Evening star., 1896-07-18
OUR UNExPLORED GLOBE,
There Are 2O,OOO, 900 Square Miles OF
the Earth Yet to Be Explored.

There Are 10000, 900 Square Miles OF
the Earth Yet to BE Explored.
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-
tons In Africa have quite put the finishing
touch to geographical knowledge, SO that
he who wishes t. 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's surface
than G.00OOO0 square miles Is yet fit SUBJ
ject for investigation. and on a large part
OF this the foot OF civilized man has not
yet trod. We translate from Cosmos paris
June % an article that brings this fact out
very clearly. 1t runs as follows:
AT the London geographical congress
Mr. Logan Lobley gave a very interesting
study OF the present state OF exploration
OF the globe. 1t appears that modern geog-
before them to make us acquainted with all
parts of the earth. This conclusion will
astonish some people. for there is a gen.
eiaf IMPRESSION that almost all regions of
the earth are well explored.
MIR. L0bley reminds us that in the first
place. toward the MIDDLE of the sixteenth
century, all seas had been traversed by
navigators. and that il the maps of the
q
least their relative positions and their gen.
eral conf1guration were known. Australia
itself appears On a French map of 1872 un-
der 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, a pieiad of navi-
gators had advanced geographic knowledge
in a degree that has never peen reached
in any other period so short. Sebastian
d'Elano had made his first voyage around
the world; Fasco da Cana had doubled the
Cape of Good Hope: Christopher Columbus
had added the two Americas to the map;
the voyages Of Cabot of Magellan had
completed this wonderful list OF new dis
coveries.
To-day. 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 extent is
entirely unknown to US: another, still more
considerable, has been only imperfectly ex-
piored; travellers have traversed it. COM
mcrce has exploited some of its products
but good maps of it do not exist. Finally.
only the least part is well known; geodesy
has covered it with a network of triangles
and the maps of ii 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, Notwithstanding
the admira BILE explorations made in this
century, which are daily clearing up the
map. The earliest explorers. however,
could not dream of serious efforts, and
many years will pass before the country
will be thoroughly explored.
After Africa, Australia offers the vast
est field tc The investigation OF explorers:
we must remember that even its seacoast
was not fully explored till 1913. Since
tnat tifne, at the price of great suffering. it
has been crossed from south to north, out
no traveller has yet traversed it from east
to west.
"In the two Americas, except the extreme
har nd nar
is known nevertheless the whole central
region of South Americs, though in great
part explored for commercial purposes for
mines, wood, caoutchouc, etc.. is not ex-
actly mapped.
ITO sum up, the yet unexplored parts of
the globe cover an area of about J0,HD,oJ3
square kilometers (about D,0o,OOO square
miles), approXima tely divided thus: