The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1896-12-26
Our Unexplored Globe.
From the Literary Digest.


We are apt to think that we moderns
have very little to do in the way of explor-
ing the globe, and that the recent explora-
tions in Africa have quite put the finishing
touch to geographical knowledge, so that
he who wishes to set foot on virgin soil
must sigh, like Alexander for another
world. Those who entertain such opinions
may calm themselves with the thought that
no less portion of the earth surface
than 20, 900, 600 square miles is yet fit
subject for investigation, and on large
part of this the foot of civilized man has
not yet trod We translate from s'Cos-
mos an article that brings this fact out
very clearly. 1t runs as follows
SAT the London Geographical Congress
Mr.. Logan LObley gave very interesting
study of the present state of exploration
of the globe. 1t appears that modern
geographers have an immense amount of
labor before them to make us acquainted
with all parts of the earth. This conclu-
sion will astonish some people, for there is
general impression that almost all regions
of the earth are well explored.
''Mr. Lobley reminds us that in the first
place, toward the middle of the sixteenth
century, all seas had been traversed by
navigators, and that if the maps of the
continents we're not yet very exact, at least
their relative positions and their general
confguration were known. Australia
itself appears ON a French map Of 1912
under the name of Great Java In the
course of the sixty years included in the
last decade of the fifteenth century and
the first half of the sixteenth, pleiad of
navigators had advanced geographic knowl-
edge in degree that has never been
reached in any other period so short.
Sebastian d Elano had made his first voy-
age around the world; Vaseo da Cana had
doubled the Cape of Good Hope, Christie
pher Columbus had added the two Ameri-
cas- to the map; the voyages of Cabot, of
Magellan, had completed this wonderful
list of new discoveries.
''Today, outside of the polar regions,
we must confess that all the seas have
been explored, but this is far from being
the case with the land An immense ex-
tent is entirely unknown to us; another,
still more considerable, has been only i'm
perfectly explored; travellers have traversed
it, commerce has exploited some of its pro-
ducts, but good maps of it do not exist.
Finally, only the least part is well known;
geodesy has covered it with network of
triangles and the maps of it are complete,
even from typographical standpoint.
''After the Arctic and Antarctic regions,
which have remained inaccessible up to the
present time, Africa is the part of the
world that is least known to us, notwith
standing the admirable explorations made
in this century, which are daily clearing
up the map The earliest explorers, how
ever, could not dream of serious efforts,
and many years will pass before the coun-
try will be thoroughly explored.
''After Africa, Australia offers the
vastest field to the investigation of explor-
ers; we must remember that even its sea-
coast was not fully explored till 1843.
Since that time, at the price of great suf-
fering, it has been crossed from south to
north, but no traveller has yet traversed it
from east to west.
sin the two Americas except the ex-
treme northern and southern parts, the
continent is known; nevertheless, the whole
central region of South America, though
in great part explored for commercial pur
poses (for mines, wood, caoutchouc, etc, }
is not exactly mapped.
ITO sum up, the yet unexplored parts
of the globe cover an area of about 3d.
900, 900 square kilometers (about 20,
600, 600 square miles approximately
thus