTHIA J. ROGERS

LINDA HALL LIBRARY

OF SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND TECHNOLOGY

2001

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

© 2001 LINDA HALL LIBRARY

THE LINDA HALL LIBRARY

OF SCIENCE, ENGINEERING, AND TECHNOLOGY

5109 CHERRY ST

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI 64110-2498USAwww.lindahall.org

Photography, design, and editorial assistance by Bruce Bradley and William B.Ashworth, Jr.

Special thanks to Dr. Francis E. Cuppage for his support in strengthening theLibrary’s reference collection of works on scientific voyages, navigation, andsailing.

Sailing around the globe was a marvelous feat in the 17th century,and continued to be so in the 18th and 19th centuries. Acircumnavigation required masterful navigational skills, physical

endurance, and bold resolve. Yet these supreme challenges wererepeatedly surmounted by scientific expeditions, sponsored to pursue abroad scope of investigations including geography and elaborate studiesof natural history, astronomy and oceanography. Scientists accompaniedthe commander and crew on board, and space was made forchronometers, telescopes, specimen bottles and boxes, paints andpalettes, chemicals, sounding apparatus and a wide assortment ofequipment and instruments.

The Linda Hall Library’s collection of the published monumentsto these great expeditions during the age of sail comprises this exhibit.The works represent scientists and explorers who ventured into the vastoceans from homes in England, France, Russia, Austria, and the UnitedStates. The voyagers performed circumnavigations to seek out lands newto them in the Pacific Ocean between the East Indies and the Americas,to define the boundaries of the great southern continent, or to find apassage between the great oceans from the North Pacific Ocean.

Their achievements included the charting and mapping of manylands, such as Australia, New Zealand, Antarctica, Hawaii, and Tahiti.When Dampier set sail, many parts of the earth were still uncharted. Bythe time the United States completed its first circumnavigation, nearly theSC

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Motu roa, at Mercury Bay, North Island (New Zealand), from Reise derÖsterreichischen Fregatte Novara. (Vienna, 1861-1875).

At Opito, near MercuryBay, the geologistHochstetter found richdeposits of the bones ofthe great, extinct moabird. An English visitorin 1839 had found anexample on the islandsand took the bone backto London, where thegreat paleontologistRichard Owen identifiedit. Hochstetter locatedseveral such deposits onthe islands.

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entire surface of the globe had been mapped. Improvements were madein navigation including the accurate determination of longitude. Thestudy of ocean currents and marine life advanced oceanography. Thegreat numbers of specimens that were collected of the flora and faunafrom locations around the globe formed a rich treasure trove thatexpanded the field of natural history. Observations of geologicalformations led to new explanations of the earth’s features.

Substantial portions of these accounts describe the indigenouspeoples of the world. The earliest descriptions were drawn with a highdegree of sensitivity, often reflecting on the effects of military andspiritual conquests by governments and missionaries. A study of pre-technological societies, it was felt, could draw back the curtain on thehistory of civilization. The voyagers tended to view various peoples asrepresenting different periods of civilization based on their technology.As a result, the documentation in these accounts provides preciousevidence of the traditional lifeways of many peoples of the world.

Lupus Gigas and Occidentalis (Oregon Territory)from Cassin, John. United States ExploringExpedition... Mammalogy and Ornithology.(Philadelphia, 1858).

The Lewis and Clark Expedition exploredparts of the Oregon Territory, but it was notincluded in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.Charles Wilkes, captain of the United StatesExploring Expedition, arrived at the mouth ofthe Columbia River in the spring of 1841, thesame year that the first official wagon trainheaded west for the territory along the OregonTrail. The expedition gave the United States astrong claim on the territory, where thenaturalists Charles Pickering and Titian Pealemade notes and the drawings of these wolves.

By the turn of the 20th century, scientific expeditions around theglobe seemed less relevant. Explorers were instead focusing on specificareas, and investigating the interiors of continents and lands whoseshores were already mapped by these early navigators and scientists.Their fascinating experiences and observations are recorded in the workspresented in this exhibition.

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Dampier, William. A new voyage round the world: London:Printed for James Knapton, 1697.

William Dampier, an orphan of Weymouth, England, spenttwelve and a half years as a pirate, plundering ships in the West Indiesand Central America, and eventually making his way across the Pacificto the Philippines, the East Indies, and Australia. Having set out in 1679,he returned home in 1691 and published his carefully-kept journal in1697; it proved to be a sensation. Dampier may have been a buccaneer,but he was such an astute observer of people, places, and natural history

that his works are often includedwith the publications of moreexplicitly scientific expeditions.His book was dedicated to thePresident of the Royal Society ofLondon.

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The map shows the Isthmus of Darien(Panama). Dampier actually crossed theIsthmus twice. The second trip, fromthe Pacific to the Atlantic, took him 23days; Dampier learned that the MiskitoIndians could do it in less than two daysfrom more advantageous points. Themap provides excellent details of thearea which, two centuries later, wouldbe chosen as the site for the PanamaCanal.

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Dampier, William. Voyages and descriptions. Vol. II. London:Knapton, 1699.

Dampier’s New Voyage of 1697 met such anenthusiastic reception that his printer issued asecond volume in 1699, containing supplementalinformation, but also a new treatise, Dampier’s“Discourse on the Trade Winds.”

The map records one of Dampier’s pet peeves. ThePacific Ocean had been named by Magellan,because it was so peaceful, compared to the Straits(of Magellan) that he had just traversed. Dampier(and most other sailors) did not think the term wasappropriate for most of that vast and turbulentocean, so on the map he restricts the name“Pacific” to the seas that lie off South America, andadopts the name of “the Great South Sea” toidentify the rest.

Map of the Trade Winds

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Dampier, William. A voyage to New Holland, in the year1699… London: Knapton, 1703.

Dampier spent nine weeks on the west coast of Australiaduring his first voyage, and is considered to be the first Englishman togo there. He wrote of that visit: “New Holland is a very large tract ofland. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a maincontinent; but I am certain that it joyns neither to Asia, Africa, norAmerica.”

The success of that voyageand his interestingdescriptions encouragedthe English admiralty tosponsor him for a returnto Australia in 1699. Hewas placed in command ofhis own ship, the Roe-Buck, and he sailed toShark’s Bay on the westcoast of the continent,further south than in hisprevious voyage. Severaltypes of fish observed inthat area were described.

Funnell, William. A voyage round the world. Containing anaccount of Captain Dampier’s expedition...in the years 1703 and1704. London: W. Botham for J. Knapton, 1707.

Dampier and his shipmate William Funnell parted ways, each takinghis own ship, during the voyage. Funnell wrote his own account ofthe voyage and of his own route.

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Fish of Australia

Iguana

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This iguana was seenbetween Honduras andPanama. It “is a sort ofcreature … about threefoot long … a very uglycreature to look at.”Dampier also visited theGalapagos and no doubtobserved iguanas there.Compare this fancifulillustration with thelifelike portrait of one seenon Darwin’s voyage tothose islands (p. 19).

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Dampier, William. Voyage de Guillaume Dampier aux terresaustrales, à la Nouvelle Hollande, &c. fait en 1699... Amsterdam:Chez Paul Marret, 1705.

Dampier stopped at Juan Fernando’s Island off the coast of Chileseeking an Indian man who had been left alone there for several years.He had survived surprisingly well. “All this may seem strange to thosethat are not acquainted with the sagacity of the Indians; but it is no morethan these Moskito men are accustomed to in their own country, wherethey make their own fishing and striking instruments, without either

forge or anvil...” A distinctly moredifficult challenge faced the ScotsmanAlexander Selkirk, who wasabandoned there later, following amutiny. Dampier picked him up in1709, and his story inspired Defoe’sRobinson Crusoe, published in 1719.

This French translation of Dampier’sVoyage portrays a group of MiskitoIndians. He often relied upon theIndians during his travels in MiddleAmerica.

Dampier, William. A continuation of A voyage to New Holland,e-c. in the year 1699… London: By W. Botham for J. Knapton,1709.

When Dampier began his first journey around the world, he onlyintended to go as far as “the Bay of Campeachy in the Gulph of Mexicoto cut Log-wood.” While exploring that area east of Vera Cruz, heobserved a “Hippopotamus”. There he found “great savannahs full ofBullocks, Horses, and other animals, amongst which, the Mountain Cow...is most remarkable. This beast is as big as a Bullock…shaped like aCow in body…always found in the woods near some large river; andfeeds on [grass near rivers] but never in pastures of good grass as allother Bullocks do…[and] slips into the water: where sinking down to thebottom, tho’ very deep, she walks as on dry ground”.

Dampier also refers to the animal as River Horse, River Cow, SeaHorse and Hippopotamus. He describes manatees by nameelsewhere; possibly this was a tapir. Dampier describes it in hisaccount of his first voyage, but the plate was added at the end of thisaccount of his second voyage.

Natives of the Isthmus of America

Hippopotamus (Mountain Cow)

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Anson, George. A voyage round the world in the years1740…1744. London: Knapton, 1748.

Captain George Anson was a career naval officer, having joinedthe service in 1712. After England declared war on Spain in 1739, hewas sent around the world in the Centurion with a strictly militaryobjective. His fleet of six ships was to attack Spanish settlements in theAmericas, and, if possible, to capture a gold-laden Spanish galleon.Anson was spectacularly successful in this quest, bringing back 400,000pounds in Spanish booty. On another measure, the voyage was

disastrous, since over one thousand ofAnson’s sailors died of scurvy. Thisstaggering loss of life was a powerfulincentive to find a cure for scurvy, andwithin just a few decades it wasdiscovered that regular consumption ofcitrus fruits would prevent the disease.

While Anson’s ships carried nonaturalist, his published Voyage includesthis marvelous plate of sea lions seen offthe west coast of South America. Thecrew at times subsisted on sea lions andseals.

Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de, comte. Voyage autour dumonde. Paris: Chez Saillant & Nyon, 1772.

Bougainville’s specific mission was to sail to the Malouines(Falkland Islands), which had been claimed by the Spanish, and deliverpayment for rights to establish French colonies there. His broader goalwas a voyage “made with the spirit of discovery”.

Along the Strait of Magellan,Bougainville encountered thePatagonian Indians: “Wehardly set foot on shore, butwe saw six Americans come tous on horseback, in fullgallop… What makes themseem gigantic are theirprodigious broad shoulders…their nerves are braced, andtheir muscles are strong …their language seemed verydelicate.”

Sea Lions

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Strait of Magellan

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From the Malouines, Bougainville sailed west to South Americaand entered the Strait of Magellan. There he made some of the mostimportant achievements of the voyage by mapping the strait in detail, anddescribing specific harbors that could be used safely by future navigators.Systematic observations of longitude were recorded during the voyageand one of the expedition’s notable achievements was to improve thedetermination of longitude in navigation.

Banks, Joseph. Supplément au Voyage de M. de Bougainville.Neuchatel: Imprimerie de la Société Typographique, 1773.

Bougainville was already preparing the second edition of theaccount of his voyage when Captain Cook returned to England from hisfirst voyage in the Endeavor. Joseph Banks, the naturalist who went withCook, sent an abridged extract of his journal to the Academy of Sciencesin Paris, and Bougainville added it as a supplement to his own work,praising the accomplishments of Cook’s expedition. Popular attentionfocused instead on the descriptions by Bougainville, Cook, Banks, andothers of the perceived open sensuality of the Tahitian people. Thesavant Denis Diderot even wrote his own Supplément au Voyage deBougainville in 1796, which was a diatribe against artificial socialrestrictions. Inspired by the Tahitians, Diderot invited France to aspire toeven greater heights of sensuality than the French already had reached.

Boat of the Island of Tahiti with Sail

This image of a Tahitian vessel is one ofseveral engravings in the volumeillustrating boats of various islands thatcaught the attention of the crew.Bougainville mapped part of Tahiti, andalso the Solomon Islands east of NewGuinea, which he named the Isles ofLouisiade. The largest is namedBougainville.

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Cook, James and Charles Green. “Observations made…at KingGeorge’s Island [Tahiti] in the South Sea,” in: PhilosophicalTransactions of the Royal Society. Vol. 61, 1771.

Captain Cook’s first voyage had an astronomical purpose. Theastronomer Edmond Halley had explained in 1716 that if the transit ofVenus were to be observed from a number of different vantage points onthe earth, then the distance to Venus, and hence the distance to the sun,could be accurately calculated. As part of an international effort, theRoyal Society and the British Admiralty sent James Cook and theEndeavour to Tahiti for the express purpose of observing Venus as itpassed across the sun in 1769. In addition, Cook was to explore thePacific Ocean and search for the great southern continent that wassupposed to lie about the South Pole.

On June 3, Cook reported that theweather at Tahiti was excellent forviewing the transit of Venus. Thereport in the Philosophical Transactionsincludes an engraved illustration of hisand astronomer Charles Green’sobservations. It depicts “anatmosphere or dusky cloud round thebody of the planet,” reported generallyamong the observers worldwide, whichcaused a disappointing lack of theprecision that had been hoped for byall.

Hawkesworth, John, ed. An account of the voyages… in theSouthern Hemisphere by...Captain Cook. London: Printed for W.Strahan and T. Cadell, 1773.

Joseph Banks, the naturalist of Cook’s expedition, noted in hisjournal that upon first coming ashore on Tahiti, the islanders led thevisitors into the forest, “through groves of trees, which were loaded withcocoa-nuts and breadfruit, and afforded the most grateful shade. Underthese trees were the habitations of the people… and the whole scenerealized the poetical fables of Arcadia.” Banks was especially enamoredby the women of Tahiti. The transit of Venus found Banks in thecompany of “three handsome young women… he showed them theplanet on the sun, and endeavored to make them understand that he andhis companions had come from their own country purposely to see it.Soon after, Mr. Banks returned with them [to their island nearby], wherehe spent the rest of the day examining its produce.”

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Transit of Venus

A view of the island ofHuaheine, near Tahiti

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Cook, James. A voyage towards the South Pole, and round theworld, performed in His Majesty’s ships the Resolution andAdventure. Fourth ed. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1784.

Cook begins the account of his second voyage by describing theneed to finally determine what might lie below Tierra del Fuego andAustralia: “Whether the unexplored part of the Southern Hemisphere beonly an immense mass of water, or contain another continent…was hisMajesty’s principal motive in directing this voyage to be undertaken…”

The success that Cook had in circumnavigating Antarctica isstunning, but he was never certain that he saw the continent. “I hadnow made the circuit of the Southern Ocean… That there may be acontinent, or large tract of land, near the pole, I will not deny; … Iam of the opinion that there is; and it is probable that we have seena part of it.” He suggested that such land could “afford no betterretreat for birds, or any other animals, than the ice itself, withwhich it must be wholly covered.” That excellent suggestion mayhave been influenced by the severe appearance of an island in theAntarctic regions that he surveyed, and named the Isle of Georgia.

Cook perceived the people of Easter Island tohave affinities to peoples he had encountered in thewestern part of the Pacific, and thought perhaps theyhad common ancestry. “It is extraordinary that the samenation should have spread themselves over all the islesin this vast ocean, from New Zealand to this island,which is almost one-fourth part of the circumference ofthe globe. Many of them have now no other knowledgeof each other, than what is preserved by antiquatedtradition; and they have, by length of time, become, as itwere, different nations, each having adopted somepeculiar custom, or habit…”

This striking portrait displays ear piercings in whichflexible rings were sometimes worn. Cook notes that theislanders’ “chief ear ornaments are the white down offeathers, and rings…”

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Possession Bay in the Island of South Georgia

Man of Easter Island

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0 Cook, James. A voyage to the Pacific Ocean: … for makingdiscoveries in the Northern Hemisphere…in His Majesty’s ships theResolution and Discovery, in the years 1776-1780. Second edition.London: H. Hughs, 1785.

The instructions given to Captain Cook by the British Admiraltyfor his third voyage stated primarily “that an attempt should be made tofind out a Northern passage by sea from the Pacific to the AtlanticOcean.” After charting several of the Hawaiian islands, Cook sailed tothe northwest coast of America and explored Nootka, Prince William,and Norton Sounds. The expedition headed further north through theBering Strait to Icy Cape on the shore of North America, and across thestrait to North Cape on the shore of Russia, but could not pass beyond 70degrees north latitude. Cook decided to spend the winter in the HawaiianIslands and “return to the North, in farther search of a passage, theensuing summer.” Cook never returned. The voyage account iscompleted by Captain King, who described the conflict with the peopleof Hawaii that resulted in the death of James Cook.

As Cook headed for the BeringStrait, the crew was surprised tosee many birds, and turtles wereglimpsed in the water. They wereabout to come upon the HawaiianIslands. Cook described how “anisland made its appearance” andthen two more. “At this time, wewere in some doubt whether or nothe land before us was inhabited;but this doubt was soon cleared up,by seeing some canoes come off theshore, toward the ships… They hadfrom three to six men each; and wewere agreeably surprised to find,that they spoke the language ofOtaheite [Tahiti]...” Cookdescribed the people, landscape,flora and fauna of five of theislands. It was upon their returnfrom the Bering Strait that theyfound “another island towindward, which the natives callOwhyhee [Hawaii]. The name ofthat, off which we had been forsome days, we were also told, isMowee [Maui].”

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Chart of Sandwich Islands, showing Owhyee

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La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de. Voyage de LaPérouse autour du monde. Paris: Imp. de la République, 1797.

Instructed to establish a fur trade between the northwest coast ofAmerica and Asia, La Pérouse made a remarkable survey of the Asiancoast. He sailed through the Korean Strait into the Sea of Japan, thennorth where he explored the Russian coast behind the Kurils. Sailing

through that island chain into the Pacific Ocean, he finallyarrived at Petropavlovsk. Barthélemy de Lesseps disembarkedthere with La Pérouse’s journal. Then the ships were lost inthe South Pacific Ocean. They took nearly a hundred liveswith them, along with the captain’s log and thousands ofmeticulously prepared specimens of natural history.Fortunately, Lesseps successfully hand-delivered the journaland artwork to France, having protected them during his longjourney overland from Russia. The journal was faithfullyedited by Louis-M.-Antoine Milet-Mureau, and the artworkwas made into copperplates. This work, with its beautifulengravings, serves as a lasting monument to the crew.

The first European known to explore Easter Island is the Dutchcaptain Jacob Roggeveen, who sited and named it on EasterSunday in 1722. Captain Cook visited the island in 1774, andthe ill-fated expedition of La Pérouse made a stop there in 1785on its way to the North Pacific Ocean.

Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste-Barthélemy. Journal historique duvoyage de M. de Lesseps. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1790.

Lesseps was the Russian interpreter on the voyage of La Pérouse.After he disembarked on the Kamtschatka peninsula at the harbor ofPetropavlovsk, entrusted with La Pérouse’s journal, the ships sailed southacross the Pacific Ocean to the Fiji Islands and then to Australia. Theywere last seen heading out from Botany Bay in March, 1788. Lessepsdid not learn of the disappearance of his comrades until he arrived inParis in October, 1788.

Lessep’s arduous overland journey from Petropavlovsk to Paristook one year. The relatively short journey from the tip of theKamtschatka peninsula to the mainland, and on to Okhtosk ineastern Russia, presented an extremely harsh terrain that wascovered with snow, hot springs, and volcanoes. That journeyrequired Lesseps to forge a freezing river on a raft, and to crosslong distances through heavy snowstorms in a caravan of thirty-five sleighs.

The Monuments of Easter Island

Sleighs travelling throughKamtschatka

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Dillon, Peter. Voyage aux îles de la mer du Sud..., et relation de ladécouverte du sort de La Pérouse… Paris: Pillet Aîné, 1830.

While visiting the islands in the Santa Cruz group between NewCaledonia and the Louisiade Archipelago, the whaling captain PeterDillon had noticed some European objects in circulation there. Dilloninterviewed elderly inhabitants who remembered the wrecks of La

Pérouse. Dillon took the relics toParis, where the elderly BarthélemyLesseps sadly identified them ascoming from La Pérouse’s ships, theAstrolabe and the Boussole.

This plate from Dillon’s account of hisvoyage depicts a family in Mannicolo,one of the islands in the New Hebridessouth of Vanikoro.

People of Mannicolo

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Freycinet, Louis de. Voyage autour du monde…sur les corvettesde S.M. l’Uranie et la Physicienne. Paris: Pillet Aîné, 1825.

Freycinet’s mission was to make observations of the earth’smagnetism from different locations. The measurements would help

determine to what degree the earthis spherical, and they allowedFreycinet to conclude that theflattening of the SouthernHemisphere does not differappreciably from that of theNorthern Hemisphere.

The butterfly specimen was found atGuam, one of three critical locationsfrom which observations wererequired for this mission. The othertwo locations were the island ofMauritius which lies east of Africa,and Maui in the Hawaiian Islands.

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Duperrey, Louis-Isadore. Voyage autour du monde… sur lacorvette…La Coquille pendant les années 1822-1825. Paris:Arthus Bertrand, 1825-39.

Duperrey served as ensign aboard the Uranie during the voyageof Freycinet. Five years later he commanded his own expedition aboardLa Coquille, and continued to make contributions to geodesy. The

naturalist on board, RenéPrimavère Lesson,considered the emeraldbird of paradise the mostmagnificent bird of NewGuinea. “On one of thefirst days of our arrival inNew Guinea, thispromised-land ofnaturalists,” he wrote,“we glimpsed theemerald birds of paradiseflying in the deepdarkness of the oldforests, creating perhapsthe grandest and mostmagical spectacle ever tostrike the eye of aEuropean. The birds’wings beat the air withgraceful undulations: thefeathers of their flanksform an elegant andaerial plume which,without hyperbole,resemble a brilliantmeteor, streamingthrough the air like astar.”

Lesson captured manyNew Guinea birds, suchas these colorful speci-mens, but he neverprocured one of the jewelgreen birds of paradiseduring his assignmentaboard the Coquille.

New Guinea Birds

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Dumont d’Urville, Jules-Sébastien-César. Voyage de la corvettel’Astrolabe…pendant les années 1826-1829. Paris: J. Tastu, 1830-1834.

The Louisiade Archipelago east of New Guinea held greatinterest for Dumont d’Urville, and the detailed mapping of that regionand of New Zealand was his main mission. The time required for this

charting mission caused him to delay crossingthe Pacific until his later Antarctic voyage.

While exploring New Zealand,Dumont d’Urville observed the entrenched andcomplicated military tradition of the varioustribes. He perceived a parallel between thecrushing military requirements of young menin New Zealand and in Europe.

When he learned that Dumont d’Urville wasseeking an artist to accompany his voyage,Louis-Auguste De Sainson was already servingthe Admiralty as a special clerk. He offered hisservices, and the captain was pleased to accept;Sainson had developed an excellent reputationas an artist. This spectacular portrait captureda moment that Dumont d’Urville recorded inhis journal: “M. de Sainson’s clever brushfaithfully reproduced the features, the mako(tattoo design) and the facial expression of thisNew Zealand warrior.”

When he arrived in New Guinea,Dumont d’Urville mused that the materialculture of the Papuans whom he met displayedsimilarities to the ancient Egyptians in some ofthe large sculptures carved for the tombs andsacred houses, and in the amulets worn asnecklaces and earrings.

Spiritual power is one aspect of this structurethat is conveyed by the artist in this dramaticimage. Dumont d’Urville was not able to learnabout the symbolism of the sculptures or thenature of the ceremonies performed within thesacred house.

Façade and details of the sacred house at Doreï,New Guinea

Nataï, a chief of the Bay of Wangari, New Zealand

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Laplace, Cyrille Pierre Théodore. Voyage autour du monde parles mers de l’Inde et de Chine. Paris: Imprimerie Royale, 1833-39.

In the introduction to his report of the voyage, Laplace payshomage to the French scientific missions before him, including those ofFreycinet, Duperrey and Dumont D’Urville. His circumnavigation wasprimarily to pave the way for commerce, but the voyage madeachievements in navigation, natural history, and geodesy. He wasinstructed to more thoroughly explore the Indian Ocean and the routefrom there through the Strait of Malacca, between Sumatra and Malaysia,into the China Sea. The ship encountered ferocious hurricanes afterrounding the tip of Africa. It finally was able to sail north to itsdestination, Réunion Island, which lies southeast of Mauritius in theIndian Ocean.

After exploring the Strait ofMalacca, the ship sailednorth into the South ChinaSea. On the way to Canton[Kuang-chou], Laplaceanchored at Da Nang on theeast coast of Vietnam, wherethe naturalists acquired thiscivet.

Vaillant, August Nicolas. Voyage autour du monde: exécutéependant les années 1836 et 1837 sur la corvette la Bonite…Paris:Arthus Bertrand, 1840-66.

Vaillant’s mission had commercial objectives, butequally important scientific goals required two accomplishednaturalists on board. Fortuné Eydoux and Louis-François-August Souleyet made an attempt at immortality by namingtwo of the fish shown on this plate after themselves.

The third fish shown was found in the Hawaiian Islands,where Vaillant and his crew witnessed several hurricanes.In spite of difficulties in anchoring there, about a hundredships a year visited the islands at this time. Vaillant’saccount includes a chart of all ships that anchored therefrom 1830 to 1835, including vessels from England,America, France, Chile, New Zealand, Mexico, andBelgium. There were three times as many whaling shipsas ships carrying merchandise.

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Genette de l’Inde [Indian Civet]

Rockfish Eydoux, Rockfish Souleyet, and Parrot-Fish

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Kotzebue, Otto von. Entdeckungs-Reise in de Süd See und nachder Berings-Strasse zur Erforschung einer nordöstlichenDurchfahrt. Weimar: Hoffmann, 1821.

To avoid the icy waters above North America, explorers sought apassage through the continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic. OttoKotzebue of Russia placed his hopes on an unexplored inlet that appearedon Cook’s map only as a break in the coastline above Bering Strait.Kotzebue was disappointed to find that it ended in a sound (to which hegave his name), but compared it to Hudson’s Bay in its potential as atrade center.

While he was exploring the surroundingterrain, a group of nearly fifty Eskimosapproached, “all armed with lances and bows.”He turned “to meet the Americans, who, onseeing us approach, sat down, like Turks, in alarge circle on the ground, by which they meantto manifest their friendly intentions.” Hedescribes the dress of the Eskimos, noting that“they have holes on each side of the mouth, inwhich they wear morse-bones [walrus],ornamented with blue glass beads…of the samekind as those worn in Asia.”

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Portrait of the Inhabitants of Kotzebue Sound

Sailing west from Hawaii, Kotzebue came upon the MarshallIslands. “When we were distant but two miles ... we were surprised byseven canoes, each rowed by five or six men ... They rub their longblack hair with cocoa oil, tie it together above the forehead, and adorn itwith flowers and wreaths made of shells.”

The chief of the islandof Otdia kindly invitedKotzebue and thescientists to his home,where they were serveda beverage made frompandanus juice.Kotzebue was delightedthat their host’s name,Rarick, nearly matchedthat of their ship, theRurick.

View of the interior of a house in the Marshall Islands

20

Darwin, Charles. The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle.Part III: Birds, by John Gould. London: Smith, Elder & Co.,1841.

The Beagle sailed with a two-fold mission. Captain Fitzroy wasto survey the southern coasts of South America and Tierra del Fuego; andto make precise readings of longitude using a dazzling array of twenty-

two marine chronometers on board. Yet it would be theyoung naturalist on board, Charles Darwin, who wouldmake the voyage famous. Perhaps no place visited byDarwin is more renowned than the Galapagos Islands.“The natural history of this archipelago is veryremarkable,” Darwin wrote; “it seems to be a little worldwithin itself…”

Among the new species of birds were thirteen finches.“These birds are the most singular of any in thearchipelago… It is very remarkable that a nearly perfectgradation of structure in this group can be traced in theform of a beak, from one exceeding in dimensions that of thelargest gros-beak, to another differing but little from that ofa warbler.”

Darwin, Charles. The Zoology of the Voyage of H.M.S. Beagle, …edited...by Charles Darwin. Part V: Reptiles, by Thomas Bell.London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1843.

The order of reptiles “gives the most striking character to the zoology ofthese islands,” Darwin wrote about the Galapagos. While the marine

iguana was up to four feet long, the landiguana was much smaller. It ate cactusand the leaves of the acacia tree. Darwinwas surprised at their prevalence: “Icannot give a more forcible proof of theirnumbers, than by stating that when wewere left at James Island, we could notfor some time find a spot free from theirburrows on which to pitch our singletent.” They did not bite, and “theyslowly crawl along with their tails andbellies dragging on the ground. Theyoften stop, and doze for a minute or two,with closed eyes and hind legs spread outon the parched soil.”

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Amblyrynchus Demarlii (Galapagos Archipelago)

Geospiza magnirostris (Galapagos Archipelago)

21

Girard, Charles. United States Exploring Expedition. During theyears 1838-1842. Under the command of CharlesWilkes…Herpetology. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1858.

The Wilkes Expedition was the first scientificvoyage sponsored by the government of the UnitedStates. It was the first such voyage to embark from theAmericas, those great “obstacles” that stubbornlyrefused European voyagers a single passage to theOrient from the farthest north to the farthest south,nearly to the very poles of the earth. Ironically, thisfirst voyage did not launch from the west coast ofNorth America and sail directly to China. It sailed intothe Atlantic, where it progressed exactly as didEuropean voyages, even crossing the Atlantic toMadeira off the coast of Africa to accurately chartdangerous shoals. It then sailed back across theAtlantic, around South America and across the PacificOcean to Australia.

Novara Expedition. Reise der Österreichischen Fregatte Novaraum die Erde in den Jahren 1857, 1858, 1859 unter den Befehlen desCommodore B. von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. Vienna: Gerold, 1861-75.

In 1856, the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian wasconsidering a scientific mission for Austria and he called upon theelderly German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt for advice. Humboldtsupported plans for the Novara Expedition to sail around the world. Vastcollections of natural history objects were acquired during the voyage.The gifted geologist Ferdinand Hochstetter found New Zealand sointeresting that he acquired permission to remain there as the Novara

headed for Tahiti. He drew the first true geologicalmaps of the islands, and made extensive observationsof their topography, stratigraphy, and mineralogy.

The zoologists serving on the expedition were GeorgFrauenfeld and Johann Zelebar. They observed thesepenguins on St. Paul Island, which lies in the middle ofthe south Indian Ocean between the southern tip ofAfrica and the southwest coast of Australia. Anotherisland, named Amsterdam, lies nearby to the north;together they create an isolated sanctuary in the sea.

22

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Callirhinus Patagoniensis (South America);Dendrophis Prasimus (Australia)

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Eudyptes Chrysocome (St. Paul Island)

IndexAnson, George 10

Banks, Joseph 11, 12Bell, Thomas 21Bird of paradise 17Bougainville, Louis-Antoine de, comte 10, 11

Cassin, John 6Chronometers 5, 21Cook, James 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 20

Dampier, William 5, 7, 8, 9Darwin, Charles 8, 21Diderot, Denis 11Dillon, Peter 16Dumont d'Urville, Jules 18, 19Duperrey, Louis-Isadore 17, 19

Eskimos 20Eydoux, Fortune 19

Finches 21Fitzroy, Robert 21Frauenfeld, Georg 22Freycinet, Louis de 16, 17, 19Funnell, William 8

Girard, Charles 22Gould, John 21Green, Charles 12

Halley, Edmond 12Hawkesworth, John 12Hippopotamus 9Hochstetter, Ferdinand 5, 22Humboldt, Alexander von 22

Iguana 8, 21

King, James 14

La Pérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de15, 16

Laplace, Cyrille 19

Lesseps, Jean-Baptiste 15, 16, 17Lesson, René 17Lewis and Clark Expedition 6Longitude 6, 11, 21Louisiana Purchase 6

Magellan, Ferdinand 7, 10, 11Maximilian, Ferdinand 22Milet-Mureau, Louis 15Miskito Indians 9Moa bird 5

Nataï, of New Zealand 18New Zealand 5, 13, 18, 19, 22North America 14, 20, 22Northwest coast, North America 14, 15Northwest passage 5, 14, 20Novara Expedition 5, 22

Oregon Territory 6Owen, Richard 5

Pacific Ocean 5, 7, 12, 14, 15, 22Patagonian Indians 10Penguins 22

Rarick, of Otdia 20Roggeveen, Jacob 15

Sainson, Louis-August De 18Scurvy 10Sea lions 10Seals 10Selkirk, Alexander 9Souleyet, Louis 19South America 7, 10, 11, 21, 22South Pole 12, 13

Tapir 9Trade Winds 7Transit of Venus 12

Vaillant, August Nicolas 19

Wilkes, Charles 6, 22Wüllerstorf-Urbair, B. von 22

Zelebar, Johann 22