James Bruce of Kinnaird, the contemporary of Niebuhr, was equally devoted to Eastern travel; and his principal geographical work was the tracing of the Blue Nile from its source to its junction with the White Nile. Before the death of Africa. Bruce an African Association was formed, in 1788, for collecting information respecting the interior of that continent, with Major Rennell and Sir Joseph Banks as leading members. The association first employed John Ledyard (who had previously made an extraordinary journey into Siberia) to cross Africa from east to west on the parallel of the Niger, and William Lucas to cross the Sahara to Fezzan. Lucas went from Tripoli to Mesurata, obtained some information respecting Fezzan and returned in 1789. One of the chief problems the association wished to solve was that of the existence and course of the river Niger, which was believed by some authorities to be identical with the Congo. Mungo Park, then an assistant surgeon of an Indiaman, volunteered his services, which were accepted by the association, and in 1795 he succeeded in reaching the town of Segu on the Niger, but was prevented from continuing his journey to Timbuktu. Five years later he accepted an offer from the government to command an expedition into the interior of Africa, the plan being to cross from the Gambia to the Niger and descend the latter river to the sea. After losing most of his companions he himself and the rest perished in a rapid on the Niger at Busa, having been attacked from the shore by order of a chief who thought he had not received suitable presents. His work, however, had established the fact that the Niger was not identical with the Congo.
While the British were at work in the direction of the Niger, the Portuguese were not unmindful of their old exploring fame. In 1798 Dr F.J.M. de Lacerda, an accomplished astronomer, was appointed to command a scientific expedition of discovery to the north of the Zambesi. He started in July, crossed the Muchenja Mountains, and reached the capital of the Cazembe, where he died of fever. Lacerda left a valuable record of his adventurous journey; but with Mungo Park and Lacerda the history of African exploration in the 18th century closes.
In South America scientific exploration was active during this period. The great geographical event of the century, as regards that continent, was the measurement of an arc of the meridian. The undertaking was proposed by the French South America. Academy as part of an investigation with the object of ascertaining the length of the degree near the equator and near the pole respectively so as to determine the figure of the earth. A commission left Paris in 1735, consisting of Charles Marie de la Condamine, Pierre Bouguer, Louis Godin and Joseph de Jussieu the naturalist. Spain appointed two accomplished naval officers, the brothers Ulloa, as coadjutors. The operations were carried on during eight years on a plain to the south of Quito; and, in addition to his memoir on this memorable measurement, La Condamine collected much valuable geographical information during a voyage down the Amazon. The arc measured was 3° 7′ 3″ in length; and the work consisted of two measured bases connected by a series of triangles, one north and the other south of the equator, on the meridian of Quito. Contemporaneously, in 1738, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, Alexis Claude Clairaut, Charles Etienne Louis Camus, Pierre Charles Lemonnier and the Swedish physicist Celsius measured an arc of the meridian in Lapland.
The British and French governments despatched several expeditions of discovery into the Pacific and round the world during the 18th century. They were preceded by the wonderful and romantic voyages of the buccaneers. The narratives The Pacific Ocean. of such men as Woodes Rogers, Edward Davis, George Shelvocke, Clipperton and William Dampier, can never fail to interest, while they are not without geographical value. The works of Dampier are especially valuable, and the narratives of William Funnell and Lionel Wafer furnished the best accounts then extant of the Isthmus of Darien. Dampier’s literary ability eventually secured for him a commission in the king’s service; and he was sent on a voyage of discovery, during which he explored part of the coasts of Australia and New Guinea, and discovered the strait which bears his name between New Guinea and New Britain, returning in 1701. In 1721 Jacob Roggewein was despatched on a voyage of some importance across the Pacific by the Dutch West India Company, during which he discovered Easter Island on the 6th of April 1722.
The voyage of Lord Anson to the Pacific in 1740-1744 was of a predatory character, and he lost more than half his men from scurvy; while it is not pleasant to reflect that at the very time when the French and Spaniards were measuring an arc of the meridian at Quito, the British under Anson were pillaging along the coast of the Pacific and burning the town of Payta. But a romantic interest attaches to the wreck of the “Wager,” one of Anson’s fleet, on a desert island near Chiloe, for it bore fruit in the charming narrative of Captain John Byron, which will endure for all time. In 1764 Byron himself was sent on a voyage of discovery round the world, which led immediately after his return to the despatch of another to complete his work, under the command of Captain Samuel Wallis.
The expedition, consisting of the “Dolphin” commanded by Wallis, and the “Swallow” under Captain Philip Carteret, sailed in September 1766, but the ships were separated on entering the Pacific from the Strait of Magellan. Wallis discovered Tahiti on the 19th of June 1767, and he gave a detailed account of that island. He returned to England in May 1768. Carteret discovered the Charlotte and Gloucester Islands, and Pitcairn Island on the 2nd of July 1767; revisited the Santa Cruz group, which was discovered by Mendaña and Quiros; and discovered the strait separating New Britain from New Ireland. He reached Spithead again in February 1769. Wallis and Carteret were followed very closely by the French expedition of Bougainville, which sailed from Nantes in November 1766. Bougainville had first to perform the unpleasant task of delivering up the Falkland Islands, where he had encouraged the formation of a French settlement, to the Spaniards. He then entered the Pacific, and reached Tahiti in April 1768. Passing through the New Hebrides group he touched at Batavia, and arrived at St Malo after an absence of two years and four months.
The three voyages of Captain James Cook form an era in the history of geographical discovery. In 1767 he sailed for Tahiti, with the object of observing the transit of Venus, accompanied by two naturalists, Sir Joseph Banks and Dr Solander, Captain Cook. a pupil of Linnaeus, as well as by two astronomers. The transit was observed on the 3rd of June 1769. After exploring Tahiti and the Society group, Cook spent six months surveying New Zealand, which he discovered to be an island, and the coast of New South Wales from latitude 38° S. to the northern extremity. The belief in a vast Antarctic continent stretching far into the temperate zone had never been abandoned, and was vehemently asserted by Charles Dalrymple, a disappointed candidate nominated by the Royal Society for the command of the Transit expedition of 1769. In 1772 the French explorer Yves Kerguelen de Tremarec had discovered the land that bears his name in the South Indian Ocean without recognizing it to be an island, and naturally believed it to be part of the southern continent.
Cook’s second voyage was mainly intended to settle the question of the existence of such a continent once for all, and to define the limits of any land that might exist in navigable seas towards the Antarctic circle. James Cook at his first attempt reached a south latitude of 57° 15′. On a second cruise from the Society Islands, in 1773, he, first of all men, crossed the Antarctic circle, and was stopped by ice in 71° 10′ S. During the second voyage Cook visited Easter Island, discovered several islands of the New Hebrides and New Caledonia; and on his way home by Cape Horn, in March 1774, he discovered the Sandwich Island group and described South Georgia. He proved conclusively that any southern continent that might exist lay under the polar ice. The third voyage was intended to attempt the passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic by the north-east. The “Resolution” and “Discovery” sailed in 1776, and Cook again took the route by the Cape of Good Hope. On reaching the North American coast, he proceeded northward, fixed the position of the western extremity of America and surveyed Bering Strait. He was stopped by the ice in 70° 41′ N., and named the farthest visible point on the American shore Icy Cape. He then visited the Asiatic shore and discovered Cape North. Returning to Hawaii, Cook was murdered by the natives. On the 14th of February 1779, his second, Captain Edward Clerke, took command, and proceeding to Petropavlovsk in the following summer, he again examined the edge of the ice, but only got as far as 70° 33′ N. The ships returned to England in October 1780.
In 1785 the French government carefully fitted out an expedition of discovery at Brest, which was placed under the command of François La Pérouse, an accomplished and experienced officer. After touching at Concepcion in Chile and at Easter Island, La Pérouse proceeded to Hawaii and thence to the coast of California, of which he has given a very interesting account. He then crossed the Pacific to Macao, and in July 1787 he proceeded to explore the Gulf of Tartary and the shores of Sakhalin, remaining some time at Castries Bay, so named after the French minister of marine. Thence he went to the Kurile Islands and Kamchatka, and sailed from the far north down the meridian to the Navigator and Friendly Islands. He was in Botany Bay in January 1788; and sailing thence, the explorer, his ship and crew were never seen again. Their fate was long uncertain. In September 1791 Captain Antoine d’Entrecasteaux sailed from Brest with two vessels to seek for tidings. He visited the New Hebrides, Santa Cruz, New Caledonia and Solomon Islands, and made careful though rough surveys of the Louisiade Archipelago, islands north of New Britain and part of New Guinea. D’Entrecasteaux died on board his ship on the 20th of July 1793, without ascertaining the fate of La Pérouse. Captain Peter Dillon at length ascertained, in 1828, that the ships of La Pérouse had been wrecked on the island of Vanikoro during a hurricane.
The work of Captain Cook bore fruit in many ways. His master, Captain William Bligh, was sent in the “Bounty” to convey breadfruit plants from Tahiti to the West Indies. He reached Tahiti in October 1788, and in April 1789 a mutiny broke out, and he, with several officers and men, was thrust into an open boat in mid-ocean. During the remarkable voyage he then made to Timor, Bligh passed amongst the northern islands of the New Hebrides, which he named the Banks Group, and made several running surveys. He reached England in March 1790. The “Pandora,” under Captain Edwards, was sent out in search of the “Bounty,” and discovered the islands of Cherry and Mitre, east of the Santa Cruz group, but she was eventually lost on a reef in Torres Strait. In 1796-1797 Captain Wilson, in the missionary ship “Duff,” discovered the Gambier and other islands, and rediscovered the islands known to and seen by Quiros, but since called the Duff Group. Another result of Captain Cook’s work was the colonization of Australia. On the 18th of January 1788 Admiral Phillip and Captain Hunter arrived in Botany Bay in the “Supply” and “Sirius,” followed by six transports, and established a colony at Port Jackson. Surveys were then undertaken in several directions. In 1795 and 1796 Matthew Flinders and George Bass were engaged on exploring work in a small boat called the “Tom Thumb.” In 1797 Bass, who had been a surgeon, made an expedition southwards, continued the work of Cook from Ram Head, and explored the strait which bears his name, and in 1798 he and Flinders were surveying on the east coast of Van Diemen’s land.