Project Gutenberg's Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers, by Various

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Title: Little Masterpieces of Science: Explorers

Author: Various

Editor: George Iles

Release Date: July 24, 2009 [EBook #29502]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LITTLE MASTERPIECES OF SCIENCE

[Illustration: Christopher Columbus.]

Little Masterpieces
of Science

Edited by George Iles

EXPLORERS

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

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY

1902

Copyright, 1902, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

Copyright, 1891, by Justin Winsor

Copyright, 1871, by Oliver Wendell Holmes

PREFACE

"Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war."

The love of adventure, the expectation of the unexpected, have ever
prompted men stout of heart, and ready of resource, to brave the perils
of wilderness and sea that they might set their feet where man never
trod before. The world owes much to the explorers who have faced hostile
savages, stood in jeopardy from the cobra and the lion, the foes as
deadly which lurk in the brook which quenches thirst. A traveller like
Clarke takes his life in his hands. He breaks a path which leads he
knows not whither: it may bring him to a shore whence he has no ship to
sail from; it may end in an abyss he cannot bridge. The thickets rend
and sting him, poison may colour a tempting grain or berry, frost may
deaden his energies and lull him to the sleep that knows no waking. He
has but little aid from science: beyond food and medicine he carries
little more than a watch, a compass, a rifle, and a cartridge belt.
Beyond all instruments and weapons are his skill, agility, gumption,
diplomacy. And these resources in no mean measure are shared by the man
for whom he prepares the way, the immigrant, who, in the early days of
settlement, requires a constancy even high