One of the greatest nineteenth-century scientist-explorers, Alexander von Humboldt traversed the tropical Spanish Americas between 1799 and 1804. By the time of his death in 1859, he had won international fame for his scientific discoveries, his observations of Native American peoples and his detailed descriptions of the flora and fauna of the 'new continent'. The first to draw and speculate on Aztec art, to observe reverse polarity in magnetism and to discover why America is called Americ...

How engineers and clinicians developed the ultrasound diagnostic scanner and how its use in obstetrics became controversial.To its proponents, the ultrasound scanner is a safe, reliable, and indispensable aid to diagnosis. Its detractors, on the other hand, argue that its development and use are driven by the technological enthusiasms of doctors and engineers (and the commercial interests of manufacturers) and not by concern to improve the clinical care of women. I...

In the early years of the 18th century, a band of French scientists set off on a daring, decade-long expedition to South America in a race to measure the precise shape of the earth. Like Lewis and Clark's exploration of the American West, their incredible mission revealed the mysteries of a little-known continent to a world hungry for discovery. Scaling 16,000foot mountains in the Peruvian Andes, and braving jaguars, pumas, insects, and vampire bats in the jungle, the scientists barely com...

The German naturalist and explorer chronicles his 1799 expedition to Central and South America in this classic work of natural history.While the influence of Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) looms large over the natural sciences, his legacy reaches far beyond the field notebooks of naturalists. Humboldt's 1799–1804 research expedition to Central and South America with botanist Aimé Bonpland not only set the course for the great scientific surveys of the nineteenth...

When HMS Beagle sailed out of Devonport on 27 December 1831, Charles Darwin was twenty-two and setting off on the voyage of a lifetime. His journal, here reprinted in a shortened form, shows a naturalist making patient observations concerning geology, natural history, people, places and events. Volcanoes in the Galapagos, the Gossamer spider of Patagonia and the Australasian coral reefs – all are to be found in these extraordinary writings. The insights made here were to set in mo...

The Voyage of the Beagle is a title commonly given to the book written by Charles Darwin as his Journal and Remarks, bringing him considerable fame and respect. The title refers to the second survey expedition of the ship HMS Beagle, which set sail from Plymouth Sound on 27 December 1831 under the command of Captain Robert FitzRoy, R.N..While the expedition was originally planned to last two years, it lasted almost five—the Beagle did not return until 2 October 1836. Darwin spent m...

Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon (French: La Jangada - Huit Cents lieues sur l'Amazone) is a novel by Jules Verne, published in 1881.Unlike many of his other novels, this story does not have any science fiction elements. It is an adventure novel.This novel involves how Joam Garral, a ranch owner who lives near the Peruvian-Brazilian border on the Amazon River, is forced to travel down-stream when his past catches up with him. Most of the novel is situated on a large jangada (a Brazilian...

An engrossing history of the voyages of exploration that ignited curiosity about nature and gave birth to modern science.When Columbus first returned to Spain from the Caribbean, he dazzled King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella with exotic parrots, tropical flowers, and bits of gold. Inspired by the promise of riches, countless seafarers poured out of the Iberian Peninsula and wider Europe in search of spices, treasure, and land. Many returned with strange tales of the New World.

Eating Dirt in Venezuela - Alexander von HumboldtGeographer, geologist, naturalist, anthropologist, physician and philosopher, Baron von Humboldt brought to exploration a greater range of enquiry than any contemporary. Also an indomitable traveller, particularly in the Orinoco/Amazon basin (1799-1804), he often invited danger but always in the cause of scientific observation. The interest of his narratives therefore lies primarily ...

The increasing interest attached to all that part of The American Continent situated within and near The tropics, has suggested The publication of The present edition of Humboldt's celebrated work, as a portion of The SCIENTIFIC LIBRARY. Prior to The travels of Humboldt and Bonpland, The countries described in The following narrative were but imperfectly known to Europeans. For our partial acquaintance with Them we were chiefly indebted to The early navigators, and to some of The followers...

Despite sickness in the final years of his life, Dos Passos presses on for adventure. He and his wife journey to Easter Island, where they explore the history behind the famous statues—called maois.“When I was a small boy,” Dos Passos says, “some kind person took me to the British Museum. There I saw a statue, a huge, rough, dark-gray statue with [a] long, sad, dark-gray face. The statue stared back out of deep, sunken eyes. What was it trying to say? To this day I can remember the...

A great, innovative and restless thinker, the young Humboldt (1769-1859) went on his epochal journey to the New World during a time of revolutionary ferment across Europe. This part of his matchless narrative of adventure and scientific research focuses on his time in Venezuela - in the Llanos and on the Orinoco River - riding and paddling, restlessly and happily noting the extraordinary things on every hand.Great Journeys allows readers to travel both around the planet and back th...