Government Expedition Research Articles

Карты Дальнего Востока России XVIII в., составленные участниками академических и правительственных экспедиций и на их основе, как источник по истории изучения региона и картографии как науки

The article has carried out the approbation of the theoretical and methodological principles of the neoclassical paradigm of historical science, anthropological and spatial turns, and an interdisciplinary approach to the study of maps of the Far East of the 18th century, made by participants of Russian academic and government expeditions and based on them. These materials show the evolution of cartography and cartographic method in Russia. The role of maps as a special form of representation of the course and results of scientific development of the Far East is investigated. The functions of specific elements of the content of maps and the influence of the actor on it are revealed. The history of the existence of individual cartographic materials is considered. The significance of maps as complex historical and historical-scientific sources is represented.

The Orthodox Population of Siberia in the 18th Century in the Works of Participants in Academic and Government Expeditions

The Orthodox Population of Siberia in the 18th Century in the Works of Participants in Academic and Government Expeditions

Brief results of the work of the interdepartmental expedition to study goiter and Urov disease

In August of this year, the Urovsky endemic focus was visited by an interdepartmental government expedition of 34 scientific workers in groups: clinical, veterinary-zootechnical, hydrological, sanitary-hygienic. The results of the work revealed at the final conference are as follows

The Participation of the Siberian Cossacks in the Opening Up and Colonization of America

ABSTRACT The Siberian Cossacks not only participated in the discovery of northwestern North America by Russia in the first half of the 18th century, but also in all subsequent government expeditions in this region and beyond. Some of the Cossacks were organizers and shareholders in merchant associations that dispatched ships for the valuable furs to the newly found islands east of Kamchatka. The Cossacks themselves often commanded the maritime hunting expeditions, as well as serving as traditional collectors of yasak (tribute of furs), which they gathered from the Aleuts for the royal treasury. Especially notable was the role of the Siberian Cossacks at the beginning stage of the opening up of the Commander and Aleutian Islands. Indeed, it was they who became the initiators of the exploitation of the islands, paving the way for the Russian colonization of Alaska.

Brazil’s “March to the West”: Memories of an Indigenous Shaman and other “Moderns”

The Amazon forest and savanna became central for the realization of Brazilian modernity in the 1940s when aviation networks were created by a government expedition to open up the western territories. Indigenous peoples played a number of roles in this state project. Through a focus on the autobiographical account of an indigenous shaman working as a team member and the memoirs of the expedition leaders, I contrast how indigenous peoples were scripted as the antithesis of the “modern,” how their labor made them the means of the realization of this sort of modernity, and how some came to share, in part, the goals of this “modern” project. The juxtaposition of non-indigenous with indigenous accounts of this project allows for a reevaluation of the terms popular in the “ontological turn”—namely, “Amerindian” and “modern” thought—and calls for moving from these categories to examining the historically specific contexts in which people engage with each other in joint projects.

What's wrong with ‘expeditioner’?

Some – particularly Australasian – authors who have published in Polar Record may be familiar with the debate around the acceptability of the word ‘expeditioner’. The term is regularly used by Australians and New Zealanders, in both casual and official contexts. In The Antarctic Dictionary, Bernadette Hince (herself Australian) classifies the word as particularly (although not solely) Australian, notes its regular use by the Australian national programme, which publishes an Expeditioner Handbook, and defines it as ‘A member of an [A]ntarctic expedition, including a government expedition’ (Hince 2000: 118–119). However, ‘expeditioner’ appears in the Oxford English Dictionary only as a rare and obsolete term. The sole example cited in the OED Online is from 1758, in a non-polar context; the definition provided is ‘One engaged in an expedition’. Neither The Australian Oxford Dictionary (2nd edition, 2004) nor The New Zealand Oxford Dictionary (2005) includes ‘expeditioner’, although the term is included in the Australian Macquarie Dictionary (5th edition, 2009) and the US-based Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1993). There is clearly significant national variation in the term's acceptability and its use in an academic publication can draw negative attention (Stone 2003: 172 – not coincidentally, a British review of a book by an Australian author). This note argues that ‘expeditioner’ should not be dismissed as an idiolectic ungrammatical term unsuitable for use in British publications. We make a case for the use of ‘expeditioner’ on three grounds: conceptual appropriateness, precedence and convenience of expression.

So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848 (review)

Reviewed by: So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848 Clyde A. Milner II (bio) So Rugged and Mountainous: Blazing the Trails to Oregon and California, 1812-1848. By Will Bagley. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. Pp. 458. Cloth, $45.00.) Will Bagley has begun an epic four-volume journey through the mountains of personal accounts, newspaper reports, government records, and scholarly studies that have recounted the saga of the overland trails. This book examines the era before the California gold rush, an event that changed dramatically both the number and destination of the emigrants. Starting in 1812 allows Bagley to recognize the importance of Robert Stuart's discovery of South Pass, the gateway through the Rocky Mountains that made transit to Oregon and California more accessible. Other extreme obstacles lay farther west, such as the formidable Sierra Nevada in eastern California. A public historian with over a decade of experience working in the National Park Service, Bagley knows both the terrain and the literature. Bagley is an accomplished writer and historian whose earlier book Blood of the Prophets: Brigham Young and the Massacre at Mountain Meadows (2002) produced enough concern within the leadership of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints that a team of Mormon historians attempted a refutation. The book built on the heroic efforts of Juanita Brooks, the Mormon author who in 1950 exposed the Mormons' involvement in the 1857 killing of at least 120 men, women, and children. Here Bagley's first installment has another vital scholarly antecedent, John D. Unruh's monumental The Plains Across: The Overland Emigrants and the Trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60 (1979). Unruh's foreshortened career never intersected with those of a new set of historians, like John Mack Faragher, who demonstrated that westward emigration had a greater complexity than popular assumptions about heroic pioneers and wagon trains. By the mid-1980s, a "new western history" arose exemplified best by the work of Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White. Bagley's interpretations are influenced by these no-longer-so-new historians, but his extensive research is impressive in its own right. He has utilized some five hundred overland narratives unknown to scholars before 1988. The desire of so many to record what they experienced in the journey has provided the greatest source of information. The prominent trails historian Merrill Mattes "estimated that of the almost 500,000 sojourners . . . [End Page 82] between 1812 and 1866, about 1 in every 250 left some sort of meaningful record of their adventure" (285). Perhaps only the accounts of Civil War soldiers can match such an outpouring. These records contain many surprises. For example, native peoples played an important peaceful role interacting with the overland migrants. John Unruh first researched this aspect of the journey, and Bagley effectively expands this analysis by looking at the work of Lillian Schlissel and Glenda Riley. Their examination of women's trail diaries revealed much fear of possible Indian hostilities but remarkably few, and in many cases no, incidents. As Bagley recognizes, "Until the 1860s, the level of violence on the road west was surprisingly low" (348). Women's stories along the trail demonstrate the dominant male attitude in gender relations. Bagley incorporates the accounts of two women—Lucinda Jane Saunders and Narcissa Burdette Land Vasquez—that are not included in earlier histories of the overland trails. Saunders's and Vasquez's accounts reveal the hostility, as well as the occasional admiration, that independent women elicited from male observers. Yet, Bagley does not ignore the better-known episodes and prominent characters. For example, John Charles Frémont appears regularly with his government expeditions and political ambitions. The two disastrously foolish purveyors of "shortcuts" to California, Lansford W. Hastings and Peter Lassen, retain their notoriety. And the Donner party becomes trapped in the high Sierra Nevada, with many succumbing to desperate measures and starvation. Very appropriately, Bagley uses the Jesuit missionary and traveler Father Pierre-Jean De Smet as a narrative bookend for his study. In 1841, De Smet journeyed with the Bidwell-Bartleson party, often proclaimed as the first pioneer train to reach the Oregon country. Before the end of...

‘A little more latitude’: explorers, politicians, and Canadian Arctic policy during the Laurier era

This article examines the evolution of Canadian Arctic policy during Sir Wilfrid Laurier's years as prime minister (1896–1911). Explorer Joseph Elzear Bernier, who commanded three government expeditions in this period, vigorously promoted the idea that he himself had roused the sluggish government to action. He also alleged that Laurier had promised to sponsor a Canadian voyage to the North Pole, a promise that was later broken. However, archival documents show that neither of these claims is true. Instead, Laurier and other members of his government first showed their determination to assert Canada's northern sovereignty in 1897, a year before Bernier came on the scene. Although Bernier hoped that his first northern voyage might be turned towards the pole, there was no promise from Laurier. Subsequent policy developments were often haphazard due to interdepartmental conflicts and personality clashes, but by the end of the Laurier years a reasonably effective Arctic programme had been created. Though Bernier played an important part in carrying out the government's agenda, many of his actions (most notably his famous July 1909 sector claim) were aimed more at enhancing his own fame than at securing Canada's title to the Arctic. The article places Bernier's Arctic career in its proper context, and at the same time highlights the contributions of other men who lacked his flair for publicity. It thus provides a more accurate factual basis for future work on the period.

Framing the West: the survey photographs of Timothy H. O'Sullivan

The image of the untamed American West persists as one of our country's most enduring cultural myths, and few photographers have captured more compelling images of the frontier than Timothy H. O'Sullivan. Trained under Mathew Brady, O'Sullivan accompanied several government expeditions to the West-most notably with geologist Clarence King in 1867 and cartographer George M. Wheeler in 1871. Along these journeys, O'Sullivan produced many beautiful photographs that exhibit a forthright and rigorous style formed in response to the landscapes he encountered. Faced with challenging terrain and lacking previous photographic examples on which to rely, O'Sullivan created a body of work that was without precedent in its visual and emotional complexities. The first major publication on O'Sullivan in more than thirty years, Framing the West offers a new aesthetic and formal interpretation of O'Sullivan's photographs and assesses his influence on the larger photographic canon. The book features previously unpublished and rarely seen images and serves as a field guide for O'Sullivan's original prints, presenting them for the first time in sequence with the chronology of their production.

Two New Selaginella Species from Gunung Mulu National Park, Sarawak

In the course of preparing a revision of Selaginella for Flora Malesiana the author visited Sarawak in 1976, and again in 1978 in conjunction with the Royal Geographical Society/Sarawak Government Expedition and Survey of Gunung Mulu National Park. A number of specimens collected there could not be matched with other Bornean or Malesian material and were reported as potential new species in a synopsis of the pteridophyte flora of the Park (Parris et al. 1984). Two of these species are described in the present paper. The first is from lowland dipterocarp forest on the west ridge of Gunung Mulu where Selaginella is not a significant member of the ground flora, mainly due to the relative dryness of this rain shadow area. The gathering was from an extensive but unique population although juvenile plants of possibly the same species appeared along the same and confluent water courses. The second species is from lowland and montane limestone forest, where it was collected in various places along the Melinau Limestone Facies. The limestone forest of the Park has been described by Anderson & Chai (1982) and is discussed by Proctor et al. (1983); it is another forest type which has a limited number of Selaginella species. The species described here is unique in a number of respects and its full systematic relationship within the genus as a whole is not yet clear. In the descriptions below emphasis is given to the growth habit and branch pattern observed in these two species, in the belief that they are valuable characters when considering major groupings within the genus. All branching is dichotomous, frequently anisotomous and sometimes so close as to appear pinnate. The term 'pseudopinnate' has been suggested for this type of branching by Wong (1983) and is adopted here. In such plants where the secondary branch-systems are close and in one plane, and the leaves frequently contiguous or nearly so, the terms 'frond' and 'pinnae' have been used in the past (e.g. by A. H. G. Alston, in his many papers on the genus, and similarly by Hieronymus, at an earlier date) but as the use of these terms has been restricted in pteridophyte literature to be equivalent to a leaf and parts of a compound leaf respectively, this should be discouraged. The primary branch axes arising from the creeping stems are here termed the 'main stems' and the weaker axes of each bifurcation are termed the 'secondary branches' (or branch-systems). Where such a system is branched in one plane and thus is frond-like in appearance, as in S. lineariformis, the term 'pseudofrond' is proposed.

F.J. Fitzgerald (1869-1911)

Francis Joseph Fitzgerald, veteran of 14 years' northern service with the North-West (later the Royal North-West) Mounted Police, and commander of the famous "Lost Patrol" of 1911, was born in Halifax on April 12th, 1869. In November 1888 he enlisted in the N.W.M.P. Except for a year's service in the Boer War as a sergeant with the Canadian Mounted Rifles, he spent the rest of his life with the Mounted Police, eventually rising to the rank of inspector. He served in the Yukon during the gold rush and was a member of the expedition of 1897-1898 that blazed an overland trail to the Yukon from Edmonton via Fort St. John, B.C., a journey that put Fitzgerald at the forefront of the force's most experienced men in northern patrolling. In 1903 Fitzgerald, then a sergeant, was picked as second-in-command of the government expedition sent to the Western Arctic to demonstrate Canadian sovereignty and halt the alleged mistreatment of the Inuit there by American whaling crews wintering at Herschel Island. ... After several years in the North, Fitzgerald took an Inuit wife, Unalina, "after the fashion of the country." He wished to marry her, but his superior refused permission. Their daughter, Annie, crippled as a child, died in her teens at the mission school at Hay River. What brought Fitzgerald to the attention of the world was an episode arising out of his service in the Western Arctic. Beginning in 1904, a mid-winter patrol was sent from Dawson to Fort McPherson and return, a distance of about 800 km each way over a variety of routes long used by the Kutchin Indians, to carry mail and show the flag in the region. It was no light duty; the trail followed a complex of rivers and creeks and went over some mountainous terrain. There was little game in the mountains, and in the flat, wide treeless valleys, deeply covered in snow, it was easy for a novice to turn up a wrong creek; thus the patrol always took along an Indian guide. In 1905 Fitzgerald was a member of the patrol on the Dawson-Fort McPherson leg, but he had never been over the route the other way. ... From the beginning the weather was bad. The snow was unusually heavy, making trail breaking difficult. Within a week the men were lost and found the trail only because they fell in with some Kutchin families, who set them right. Fitzgerald could have hired one of the Kutchin men as a guide, but did not - perhaps he did not want to admit he needed one. By January 2nd they had gone a third of the way and eaten nearly half their food. Then the weather got even worse; between the 3rd and the 9th of January the temperature averaged -46C, in strong wind. On the 12th they realized they were badly lost; Carter, the guide, could not find the landmarks. They had nine days' food left, and with luck could have made it to Dawson, fallen in with some Indians, or gone back to Fort McPherson. But Fitzgerald would not admit defeat and spent seven more days looking for the trail. It was not until January 18th, with their food almost gone, that they started back to McPherson. The weather continued foul. Snowstorms had covered their tracks, and on January 23rd the thermometer touched -53C on a windy day. By February 1st they had killed and eaten 8 of their 15 dogs. The last entry in Fitzgerald's diary was dated February 5th; on that day they were 115 km from Fort McPherson, but they had only five dogs left and were making only a few miles a day. The four men struggled on for another week. Between February 12th and 18th, 1911, all four died, three of starvation and one of suicide. On Fitzgerald's body was his will, scratched on paper with a piece of charcoal; it read: "All money in dispatch bag and bank, clothes, etc., I leave to my dearly beloved mother, Mrs. John Fitzgerald, Halifax. God bless all." ... Fitzgerald succumbed to misfortune and bad judgement - a fatal combination in the North.

Joseph Elzéar Bernier (1852-1934)

... Joseph Elzéar Bernier belonged to the fading era of wooden ships and iron men. His father and grandfather were sea captains and shipbuilders. He attended school in L'Islet until he was 14 and then went to sea. Three years later he became master of his vessel. After a hundred voyages to many ports he came ashore to accept the unlikely position of governor of the Quebec jail. This fitted into Bernier's scheme, for it gave him time to read and to study. Since 1872 he had been fascinated by arctic exploration, so now he absorbed all of the published accounts of British, American, Danish, and Norwegian expeditions. In 1898 he gave a lecture before the Quebec Geographical Society expounding on both how he might reach the North Pole by ship and dog-team and how he might sail through the Northwest Passage. This created a stir. He resigned from the jail and started campaigning. ... What appeared to be a key to the realization of his dreams in 1904 was the availability of a stoutly built 650-ton sailing ship with an auxiliary steam engine. This was the Gauss, named for a German astronomer and magnetician, built in Kiel in 1901 for a two-year Antarctic expedition that had been successfully completed. Bernier purchased her for the Canadian government at a bargain price of $75,000 and sailed her to Quebec, where she was renamed Arctic. But, alas, the government had surprising and disappointing plans for Bernier. Instead of heading his own expedition to the North Pole, he was to serve only as master of the Arctic for a year-long patrol of the Northwest Mounted Police into Hudson Bay to control foreign traders and whalers. However, this interlude gave Bernier experience in arctic travel and living, standing him in good stead for the future. His ship performed well, so he was now ready for whatever northern responsibilities he could assume. ... On his 1908-1909 expedition Bernier took the Arctic through half the length of M'Clure Strait. It was invitingly open and he might have realized his dream of sailing through the Northwest Passage, which Roald Amundsen had already done with a much smaller vessel by a more southerly route in 1903-1906, but Bernier lacked authorization to proceed and reluctantly turned back. On his next voyage he had the authorization, but this time M'Clure Strait was ice-choked. ... In 1912, ... he had left the service of the government to engage in a private gold-hunting and fur-trading venture around Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, ... In 1922 the Arctic was refurbished for the first of a series of annual government expeditions to the Eastern Arctic Archipelago. Bernier, who had found no Baffin gold and was now 70 years old, was glad to be placed in charge of his old ship again. The tasks of the expeditions were to maintain sovereignty among the arctic islands (showing the flag, as it were), establish new posts of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and reprovision and rotate the men at existing ones, see to the health and welfare of the resident Inuit, and conduct scientific investigations. ... In 1927 Bernier commanded two tugs towing a dredge and steel scow from Halifax to the Hudson Bay port of Churchill. That same year he was granted a government pension of $2,400 annually, plus a medal, rewarding him for what he had done to strengthen Canada's title to arctic islands whose potential value was still beyond anyone's dreams - except perhaps his own. On December 26, 1934, at the age of 82, Joseph Elzéar Bernier died. Despite having been thwarted in his early ambition of going to the North Pole or through the Northwest Passage, he had earned a niche in the history of Canadian arctic exploration.

The fate of Rusanov's Gerkules expedition in the Kara Sea, 1913; Some Further details and recent developments

AbstractThe Russian explorer V. A. Rusanov's geological expeditions to Novaya Zemlya (1908–11) gained him the experience that, in 1912, secured his appointment as leader of a government expedition to Svalbard. In the sealing ship Gerkules Rusanov and 14 others left Aleksandrovsk on 26 June, spending most of July and August staking claims, collecting specimens and inspecting coalmining operation around the islands. In late August Gerkules headed east for Novaya Zemlya and an attempt at the Northeast Passage. Neither ship nor crew were seen again, but relics of the expedition have since been found on islands in the Kara Sea; in 1978 a plaque commemorating the expedition was erected on Mys Primetnyy, where a campsite and many relics were identified.

A bibliography of the scientific writings of Thomas Say (1787–1834)

Thomas Say (1787-1834) was one of the first Americans to devote himself completely to the study of natural history. He was a prolific and respected contributor to the zoological literature and a thoughtful observer of nature. Say's early work on insects and mollusks established his credentials as a scientist and led to his selection as a participant in government expeditions to the American frontier. In addition to these field experiences, he held appointments in several prestigious institutions. The wide range and quality of Say's scientific work have led to his designation as the Father of American Conchology (e.g., Stansbury, 1980:27) and the Father of American Entomology (e.g., Lindroth, 1975:121). Some have even called him the Father of American Zoology (Weiss and Zeigler, 1931 :vii). Clearly, Say is a key figure in the development of natural history in the United States. He pursued his interests with a thorough professionalism that elevated natural history from an amusement for wealthy persons to a respected field of study. His legacy is a body of work that established North American students as authorities on the native fauna.

Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879-1962)

One of the last great arctic explorers of the era of boats, dogs, and sledges, Vilhjalmur Stefansson was also a highly articulate and innovative spokesman for the North. He is best known for his field work in anthropology and for his outspoken defence of the North as a rich and habitable land. ... He ... spent eighteen months with the Eskimos of the Mackenzie River delta, learning their language and folkways. From 1908 to 1912, under the auspices of the American Museum of Natural History and the Canadian Government, he explored the area from the Colville River in Alaska to Cape Parry, Coronation Gulf, and Victoria Island in Canada's western Arctic, where he observed blond types among the Copper Eskimos. His finale as an active arctic explorer was leadership of the Canadian Government expedition of 1913-18 to the Alaskan and Canadian Arctic. It was marred by eleven fatalities when ice crushed its base ship, Karluk. Stefansson and others, who had gone ashore to hunt, were unable to help the twenty-five people left on board. ... Having completed his last arctic journey at age 39, Stefansson entered the second half of his life, that of a researcher and writer, preaching the gospel of the North - its livability and potentialities. ...

The fate of the invertebrate collections of the North Pacific exploring expedition, 1853–1856

In 1852 the United States Congress appropriated $125,000 for building or pur­ chase of suitable vessels and for prosecuting a survey and reconnaissance for naval and commercial purposes of such parts of Behring Straits of the North Pacific Ocean, and the Seas, as are frequented by American whale-ships, and by trading vessels in their routes between the United States and China (Smithsonian Insti­ tution Annual Report, 1854: 89). This expedition became known as the North Pacific Exploring Expedition and was commanded by Cadwallader Ringgold, who had commanded one of the vessels in the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838-1842 (also known as the Wilkes Expedition). Second in command was Lieutenant John Rodgers, who had worked with the Coast Survey for several years and was known to be sympathetic to the needs of science. William Stimpson (1832—1872), one of America's foremost invertebrate zool­ ogists, was selected to be chief zoologist of the expedition. Stimpson oversaw a scientific corps that made immense collections of natural history specimens, all of which were sent to the Smithsonian Institution, the official repository for all speci­ mens collected on United States government expeditions. These collections, which totalled over 100 cubic feet in the original boxes and bales, included the following numbers of species: 846 vertebrates, 400 insects, 980 crustaceans, 200 annelids, 2,359 mollusks, and 400 radiates. It was estimated that over half of the species collected were undescribed (Smithsonian Institution Annual Report for 1856: 53). This account deals primarily with the fate of the crustaceans collected during the expedition. Stimpson was placed in charge of the publication of the results of the expedition, and he arrived at the Smithsonian in 1856 to begin this task. Many scientists agreed to produce the reports dealing with their specialties. Stimpson agreed to work on all of the invertebrates except the Mollusca, which were assigned to A. A. Gould (Johnson, 1964). Work continued on the reports until the project was terminated at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861. Many of the reports, including Stimpson's, were completed, but were never published. Stimpson remained at the Smithsonian as curator of the invertebrate collections until 1865 when he left to become Secretary of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. While there he maintained his close relationship with Spencer F. Baird and the Smithsonian, and continued to work on several monographs treating the Crustacea.

Canadian Sovereignty in the Arctic: The <i>Neptune</i> Expedition of 1903-04

Prior to 1903, Canada did not effectively exercise jurisdiction over its Arctic territories, where men of various nationalities carried out whaling, hunting, trading and mining without any restriction. The Dominion Government Expedition of 1903-04 on board the Neptune constituted the first significant step towards the assertion of Canadian authority in the eastern Arctic, particularly in Hudson Bay. Its members established a police post, implemented customs procedures, prohibited trade in the hides of musk-ox (an endangered species), and informed the Eskimos that Edward VII was their king. In addition to demonstrating the Dominion Government's authority over its Arctic territories, the Neptune Expedition helped to promote the decline of the whaling industry, which for decades had provided the economic basis of Eskimo life in certain regions.

New Zealand Antarctic geological programme

Abstract New Zealand has been directly and continuously involved in the geological exploration of the Ross Dependency since early in 1957 when Scott Base was established for the Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Later, United States logistic activities between New Zealand and McMurdo Sound, arising out of the IGY and its continuation, offered opportunities to exploit the Antarctic summer for geological field work, thus avoiding personnel having to “winter over”. As a result, the New Zealand Geological Survey, D.S.I.R., Expedition of 1957–58 to the Tucker Glacier marked the beginning of Government-supported geological and topographical exploration in Ross Dependency. Since then at least two field parties have been sponsored and supported each summer, and at times there have been up to four New Zealand geological parties in the field. The Government expeditions have usually been led by a senior Geological Survey geologist supported by senior and graduate students from the various Universities, especially Wellingt...

Lauge Koch (1892-1964)

Lauge Koch, renowned leader of 24 Danish government expeditions to Greenland spanning almost half a century, was born July 5, 1892 and died June 5, 1964 in Copenhagen. He gained his Mag. Scient. (cartography) in 1920 from the University of Copenhagen and his Ph.D. in geology in 1929. Dr. Koch's unique series of explorations began in 1913 in West Greenland. During 1916 and 1917 he accompanied Knud Rasmussen on the Second Thule Expedition to Northwest Greenland. From 1920 to 1923 Lauge Koch was leader of the remarkable Bicentenary Jubilee Expedition (to commemorate Hans Egede's arrival in Greenland) when he performed, together with three Eskimos, the strenuous 200-day sledge journey along the north coast of Greenland, which resulted in the Atlas of North Greenland (24 maps at the scale 1: 300,000). The systematic geological investigation of North and East Greenland conducted by Dr. Koch between 1926 and 1958 has been lauded as "one of the most concentrated efforts towards co-ordinated regional geology of a significant segment of the earth's surface which the geological science has experienced, and one made in the face of exceptionally unfavourable geographic and climatic conditions" (G. O. Raasch, 1961, p. 147, Foreword to the "Proceedings" of the First international Symposium on Arctic Geology). In that period of 32 years 1291 persons from many countries, mainly Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Britain, took part in his expeditions, the largest parties consisting of more than 100 men. A total of 1208 "man-summers" and 126 "man-winters" were spent under Dr. Koch's supervision in Northeast Greenland - that harsh but beautiful stretch of land between the Inland Ice and the pack ice, in the latitude 70°N. to 83°N. Although Dr. Koch himself was primarily interested in geology, he encouraged work in a variety of other fields: an almost complete coverage of medium-scale topographical maps was produced, many geographical and biological investigations were carried out, and studies were made in glaciology, hydrology, meteorology and archaeology. "Such continuity of leadership ... is without parallel in the history of polar expeditions" (J. W. Cowie, 1959, Polar Record, Vol. 9, p. 547). In the early days when travelling was by dog-team, Lauge Koch was master of this art and gained the admiration of his Eskimo companions whose language he thoroughly understood and spoke. He kept abreast of the time however, and became a pioneer of arctic aviation when, as early as 1932 and 1933, he equipped his two expedition ships with sea planes. Then in 1938 he successfully completed an air reconnaissance of Northeast Greenland on two daring flights with a Dornier aircraft operating from Spitzbergen. His post-war expeditions were characterized by the extensive use of Norseman, Catalina, and DC-4 aircraft and later, in 1955 and 1956, of helicopters. In 1953 I was one of a two-man party which he landed in North Greenland, to make the first geological traverse of the mountains of northern Peary Land starting from Friggs Fiord and reaching Kap Morris Jesup, 83° 39'N., the northernmost point of land in the world. Here we found the cairn Lauge Koch had erected in 1923 and from it retrieved his report. In the Catalina, which came to collect us, he read his own historic document as we flew over the desolate plains of southern Peary Land where Mylius-Erichsen and his companions had perished, and where he himself, 30 years previously, was forced to eat his exhausted dogs. This big, quiet man who spoke so slowly and made every so often a bear-like noise, had, with his indomitable will, been a great leader through two eras of polar history. Like the polar bears he did not bother about his enemies, he would just weave amusing stories about them. The results from Koch's expeditions published by the participants in the Meddelelser om Grønland are an invaluable collection of some 240 papers totalling 22,000 pages. His own observations and investigations, mainly on the geology and the ice conditions of Northeast Greenland are the substance of some 14 major publications. For his leadership and his scientific merits Lauge Koch was awarded numerous honours. He received 12 medals from various countries, the last one being the highly regarded Danish Rink Medal, and many other distinctions including being made an Officer of the Legion of Honour. In 1960 the University of Basle (Switzerland) honoured Lauge Koch with a Dr. h.c. and in 1963 McGill University (Canada) awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Science. With the death of Lauge Koch the Arctic has lost one of its most colourful personalities. Those who had the good fortune to work with him and to listen to his stories will never forget the towering strength, the stimulation and the refreshing humour of this great man, who had already during his own lifetime become a legendary figure.

Science and Politics: Origins and Objectives of Mid-Nineteenth Century Government Expeditions to Latin America

EXPEDITIONS sent by the United States Government to explore foreign lands during the nineteenth century were peculiarly crowded into the years between the end of the Mexican War and the outbreak of the Civil War. These expeditions, all carried out by the Navy and all having scientific objectives as a part of their official instructions, were sent to the Arctic, the Near East, the Orient, and South America during this fifteen-year period. The crest of this spate of government-supported scientific explorations came in 1852 when, in South America alone, naval personnel were to be found in, about to leave for, or just returning from inland expeditions to the Argentine Confederation, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, New Granada, Paraguay, and Peru. It has generally been assumed by those who have written about these expeditions that the object of the United States in sending them out was advancement of science and that they had no connection with the spirit of Manifest Destiny which played so conspicuous a part in the politics of the era. The study of the promotion of the expeditions and the interests of those who helped to plan or to execute them, however, suggests that there was an intermingling of scientific, commercial, and even of colonizing interests involved in varying degrees. The expeditions discussed here are: the United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-42; the United States Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemisphere, 1849-52; the Amazon explorations of Lt. William Lewis Herndon and Passed Midshipman Lardner Gibbon, 1851-52; and the Expedition to Explore and Survey the Rio de la Plata and its Tributaries, 1853-56. * The author is Latin American specialist in the National Archives, Washington, D. C. Mrs. Elizabeth Buck, Prof. Charles Griffin, and Miss Florence Nichol assisted in the final preparation of this paper and their help is hereby gratefully acknowledged.