Читать книгу A History of Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries - Edward Heawood - Страница 3

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The period dealt with in this book lies for the most part outside what has been well termed the Age of Great Discoveries, and has in consequence met with less attention, perhaps, than it deserves. While the main episodes have formed the theme of many and competent writers, few attempts have been made to present such a connected view of the whole course of Geographical Discovery within the limits here adopted as might bring out the precise position occupied by each separate achievement in relation to the general advance of knowledge. It is this task which has been attempted in the present volume. The reasons which give a certain unity to the period are discussed in the following pages, but it may be briefly characterised here as that in which, after the decline of Spain and Portugal, the main outlines of the World-map were completed by their successors among the nations of Europe.

In dealing with so wide a field, both as regards time and space, the arrangement of the subject-matter presents considerable difficulties. To take the major portions of the world in turn, and trace the course of discovery for each from beginning to end, would, it was thought, lose much by failing to bring out what may be called the general perspective of the story. Successive periods were marked by more or less definite characteristics all the world over, and both the aims and methods of discoverers changed with the times. On the other hand a strict chronological arrangement of the whole material would have its own disadvantages, and a compromise between the two methods seemed to offer the only suitable solution. For each part of the world the whole epoch has therefore been broken up into periods, possessing a general unity in themselves, and sufficiently prolonged to escape the drawback of frequent interruptions of the story.

Whilst original sources of information have been consulted as far as possible, it is obvious, in view of the extent of the field, that this could not be done universally, in a text-book that does not, primarily at least, profess to present the results of original research. The contributions of so many previous workers in the field have been drawn upon that it is impossible to acknowledge the indebtedness in each separate case; more especially as the narrative is based on notes collected during a long series of years. A few of the more particular obligations must however find expression. Of earlier dates, works like Burney's classical collection of South Sea voyages, Southey's History of Brazil, Müller's and Coxe's accounts of Russian North-East voyages, and Barrow's History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, have of course been consulted; while, of more recent times, Markham's Threshold of the Unknown Region, Ravenstein's Russians on the Amur, Parkman's and Winsor's historical works on North America, and Theal's on South Africa, Bryce's History of the Hudson Bay Company, Burpee's Search for the Western Sea, Conway's No Man's Land, Nordenskiöld's Voyage of the Vega, and many others, have furnished useful indications. The publications of the Hakluyt Society, with the valuable introductions supplied by the several editors, have also been an important source of information.

As regards the illustrations, special thanks are due to Mr Kitson, and his publisher Mr Murray, for permission to utilise the chart of Captain Cook's routes, and the portrait of the navigator, given in the former's Captain James Cook (which appeared, unfortunately, after the chapter dealing with Cook's voyages was written); to Sir Martin Conway for similar permission to use the reproduction of the Muscovy Company's Map of Spitsbergen given in his No Man's Land; and to Mr H.N. Stevens for supplying gratuitously for reproduction a facsimile of Foxe's Arctic Map. To Mr Addison, draughtsman to the Royal Geographical Society, I am indebted both for the actual drawing of the chart of Cook's routes, and also for useful advice in regard to the preparation of the other hand-drawn maps, for which I am myself responsible.

The Index has been made as complete as possible in the hope that it may serve as a guide, not only to the contents of the book, but also to sources of further information. Thus even where mere mention of a place is made in the present work, it is felt that the reference may be of use to students desirous of tracing the fortunes of such a place, or the course of European intercourse with it, in the narratives of the travellers themselves.

In deference to modern usage, such forms as Hudson's Bay, the Straits of Magellan, have been discarded, though at a certain expense of picturesqueness, and, in the second case, even of strict accuracy.

In conclusion, my warmest thanks are due to the Editor of the series, Dr F.H.H. Guillemard, not only for the great interest he has taken in the book from the outset, but for his unstinted aid in proof-reading, and for his many valuable suggestions, which have eliminated not a few inaccuracies.

EDWARD HEAWOOD.

1 SAVILE ROW, W.

August, 1912.