St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1896-07-10
Our UNEMPLOYED Globe.

quite put the finishing touches 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 earths surface than 100000
square miles is yet fit subject for
investigation, and on a large part of
this the foot of civilized man has not
yet trod. We translate from Cosmos
Paris, June g. an article that brings
this fact out very clearly. 1t runs as
follows:
"At the London Geographical Con
gress Mr.. Logan Lobby gave very
interesting study of the present state
of explora ton of the globe. 1t APP
pears 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 al
most all regions of the earth are well
explored.
"Mr. Lobby 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 were not
yet very exact, at least their relative
positions and their general confg-
uration were known. Australia it
self 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 naviga.
tors had advanced geographic knowl-
edge in degree that has never been
reached in any other period so short.
Sebastian d'Eano had made his first
voyage around the world; Vasco de
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 discoveries.
To-day, outside of the polar re-
gions, 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 I'M
known to us; another, still more
considerable, has been only imper'
fectly explored; travellers have trav'
ersed it, commerce has exploited some
of its products, but good maps of it
: do not exist. Finally, only the least
part is well known; geodesy has Gov
cred it with a network of triangles
and the maps of it are complete, even
from Typographical standpoint.
after the. Arctic and Antarctic re-
gions, which have remained inaccessi.
BILE up to the present time, Africa is
the part of the world that is least
: known to us, notwithstanding the
admirable 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 free from
, the general gray tint, even when its
black patches have disappeared.
s after Africa, Australia offers the
vastest field to the investiga tions OF
explorers; we must remember that
even its seacoast was not fully ex.
plored till 1S43. Since that time, at
/. the price of great suffering, it has
: been crossed from south to north
! but no traveller has yet traversed il
# from east to west.
"In the two Americas, except thu
extreme northern and southern parts
the continent is known; nevertheless
the whole central region of South
America, though in great part ex
plore for commercial purposes (fo,
mines. wood, caoutchouc, etc. is no
exactly mapped.
ITO sum up, the yet unexploret
parts of the globe cover an area o
about so, 100000 square kilometer
[about 2O,O00,O00 square miles
approximately divided thus:
..-.- -.-....-. Square miles
Africa, 100000
Australia, 100000
America, 100000
Asia, 100000
Islands. 100000
Arctic regions, 100000