Category: Exploration
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John Thomson’s Illustrations of China and Its People, 1873-1874 John Thomson (1837-1921), a pioneering Scottish geographer and traveler, was the first known photographer to document the people and landscape of China for publication and dissemination to the Western world. Between 1868 and 1872, he traveled over 6,500 kilometers with his cumbersome camera and equipment, darkroom and chemicals capturing all aspects of Chinese life. The photographs in these four volumes show the many sides of China: sweeping landscapes, royalty and ruling classes, merchants and economic activity, everyday life, and the faces of men, women, and children. Thomson was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of a tobacco spinner and seller.
The Illustrated Voyage Artists aboard voyages of discovery and exploration were given the task of making an objective record of the landscapes, people, flora and fauna of the lands they visited. One would not expect, given the focus on creating an accurate visual record for these expeditions, that there would have been room for the expression of artistic vision.
, Toronto Public Library's virtual exhibition that celebrates 10,000 years of the city's history. It recreates the exhibition on display at the TD Gallery, Toronto Reference Library, June 29 - September 22, 2002 and May 17 - August 2, 2003. Images are from the Library's Special Collections and private collections. The virtual exhibition is divided into five eras, beginning with the first human presence in the city 8000 BC and ending with modern city of 2003. You can explore the city's past by clicking one of the images on the map or a time period on the navigation bar. Each era begins with an Overview History , which summarizes the major trends and developments that shaped that time period.
Introduction From the time of Columbus, the American continent was seen by Europeans as a barrier between Europe and the Orient. A passage through it was the prime object of many voyages of exploration. Magellan had sailed around South America in 1520, but the icy northern shores were mysterious and seemed unassailable. The search for a sea route across the top of North America began in the 16th century as a commercial venture sponsored by London merchants. By the 19th century it was obvious that a Northwest Passage would not be a useful seaway, but finding it became an obsession, as did the attainment of the North Pole late in the century.
The collection contains 101 of the Champlain Society's volumes (almost 50,000 printed pages) dealing with exploration and discovery over three centuries. It includes first-hand accounts of Samuel de Champlain's voyages in New France as well as the diary from Sir John Franklin's first land expedition to the Arctic, 1819-22.
This site documents two exploratory surveys of the Barren Lands region west of Hudson Bay, in northern Manitoba and Saskatchewan and the area now known as Nunavut. Drawing on materials from the J.B. Tyrrell, James Tyrrell and related collections at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, it includes over 5,000 images from original field notebooks, correspondence, photographs, maps and published reports.
Voyage of the Scotia 1902-04 The material for Voyage of the Scotia 1902-04 was supplied by the Royal Scottish Geographical Society unless stated otherwise, and was edited and converted to web format at the Centre for Digital Library Research . This resource was developed as part of the Resources for Learning project funded by the New Opportunities Fund digitisation programme. Further resources and 70,000 objects can be found on the RLS site .
Terra Incognita: An Online Exhibition This exhibit features early printed accounts of exploration and cultural encounters between what is known as the Old World or Europe and the New World or the Americas. The people on both sides of these encounters viewed the people they met through the screen of their culture and how they perceived the world, including their myths, legends, and religious beliefs. Both sides often had to reconfigure and rebuild their idea of the world with this new knowledge. The results yielded much knowledge and discovery but also misunderstanding, fear and violent attempts to control various groups.
The Printing House of the Family Blaeu: 17th Century Cartographic Printing from the Netherlands During the seventeenth century the people of the seventeen united provinces of the Netherlands experienced a period of tremendous economic prosperity. As a water-logged society with few land-based natural resources of their own, the Dutch developed into a highly efficient maritime culture that feverishly explored the globe to find goods that were in demand on the continental European market. Along with numerous advances in the fields of science, industry, business, and linguistics, the Dutch also became experts at book and cartographic printing.
For most of the material from which the following new
species of Cicadidae are described, I have to thank Mr. F. P.
Dodd (queensland) and Mr. H. Elgner, of the same State.
Amongst them it will be noticed is a new species of Cyclochila
from Queensland, and also a species of Prasia, a genus so far
unrecorded in Australia, though common in New Guinea. I
have had some difficulty in deciding upon the generic deter-
mination of Psaltoda pulchra, as it has strong affinities with
Thopha in the structure of the head and the proportions of the
tegmina and wings. The abdomen, however, is unadorned with
the sacs which hide the tympana in the division Thopharia,
so I have placed the species tentatively in the genus Psaltoda.
The Kirk Papers is a collection of photographs and papers belonging to East Africa pioneer Sir John Kirk. It was acquired for the National Library of Scotland in 1998/1999 with the help of a grant of £55,000 from the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Though not as well-known as his friend and fellow-explorer David Livingstone, Kirk was a trail-blazer of empire in East Africa and a man of eminence in his day. Born in Barry, Angus, in 1832, Kirk qualified in medicine at Edinburgh University and then volunteered for medical service in the Crimea. An accomplished botanist, zoologist and diplomat, he was also a talented photographer. This is evident from the collection of over 250 photographs, many of them stunning.
American Journeys contains more than 18,000 pages of eyewitness accounts of North American exploration, from the sagas of Vikings in Canada in AD1000 to the diaries of mountain men in the Rockies 800 years later. Read the words of explorers, Indians, missionaries, traders and settlers as they lived through the founding moments of American history. View, search, print, or download more than 150 rare books, original manuscripts, and classic travel narratives from the library and archives of the Wisconsin Historical Society. To get started, simply select an activity on the toolbar above. Funded by the U.S. Institute of Museum & Library Services and by private donors, American Journeys is a collaborative project of the Wisconsin Historical Society and National History Day.
About the Collection The First American West presents a digital resource created from selections drawn from the collections of the Filson Historical Society and the University of Chicago. Each of these institutions has realized the critical role that primary source material plays in the research and teaching of history. The First American West draws on the interconnected holdings of the two institutions to create an integrated collection that preserves critical primary sources and presents a fuller and more diverse picture of the exploration and settlement of the trans-Appalachian west. The Filson Historical Society's origins and the University of Chicago's holdings on the trans-Appalachian west both have their roots in the activities of Reuben T. Durrett (1824-1913).
Harvard's Widener Library is the repository of many scarce and unique Latin American pamphlets published during the 19th and the early 20th centuries. One of the few institutions to have consistently collected Latin American pamphlets, Harvard has benefited from collections formed by Luis Montt (Chile), Nicolás Acosta (Bolivia), Manuel Segundo Sánchez (Venezuela), José Augusto Escoto (Cuba), Blas Garay (Paraguay), Charles Sumner, John B. Stetson and others. Chile, Cuba, Bolivia and Mexico are the countries most heavily represented in this collection. These pamphlets are valuable primary resources for students and researchers working on Latin American history.
The fourth in a series of online collections from Harvard University, Expeditions and Discoveries delivers maps, photographs, and published materials, as well as field notes, letters, and a unique range of manuscript materials on selected expeditions between 1626 and 1953. The collection is made possible with the generous support of the Arcadia Fund . In the 19th and 20th centuries, Harvard University played a significant role—as underwriter, participant, collector, and repository—for pace-setting expeditions around the world. For Internet users, Expeditions and Discoveries provides selective access to Harvard’s multidisciplinary records of those expeditions.
