The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-05-17


doris with honor, honesty, dignity and deter
minatiOn.
French HOnOrs to DR.. Hayes, the Distin-
guished Explorer.
On the 4th inst. the President of the Geo
graphical Society of France called, with a
deputation of members, upon General Dix, the
American Minister at Paris, and presented the
gold medal which the society lately decreed to
DR.. Hayes, together with a request that 1t
should be transmitted to the distinguished
explorer. This Is not the first time that
American enterprise, energy and success in
promoting geographical discovery has been
honorably recognized by foreign savans. The
fact is that American names figure conspicu-
Ously in almost every direction in which mod
ern discovery has made great and rapid
progress. The name of Mungo Park ranks
high In that splendid list of African explorers
which comprises Bruce, Denham, Clapperton,
Lander, Burton, Barth and Livingstone. Du
Chaillu is an American by adoption, if not by
birth. Some of the American missionaries in
Asia have contributed largely to the increase
of geographical knowledge. The United
State government has nobly shared in tho
history of modern discovery by means of
various well organized expeditions. The
expedition Of Wilkes into the waters of the
Antarctic Ocean resulted, In $780, in the dis
cOvery Of vast continent within the Antarctic
Circle Those of DeHaven and Kane and
Hartstene and Hayes and Hall to the Arctic
regions are familiar to all. That of DR.. Kane
attained, in a scientific point of view, more
important results than any previous Arctic
expedition. These results, as briefly summed
up in his report to the Naval Department of the
United States, were the survey and delinea-
ton of the north coast of Greenland to its
termination by great glacier; the survey of
this great glacial mass, and its extension
northward into the new land named Wash
ington; the discovery of a large channel to
the northwest, free from ice, and lead
ing into an open and expanding area,
equally free, the whole embracing an iceless
area of four thousand two hundred miles the
discovery and delineation of large tract Of
land forming the extension northward of the
American Continent, and the completed survey
OF the American coast to the south and west
as far as Cape Sabine. The expeditions Of
Lynch to the river Jordan and Dead Sea and
of Perry to Japan must not be omitted in the
enumeration of American agencies in adding
TO the stock of geographical knowledge. Nor
must we forget the researches Of DR.. Robinson
In Palestine, Of Sqnier in Central America and
Peru, of DR.. Habel in the Isthmus States of
America and portions of Colombia and Peru, and
tf Agassiz in Brazil. Space is wanting to re-
capitulate all that has been done by Americans
duriug this century towards accurately deter
mining tho principal features of the geography
of our own vast country and disclosing its
prodigious resources, from the explorations of
Lewis and Clark, and from those of Fremont,
to the recent geological surveys in different
States and Territories, the examination by J.
Ross Browne and J. w. Taylor of the mineral
resources of the Pacific slope and the scien-
tifc expedition, ordered by Congress and Or
ganized by Major General Humphrey, which
left San Francisco about a year ago to explore
o strip of land on both sides of the fortieth
parallel of latitude from the eastern boundary
Of California to- the eastern base Of the Rocky
Mountains in Colorado. One Of the conse-
quences Of the Burlingame mission will doubt
less be to open the interior of the Chinese en-
pire to scientific exploration, and an American
geologist and zoologist, Mr.. A. s. Bickman,
has already explored the upper waters Of the
Si-kiang, region hitherto almost entirely I'M
known, and has made valuable geological and
geographical discoveries. His reports have
been published in the bulletin of the same
geographical society which has just honored
Dr.. Hayes with the well merited compliment
of o gold medal.