During the years which revealed the sources of Africa s greatest rivers the exploration of the mighty tributaries of the Amazon was prose cuted by Chandless. A little later Crevaux won laurels in the same field and to him succeeded Karl von dem Steinen and Ehrenreich.
The decade which witnessed the solution of the Kongo problem, the last great mystery that had remained hanging over the equatorial zone, was marked by renewed activity in Arctic re search. The passage leading north from Baffin Bay, beginning with Smith Sound, appeared to promise access to an open polar sea, the theory of whose existence had been put forth by Kane. The American expedition under Captain Hall in 1871 proceeded up this channel and the splen didly equipped British expedition under Sir George Nares in 1875 followed in its wake; but Kane's theory was not verified. Some of Nares' men in 1876 reached the parallel of 83° 20', eclipsing Parry's record by more than half a degree. Lieutenant Lockwood of the ill-starred Greely scientific mission in 1883 made a farther gain of four minutes. In 1873 the Austrian expedition of Weypreclat and Payer discovered Franz-Josef Land. In 1878-79 Nor denskjold immortalized himself by accomplish ing the Northeast Passage.
While Stanley and his successors were open ing up the exuberant forest realm of Equato rial Africa, the arid expanse of Central Asia, stretching from the Pamir on the west to the highlands of Manchuria on the east and em bracing the desert of Gobi (Shamo), the Tarim basin, with the Takla Makan desert, and the ranges of the Tian-Shan, Kuenlum, Altyn Tagh, and Nan-Shan, was attracting the most intrepid explorers from all parts of the world. This illustrious roll includes the great Przhevalski (whose name is borne by the former town of Karakol, in Turkestan, where he died in 1:::); Sosnovski, Mushketov, Kostyenko, Potanin, Regel, the pundit Krishna (who removed the long-existing doubt regarding the identity of the Sanpo and Brahmaputra); Pyevtsov, Bell, Bogdanovitch, Roborovski, Carey, the brothers Grum-Grzhimailo, Rockhill, Younghusband, Bonvalot, and Henry of Orleans. These had distinguished successors in the last decade of the century in Dutreuil de Ithins, Littledale, the Swedish geologist Sven Hedin, Obrutchev, Futterer, Holderer, and Deasy. Among the host of ardent explorers who have traveled in China since 1875 are Sosnovski, Baber, Gill, Szechenyi (son of the great Hungarian patriot, Count Stephen Szichenyi), Kreitner, Easton, Hosie, Colquhoun, Henry, and Younghusband. It is only since 1880 that the geography of Ko rea has emerged from its obscurity.
In the last quarter of the 19th century the dimensions of the unknown in Alaska, the Northwest Territories, and Labrador were vastly reduced by the explorations of Muir, Allen, Schwatka, Dawson, Ogilvie, Russell, Low, and others. In 1888 the first crossing of Green
land's great ice cap (in its southern part) was accomplished by Nansen. In 1892 Peary and Astrup made a sledge journey of more than 1,000 miles over the northern end and deter mined the extension of the island in that direc tion. In 1893-95 the gap between the North Pole and the highest latitude ever before reached (Lockwood's 83° 24' in 1883) was bridged almost half over by Nansen's drift voy age and sledge journey, which carried him to the parallel of 86° 14'. This record was eclipsed in 1900 by the expedition of the Duke of Abruzzi, which reached 86° 33'. The results of these expeditions rendered it improbable that any extensive land mass remained undiscovered within the Arctic Circle ; physical conditions verified 6 April 1909, when Coin. R. E. Peary reached the North Pole by a sledge journey from Cape Columbia, Grant Land. His sound ings at the Pole reached no bottom, the depth exceeding 9,000 feet.
In the same year in which Peary and Astrup crossed the fathomless ice cap of Greenland the gigantic glaciers of the Karakoram were ex plored by Sir William Martin Conway, who climbed to an elevation of about 23,000 feet, eclipsing the record of all former travelers. In 1897 Aconcagua, probably the loftiest peak of the Andes, was scaled to its summit by Zur briggen, the Swiss guide, and Vines, the geolo gist of Fitzgerald's expedition, the elevation obtained for it by barometric measurement be ing 23,080 feet. In 1898 Conway accomplished the ascent of Illimani, one of the rivals of Aconcagua.
At the close of the 19th century the atten tion of the world was once more turned, after a long intervals, to the Antarctic regions. The British expedition under Borchgrevink (1898 1900) succeeded in locating the south magnetic pole and attained to the parallel of 78° 50', sur passing by 40' the ((farthest south° achieved by Ross in 1842. In the expedition of 1907-09 Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton reached lat. 88° 23' S., long. 162 E., within 97 miles of the Pole. On 16 Dec. 1911 Capt. Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole and returned safely. His tent and records were found a month later, 18 Jan. 1912, by the ill-fated Capt. F. R. Scott, who with three companions died from privation while returning, 29 March 1912. When the 19th century opened, geographical science had half a world to conquer. At its close this conquest may be said to have been well-nigh achieved.