Free ebooks ==> http://www.Ebook777.com
Science in the 1700s helped explorers
understand what they found, but was also
helpful to the navigators responsible for get-
ting them there. After centuries of being
unable to accurately determine longitude,
English scientist John Harrison solved the
problem in the 1750s with his invention of the
marine chronometer. Harrison’s invention—
essentially an accurate pocket watch—
allowed navigators to determine their
longitude by comparing the difference
between their time and what time it was at 0
degrees longitude, the prime meridian. They
were then able to make calculations based on
the knowledge that each hour of difference
represented 15 degrees of longitude. The
chronometer’s usefulness was proven by Cap-
tain James Cook’s second voyage (1771–76),
which produced charts so accurate that navi-
gation and cartography developed to new and
improved standards. As the charts of voyagers
such as Cook and Vancouver were published(^172) B Discovery of the Americas, 1492–1800
Scientists Descend on South America =
Many regions of the world still remained to be explored even as late as 1800,
among them parts of South America. Catholic missionaries, Portuguese slavers,
and mining prospectors were responsible for much of the exploration of the
Amazon basin throughout the 17th and 18th centuries but they had by no means
exhausted all the unknowns of the continent. In the 18th century a new breed of
explorers began to appear on the scene: scientists who were interested not in
discovering new lands to be claimed by their European homelands but in dis-
covering new animals and plants, isolated peoples, and unknown geographic
features. During the 1700s, in addition to French astronomer Charles-Marie de
La Condamine (1736–45), these included French astronomer Louis Godin
(1736–50), French naturalist Jean Godin de Odonais (1743–73), Spanish natu-
ralist José Celestino Mutis (1760–62), Spanish botanist Hipólito Ruz (1777–88),
and German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (1799–1803).
The attraction of South America for scientists would continue throughout the
19th century, drawing Anglo-German botanist/explorer Robert Hermann
Schomburgk (1835–43); British explorer Francis de La Porte, comte de Castel-
nau (1843–47); three English naturalists, Alfred Wallace (1848–52), Henry Bates
(1848–59), and Richard Spruce (1849–64); German ethnographer Karl von den
Steinen (1884–88); and Brazilian soldier/explorer Candido Rondon
(1890–1910). Perhaps the most notable scientist to be drawn to South America
would be British naturalist/biologist Charles Darwin, who investigated the
coast of southeast Argentina in 1831 and then the Galápagos Islands, off
Ecuador, where his findings would greatly influence his theory on natural selec-
tion and the origin of species.
One characteristic of the exploration of South America should be apparent:
It has always been an international effort. Another is that, to this day, remote
parts of the Amazon River basin remain unexplored.
\
http://www.Ebook777.com