DOCSLIB.ORG

'Ancient Lore with Modern Appliances': Networks, Expertise, and the Making

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
'Ancient Lore with Modern Appliances': Networks, Expertise, and the Making The British Journal for the History of Science (2021), 54, 277–299 doi:10.1017/S0007087421000522 RESEARCH ARTICLE ‘Ancient lore with modern appliances’: networks, expertise, and the making of the Open Polar Sea, 1851–1853 Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund1 and John Woitkowitz2* 1ERC Arctic Cultures Project, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge, Email: nklk2@ cam.ac.uk and 2ERC Arctic Cultures Project, Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge. *Corresponding author: John Woitkowitz, Email: [email protected] Abstract This article provides a transnational analysis of the campaigns for the organization of expeditions to the central Arctic region by the American explorer Elisha Kent Kane and the Prussian cartographer August Petermann between 1851 and 1853. By adopting a comparative approach, this study focuses on three interventions in the history of Arctic science and exploration: the construction of scientific expertise surrounding the relationship between the ‘armchair’ and the field, the role of trans- national networks, and the significance of maps as travelling epistemic objects in the production of knowledge about the Arctic regions. In bringing both campaigns in conversation with each other, this article demonstrates that the histories of Kane’s and Petermann’s campaigns did not con- stitute isolated episodes but form part of a transnational nexus of imperial science and Arctic exploration in the nineteenth century. Moreover, based on research in libraries and archives in the United States, Germany and England, this study reconnects otherwise siloed collections and con- tributes new findings on the interpersonal networks of science and exploration. Finally, this article illustrates the importance of adopting comparative transnational approaches for understanding the fluid and reciprocal nature of Arctic science throughout the transatlantic world. On the evening of 14 December 1852, the American Navy surgeon and explorer Elisha Kent Kane addressed a large crowd who had gathered at a meeting of the American Geographical and Statistical Society (AGSS) to hear from an ‘Arctic celebrity’.1 Following an introduction by the society’s president, George Bancroft, Kane took his audi- ence on a tour of polar exploration history, as well as recent developments in what was increasingly being referred to as the field of physical geography. Kane introduced his listeners to the observations of past Arctic explorers, set out theories of geological and maritime formations, and cited reports of animal life throughout the circumpolar world. In the lecture, Kane sought not only to entertain with an account from his Arctic travels, but also have his audience arrive at one main conclusion: an Open Polar Sea free of ice and rich in maritime life existed, and could be found via the Smith Sound region between the northern reaches of Ellesmere Island, Canada and the western 1 ‘Geographical society – Dr. Kane’s lecture’, New York Daily Times, 14 December 1852, p. 5. © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of British Society for the History of Science. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.126, on 01 Oct 2021 at 04:07:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087421000522 278 Nanna Katrine Lüders Kaalund and John Woitkowitz cost of Greenland.2 Surrounded by applause, Bancroft thanked Kane for presenting his expedition proposal and praised him as a ‘scientific and excellent gentleman’ having earned the respect of his ‘countrymen’. Before adjourning the meeting, the members of the AGSS unanimously approved resolutions to support Kane’s expedition towards the Open Polar Sea through Smith Sound. The lecture at the AGSS and the society’s approval of Kane’s proposed project was an important step towards what would become the second Grinnell expedition which left the US in 1853. The search for an Open Polar Sea, however, attracted intense interest far removed from the congregations of the American learned societies. At the same time, across the Atlantic, the London-based Prussian cartographer and polar neophyte August Petermann stepped into the fray of Arctic geography to advo- cate for an expedition towards the Open Polar Sea. Theories espousing the existence of an Open Polar Sea, a mythical body free of ice atop the world, had been popular amongst European cartographers since the sixteenth cen- tury. Early modern European cartographers and natural philosophers, as well as whalers, inscribed the central Arctic Ocean with sweeping utopias of transpolar shipping routes, or a site for spiritual validation.3 While Indigenous peoples of the circumpolar world trav- elled and lived on coastal formations of sea ice for hunting and fishing, the European gaze envisioned a space commensurate with global commercial and imperial progressiv- ism.4 By the mid-nineteenth century, the pull towards an Open Polar Sea was linked to attempts to construct global climatic theories and to the high-profile disappearance of the Erebus and Terror under the command of John Franklin. Kane and Petermann believed that John Franklin’s lost expedition, which left England in 1845, had reached the Open Polar Sea, and was now unable to return south. Locating John Franklin’s lost expedition was the official aim of Kane’s second Grinnell expedition as well as of Petermann’spro- posed expedition, and their rescue projects were remarkably alike. They presented similar geographical theories in support of their projects, they drew on a shared body of resources, and they lobbied overlapping networks of people and societies for financial and cultural support. Yet the polar campaigns and geographical research of Kane and Petermann have been treated as largely separate projects.5 In addition, Kane and Petermann have typically been perceived as contrasting historical actors, one being a travelling surgeon–explorer and the other a landlocked geographical theorist. In this art- icle, we reconsider the polar campaigns and physical geographies of Kane and Petermann to highlight the existence of a transatlantic network of polar researchers in the mid- nineteenth century. In doing so, we draw on recent literature in the history of science that has problematized the portrayed relationship between the field and the armchair and extend these insights to polar research. As this article shows, rather than working in parallel, Kane and Petermann’s expedition proposals and theoretical understandings of the Open Polar Sea were developed in an international nexus of science, personal ambitions and imperialistic visions of the Arctic space, and each navigated challenges and opportun- ities provided to them through the portrayed boundaries of the field and the armchair. 2 Elisha Kent Kane, ‘Access to an Open Polar Sea along a North American meridian’, Bulletin of the American Geographical and Statistical Society (1853) 1(2), pp. 85–102. 3 Adriana Craciun, ‘The frozen ocean’, Publications of the Modern Language Association of America (2010) 125(3), pp. 693–7; Michael F. Robinson, ‘Reconsidering the theory of the Open Polar Sea’, in Keith R. Benson and Helen M. Rozwadowski (eds.), Extremes: Oceanography’s Adventures, Sagamore Beach: Watson Publishing, 2007, pp. 16–18. 4 Claudio Aporta, ‘The trail as home: Inuit and their pan-arctic network of routes’, Human Ecology (2009) 37(2), pp. 131–46; Michael Bravo, North Pole: Nature and Culture, London: Reaktion Books, 2019, pp. 18–29. 5 Philipp Felsch, Wie August Petermann den Nordpol erfand, Munich: Luchterhand Literaturverlag, 2010; Michael F. Robinson, The Coldest Crucible: Arctic Exploration and American Culture, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010; Robinson, op. cit. (3). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.202.126, on 01 Oct 2021 at 04:07:58, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007087421000522 The British Journal for the History of Science 279 By way of a comparative case study of two advocates of Arctic exploration in search of the mythical Open Polar Sea, this article is centred around three interventions: the rela- tionship between the armchair and the field, the necessity of adopting transnational approaches to polar research, and the significance of maps as travelling epistemic objects. In a first step, we situate the history of Arctic exploration and the debate over the Open Polar Sea within the broader historical context of nineteenth-century American expan- sionism and imperial Arctic science. Kane’s organization of the second Grinnell expedition and the search for the Open Polar Sea is closely tied to personal ambition and a push to expand commercial, scientific and political interests into the Arctic regions. As with Kane, Petermann also sought to draw on imperialistic impulses of governmental and private funders in Britain to mobilize support for his proposed venture and his cartographical theories. In a second step, we interrogate how Kane and Petermann each sought to por- tray themselves as authoritative experts on Arctic phenomena when seeking to secure backers in an international
Load more

Recommended publications
  • State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification As A
    State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy? Archiv zur DDR-Staatssicherheit on behalf of the Federal Commissioner for the Records of the State Security Service of the former German Democratic Republic edited by Dagmar Unverhau Volume 7 LIT Dagmar Unverhau (Ed.) State Security and Mapping in the GDR Map Falsification as a Consequence of Excessive Secrecy? Lectures to the conference of the BStU from 8th –9th March 2001 in Berlin LIT Any opinions expressed in this series represent the authors’ personal views only. Translation: Eubylon Berlin Copy editor: Textpraxis Hamburg, Michael Mundhenk Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.ddb.de. ISBN 3-8258-9039-2 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library © LIT VERLAG Berlin 2006 Auslieferung/Verlagskontakt: Grevener Str./Fresnostr. 2 48159 Münster Tel.+49 (0)251–620320 Fax +49 (0)251–231972 e-Mail: [email protected] http://www.lit-verlag.de Distributed in the UK by: Global Book Marketing, 99B Wallis Rd, London, E9 5LN Phone: +44 (0) 20 8533 5800 – Fax: +44 (0) 1600 775 663 http://www.centralbooks.co.uk/acatalog/search.html Distributed in North America by: Phone: +1 (732) 445 - 2280 Fax: + 1 (732) 445 - 3138 Transaction Publishers for orders (U. S. only): Rutgers University toll free (888) 999 - 6778 35 Berrue Circle e-mail: Piscataway, NJ 08854 [email protected] FOREWORD TO THE ENGLISH EDITION My maternal grandmother liked maxims, especially ones that rhyme.
    [Show full text]
  • Elisha Kent Kane (1820-1857)
    I78 ARCTIC PROFILES Elisha Kent Kane (1 820-1857) The first American arctic explorer of note, Elisha Kent Kane north up the west coast of Greenland to latitude 78”N, where was a man of broad interests and varied talents. Although he the Advunce was icebound and never released. Two of Kane’s died when he was only 37 years old, he distinguished himself crew continued by sled and on foot to 81 “22’N. “the northern- as a career naval officer, medical doctor, scientist, author, and mostland ever trodden by awhite man,” where they saw artist, and his death inspired a funeral procession by train from “open water stretching to the nothern horizon. The unending New Orleans to the home of his birth in Philadelphia. Eulogies shore line waswashed by shiningwaters without a sign of hailed Kane as America’s “Arctic Columbus”. ice.” Kane, believing this to’be the scientific culmination of theirjourney, declared: “The great North Sea, the Polynia has Well-travelled prior to his mid-century arctic voyages, Kane been reached.” had journeyed through South America, Africa, Europe, and the Far East. Small of stature and physically frail as a result of By the spring of 1855, after three bummers and two winters a rheumatica ‘heart, the naval doctor neverthelesssought that proved far harsher and more impoverished than the men’s challenges of physical endurance, which led to his volunteer- most pessimistic fears, Kane and his crew faced imminent star- ing for the arduous U.S. polar expedition in 1850 as ship’s vation. Consequentunrest and disloyalty, coupledwith the surgeon and again in 1853 as leader.
    [Show full text]
  • Rather Than Imposing Thematic Unity Or Predefining a Common Theoretical
    The Supernatural Arctic: An Exploration Shane McCorristine, University College Dublin Abstract The magnetic attraction of the North exposed a matrix of motivations for discovery service in nineteenth-century culture: dreams of wealth, escape, extreme tourism, geopolitics, scientific advancement, and ideological attainment were all prominent factors in the outfitting expeditions. Yet beneath this „exoteric‟ matrix lay a complex „esoteric‟ matrix of motivations which included the compelling themes of the sublime, the supernatural, and the spiritual. This essay, which pivots around the Franklin expedition of 1845-1848, is intended to be an exploration which suggests an intertextuality across Arctic time and geography that was co-ordinated by the lure of the supernatural. * * * Introduction In his classic account of Scott‟s Antarctic expedition Apsley Cherry- Garrard noted that “Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time which has been devised”.1 If there is one single question that has been asked of generations upon generations of polar explorers it is, Why?: Why go through such ordeals, experience such hardship, and take such risks in order to get from one place on the map to another? From an historical point of view, with an apparent fifty per cent death rate on polar voyages in the long nineteenth century amid disaster after disaster, the weird attraction of the poles in the modern age remains a curious fact.2 It is a less curious fact that the question cui bono? also featured prominently in Western thinking about polar exploration, particularly when American expeditions entered the Arctic 1 Apsley Cherry-Garrard, The Worst Journey in the World.
    [Show full text]
  • ARCTIC Exploration the SEARCH for FRANKLIN
    CATALOGUE THREE HUNDRED TWENTY-EIGHT ARCTIC EXPLORATION & THE SeaRCH FOR FRANKLIN WILLIAM REESE COMPANY 409 Temple Street New Haven, CT 06511 (203) 789-8081 A Note This catalogue is devoted to Arctic exploration, the search for the Northwest Passage, and the later search for Sir John Franklin. It features many volumes from a distinguished private collection recently purchased by us, and only a few of the items here have appeared in previous catalogues. Notable works are the famous Drage account of 1749, many of the works of naturalist/explorer Sir John Richardson, many of the accounts of Franklin search expeditions from the 1850s, a lovely set of Parry’s voyages, a large number of the Admiralty “Blue Books” related to the search for Franklin, and many other classic narratives. This is one of 75 copies of this catalogue specially printed in color. Available on request or via our website are our recent catalogues: 320 Manuscripts & Archives, 322 Forty Years a Bookseller, 323 For Readers of All Ages: Recent Acquisitions in Americana, 324 American Military History, 326 Travellers & the American Scene, and 327 World Travel & Voyages; Bulletins 36 American Views & Cartography, 37 Flat: Single Sig- nificant Sheets, 38 Images of the American West, and 39 Manuscripts; e-lists (only available on our website) The Annex Flat Files: An Illustrated Americana Miscellany, Here a Map, There a Map, Everywhere a Map..., and Original Works of Art, and many more topical lists. Some of our catalogues, as well as some recent topical lists, are now posted on the internet at www.reeseco.com.
    [Show full text]
  • Journalistic Cartography
    ized course in cartography was offered on a regular ba- sis, a rarity at that time. During his career he published what he was to call “the six-six world map giving larger, better continents” (Jefferson 1930). This eliminated J much ocean, allowing larger landmasses, and became popular in the classroom. It is probable that Jefferson taught more than 10,000 Jefferson, Mark Sylvester William. Mark Sylvester students, of whom 80 percent became teachers who fur- William Jefferson was born the seventh child of Daniel ther spread the cartographic habit. Most distinguished and Mary Jefferson on 1 March 1863 in Melrose, Mas- among these students were Isaiah Bowman, R D Calkins, sachusetts. His father, a lover of literature, nurtured the Charles C. Colby, Darrell Haug Davis, William M. Greg- young Mark, who became a member of the class of 1884 ory, George J. Miller, and A. E. Parkins. Of these, Bow- at Boston University. Academic success led to his ap- man, Colby, and Parkins were elected to the presidency pointment (1883–86) as assistant to Benjamin Apthorp of the Association of American Geographers, an honor Gould, director and astronomer of the National Ob- accorded Jefferson in 1916. When Bowman became di- servatory of the Argentine Republic at Cordoba, mem- rector of the American Geographical Society in 1915, he bership in the Argentine Geographical Society (1885), corresponded vigorously with his former teacher, whom and management of a sugar estate in Tucuman Province he invited to head the 1:1,000,000-scale Hispanic map (1886–89). Jefferson returned to Massachusetts, taught project of the Society.
    [Show full text]
  • Polar Catalogue 2019
    AQUILA BOOKS POLAR CATALOGUE SPRING 2019 2 AQUILA BOOKS Box 75035, Cambrian Postal Outlet Calgary, AB T2K 6J8 Canada Cameron Treleaven, Proprietor A.B.A.C. / I.L.A.B., P.B.F.A., F.R.G.S. Email all inquiries and orders to: [email protected] Or call us: 1(403)282-5832 or 1(888)777-5832(toll-free in North America) Dear Polar collectors, Welcome to old and new friends. It has been almost a full year since the last catalogue and over this time a lot of changes have occurred around the shop. First of all, the shop is now only open Monday to Friday by appointment. There is almost always someone here but we ask anyone making a special trip to phone ahead. We are still open on Saturdays from 10:30 to 4 pm. We have also hired a new staff member, Lesley Ball. She will be working half time and you may meet her if you call with an order. This year we gave the California fairs a miss, but Katie and I had a great time in New York this year, meeting a number of customers, both old and new, at the fair. We also now have an Instagram page which Katie maintains for us; please check us out at aquila_books for the latest news and a great image of our booth at the New York fair. My daughter Emma and I will be exhibiting at the new “Firsts” fair in London from June 7 to 9th at Battersea Park. Let us know if you need tickets or if you want us to bring along anything to view.
    [Show full text]
  • The Illawarra Diary of Lady Jane Franklin, 10-17 May 1839
    University of Wollongong Research Online Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice- Senior Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Deputy Vice- Chancellor (Education) - Papers Chancellor (Education) 1-9-1988 The Illawarra Diary of Lady Jane Franklin, 10-17 May 1839 Michael K. Organ University of Wollongong, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons, and the Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons Recommended Citation Organ, Michael K.: The Illawarra Diary of Lady Jane Franklin, 10-17 May 1839 1988. https://ro.uow.edu.au/asdpapers/34 Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library: [email protected] The Illawarra Diary of Lady Jane Franklin, 10-17 May 1839 Abstract Jane Franklin, the wife of Sir John Franklin, Governor of Tasmania, travelled overland from Port Phillip to Sydney in 1839. During the trip she kept detailed diary notes and wrote a number of letters. Between 10-17 May 1839 she journeyed to the Illawarra region on the coast of New South Wales. A transcription of the original diary notes is presented, along with descriptive introduction to the life and times of Jane Franklin. Disciplines Arts and Humanities | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details This booklet was originally published as Organ, M (ed), The Illawarra Diary of Lady Jane Franklin, 10-17 May 1839, Illawarra Historical Publications, 1988, 51p. This book is available at Research Online:
    [Show full text]
  • Dr. Elisha Kent Kane1
    PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN ALMOST MENTIONED IN WALDEN: DR. ELISHA KENT KANE1 “You shall not be overbold When you deal with Arctic cold.” — Waldo Emerson “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY 1. Refer to the chapter “The Lost-Boy Complex in 19th-Century Exploration” in Eric Leed’s SHORES OF DISCOVERY: HOW EXPEDITIONARIES HAVE CONSTRUCTED THE WORLD (NY: HarperCollins BasicBooks, 1995). HDT WHAT? INDEX THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: DR. ELISHA KENT KANE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN WALDEN: What does Africa, –what does the West stand for? Is not our own interior white on the chart? black though it may prove, like the coast, PEOPLE OF when discovered. Is it the source of the Nile, or the Niger, or the WALDEN Mississippi, or a North-West Passage around this continent, that we would find? Are these the problems which most concern mankind? Is Franklin the only man who is lost, that his wife should be so earnest to find him? Does Mr. Grinnell know where he himself is? Be rather the Mungo Park, the Lewis and Clarke and Frobisher, of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes, –with shiploads of preserved meats to support you, if they be necessary; and pile the empty cans sky-high for a sign. Were preserved meats invented to preserve meat merely? Nay, be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought. Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the ice.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 11 Heinrich Berghaus's Map of Human Diseases
    Chapter 11 Heinrich Berghaus's Map of Human Diseases JANE R CAMERINI The first major atlas ofworldwide thematic maps was completed in 1848, consisting of some 90 maps in two volumes. Created by Heinrich Berghaus at the Geographische Kunstschule in Potsdam, the Physikalischer Atlas (PhysicalAtlas) reflected the intense interest and activity in mapping a wide range of natural phenomena in the first part of the nineteenth century. The intent of this essay is to contextualize Berghaus's 1848 map of diseases, the earliest world map in an atlas showing the geographical distribution of epidemic and endemic human diseases (Figure 1).1 This world map of human diseases is a well-known landmark in the history of medical cartography, representing both a synthesis of the early period of medical mapping and a source from which popular and increasingly focused epidemiological maps developed.2 In situating the Berghaus disease map in the context of its makers and of the history of thematic cartography, I will argue that the map participated in a major shift in how natural phenomena were studied. This shift in conceptualizing and representing the natural world has been confounded with the notion of "Humboldtian science", and I hope to begin here to put Humboldt, Berghaus, and mid-nineteenth-century medical mapping in a larger perspective.3 In spite of the interest in place, climate, and disease dating back to the Hippocratic era (450-350 BC), the use of geographic maps to enhance the understanding of disease did not emerge until the late eighteenth century, with rapid development by Jane Camerini, Department of History of Science, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA.
    [Show full text]
  • A Selection of Books, Maps and Manuscripts on the Northwest Passage in the British Library
    A selection of books, maps and manuscripts on the Northwest Passage in the British Library Early approaches John Cabot (1425-c1500 and Sebastian Cabot (1474-1557) "A brief somme of Geographia" includes description of a voyage made by Roger Barlow and Henry Latimer for Robert Thorne in company with Sebastian Cabot in 1526-1527. The notes on a Northern passage at the end are practically a repetition of what Thorne had advocated to the King in 1527. BL: Royal 18 B XXVIII [Manuscripts] "A note of S. Gabotes voyage of discoverie taken out of an old chronicle" / written by Robert Fabyan. In: Divers voyages touching the discouerie of America / R. H. [i.e. Richard Hakluyt]. London, 1582. BL: C.21.b.35 Between the title and signature A of this volume there are five leaves containing "The names of certaine late travaylers"etc., "A very late and great probabilitie of a passage by the Northwest part of America" and "An epistle dedicatorie ... to Master Phillip Sidney Esquire" Another copy with maps is at BL: G.6532 A memoir of Sebastian Cabot; with a review of the history of maritime discovery / [by Richard Biddle]; illustrated by documents from the Rolls, now first published. London: Hurst, Chance, 1831. 333p BL: 1202.k.9 Another copy is at BL: G.1930 and other editions include Philadelphia, 1831 at BL: 10408.f.21 and Philadelphia 1915 (with a portrait of Cabot) at BL: 10408.o.23 The remarkable life, adventures, and discoveries of Sebastian Cabot / J. F. Nicholls. London: Sampson, Low and Marston, 1869.
    [Show full text]
  • The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure
    The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure Jonathan M. Karpoff Independent Institute Working Paper Number 23 June 2000 100 Swan Way, Oakland, CA 94621-1428 • 510-632-1366 • Fax: 510-568-6040 • Email: [email protected] • http://www.independent.org Public Versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure Jonathan M. Karpoff Norman J. Metcalfe Professor of Finance School of Business University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195 206-685-4954 [email protected] First draft: January 6, 1999 Third revision: January 24, 2000 I thank Peter Conroy for research assistance, and Helen Adams, George Benston, Mike Buesseler, Harry DeAngelo, Linda DeAngelo, Wayne Ferson, Alan Hess, Charles Laird, Paul Malatesta, John Matsusaka, Dave Mayers, Harold Mulherin, Jeff Netter, Jeff Pontiff, Russell Potter, Ed Rice, Sherwin Rosen, Sunil Wahal, Ralph Walkling, Mark White, an anonymous referee, and participants at seminars at the 1999 Arizona Finance Conference, the University of Alabama, University of British Columbia, Emory University, University of Georgia, University of Southern California, Texas A&M University, and the University of Washington for helpful comments. Public Versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure Abstract From 1818 to 1909, 35 government and 57 privately-funded expeditions sought to locate and navigate a Northwest Passage, discover the North Pole, and make other significant discoveries in arctic regions. Most major arctic discoveries were made by private expeditions. Most tragedies were publicly funded. By other measures as well, publicly-funded expeditions performed poorly. On average, 5.9 (8.9%) of their crew members died per outing, compared to 0.9 (6.0%) for private expeditions.
    [Show full text]
  • Hopes, Hazards and a Haggle: Perthes' Ten Sheet “Karte Von Inner
    International Symposium on “Old Worlds-New Worlds”: The History of Colonial Cartography 1750-1950 Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands, 21 to 23 August 2006 Working Group on the History of Colonial Cartography in the 19th and 20 th centuries International Cartographic Association (ICA-ACI) Hopes, Hazards and a Haggle: Perthes’ Ten Sheet “Karte von Inner-Afrika” Imre Josef Demhardt Privatdozent Dr. phil., Geographisches Institut der Technischen Universität Darmstadt [email protected] Abstract The rise to fame both of Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen and its dynamic founding editor August Petermann justifiably is closest related to their contributions in unveiling the unknown interior of Africa. Against a background sketch of Petermann’s cartographical concept and working method this paper discusses a major map-series of the pre-colonial era jointly compiled with Bruno Hassenstein – the ten sheet “Karte von Inner-Afrika nach dem Stande der geographischen Kenntnis in den Jahren 1861 bis 1863”. Inaugurated as a guiding tool for the Deutsche Inner-Afrika Expedition (1861-62), propagated and organised by Petermann to salvage manuscripts of Eduard Vogel, who got lost in 1856 east of Lake Chad, however, the main purpose was to provide an up-to-date framework of all obtainable knowledge in the scale 1:2 millions supplemented by anticipated exclusive and extensive research exploration reports of the journal’s own expedition. Although the map-series remained a torso – the high hopes placed in the expedition failed with almost no cartographical gain due to inexperience and misfortune – it stands as arguably opus magnum of 19th century exploratory cartography of Central Africa drawing on many never before and never again constructed route itineraries.
    [Show full text]