The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1872-07-03

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Sahara, finds his way by the line Of human
skeletons and the remains of caravans that
have persisted in the attempt to cross the ''sea
of sand" just SO has it happened that the
very failures of geographical discovery have
proved the ultimate means of suggesting the
true secret of future success. The fate of
Franklin Immediately led to the great exploit
of Captain Mcclure, who, in 1850, while CO.
operating with Sir Edward Belcher in the
search for Franklin, was the first to make the
complete passage from ocean to ocean, from Beh-
ring Strait to the Atlantic passing around the
northern part of our Continent This brilliant
movement was soon after eclipsed by Kane, in
his memorable passage through Smiths Strait
to find the open Polar Sea. All of these dis
coveries to which we have alluded were the
legitimate fruit of the grand conception Of
Columbus, which led him to the discovery Of
the New World We must rank with them
also the discovery of the Pacific Ocean by
Vasco Nunez de Balboa, and the wonderful
early explorations in that ocean of Cook,
Dampier and others of Sir James Ross with
the Erebus and Terror in the Antarctic Ocean,
where he found the open South Polar Sea; the
discovery of the magnetic poles, SO important
to nautical science; the later researches of
South American travellers and explorers, as
Humboldt, Gibbon, Herndon and others, and
the still later physical and deep-sea observa-
tons in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific
Oceans; to say nothing Of the very latest
Itch
Arctic expeditions.
In this brief epltOme of some of the greater
discoveries Of human history we see that man
kind needs just such events to rouse it from its
lethargy and teach men to know that there is
''more in heaven and earth than is dreamt of
in their philosophy" Macaulay has said that
'In every great stir of the human mind there
is, doubtless, something which may well move
. smile" The death-like earnestness of Liv-
ingstone may not be an exception to this re-
mark. But the great explorer, doubtless in
stinctvely knows that his success is not to be
measured by the immediate results he gathers
SO much as by a long train of geographical
discoveries and moral and political develop
ments that will surely attend it,
In the accomplishment of such results as we
have here spoken of, and in the advance Of
physical and geographical science the power
of the press has been the strong arm
on which the gallant explorers and
patient Investigators of our century have
rested in their efforts to awaken governmental
and popular interest in their benefcent labors
In this country, since the old philosopher,
Franklin, published his Gazette, the voice of
the press has made itself heard as the stanch
ally of all that is solidly scientific and progress
sive. In England it is through the press that
such men as Proctor, Huxley, Buchan, Lockyer
and others have succeeded in awakening some
national concern for the cause of physical re-
search; and we can but regard the wonderful
triumph of Stanley, the HERALD's explorer, in
his successful search for Livingstone, as a
splendid triumph of the whole American press
Henceforth the great discoveries of the world,
scientific and geographical, are to be heralded,
not by the slow ana Intellectual means of
books and through the ordinary agencies of
publication, but by the press Of the land