Global Positioning System Reference
In-Depth Information
fought by Dampier's countrymen against Napoleon included a lengthy
maritime campaign in the Indian Ocean, for example.
Captain Cook crossed the world three times from England to New
Zealand, once traveling westward and twice eastward. A ship's master on
one of his journeys, William Bligh, was set adrift near Tonga in the South
Pacific after the crew of the
Bounty
mutinied. Bligh and 18 loyal crew
members set out westward for Timor in a small open boat with a small sail,
six pairs of oars, a compass, and a sextant, and made it there. Bligh and all
but one of his crew survived because of their navigation skills; quite gener-
ally, improved navigation was easing long journeys (though ''easing'' is not
the apposite word in Bligh's case: his 6,700-km journey was horrific).
Longitude was finally under control, and other aspects of marine navi-
gation were improving. Steam power gradually overtook wind power; a
better method of estimating ship speed was introduced (counting the revo-
lutions of a towed rotor); charts were improved, and in particular, hydro-
graphic surveys of the sea bed and harbors became more accurate and
complete. At the end of the nineteenth century, radio was added to the
maritime navigator's equipment. With all these improvements, the seas
were managed, though never mastered or tamed. Sea transport gradually
became routine and relatively safe.
Exploration of the world's coastlines was completed before that of the
continental interiors. It was not by chance that California was brought into
the Union before interior territories, such as Nevada (or that British Co-
lumbia was brought into confederation before other western territories of
Canada, such as Alberta): travel by sea was surer and faster than travel
overland. The epic feats of exploration of the nineteenth century were
mostly overland because the means of traveling by land were less de-
veloped than the means of traveling on water. The second half of the
nineteenth century was the period of colonization by western nations,
and numerous expeditions were sent to the unexplored continents of the
world—Africa, Australia, and Antarctica.
Many of these expeditions were not truly journeys of discovery because
the lands visited were already occupied. They were epic nevertheless, and
were seen to be so at the time. The very large Lewis and Clark expedition
left the United States at St. Louis in 1804, traveling by river when they
could do so, seeking a water route to the Pacific coast. They rowed, rode,
and walked a distance of 8,000 miles (13,000 km) before returning in
1806. In the previous decade Alexander Mackenzie reached the Pacific
coast from Canada and left his name on a rock by the shore at Bella Coola in
