The Explorers: A Century of Discovery Page #2

---

It went 71 miles an hour for years

the fastest thing on water.

World War I was over.

And people who had fought to save the

world for democracy were more curious

about the world than ever.

Six-hundred-and-fifty-six thousand

of them had joined National Geographic

and received its Magazine,

the pride of 400 employees.

Society headquarters was Hubbard Hall,

named for Gardiner Greene Hubbard,

Bell's father-in-law and

the Society's first president.

Geographic's Magazine combined

education and adventure

in the form of first-person reports

from explorers in the field.

Some of the most colorful accounts

came from a botanist, Joseph Rock.

Daring, arrogant, and difficult,

Rock had a talent for getting into

trouble and living to tell the tale.

On his travels in China and Tibet.

He was often menaced by bandits

and warlords.

Roch always escaped them

and sometimes even got their pictures

for the Magazine.

One of Rock's classic articles told of

his visit to the tiny kingdom of Muli.

Deep in the mountains of Szechuan,

Muli was ruled by a king

who had the power of life

or death over his 22,000 subjects.

Like Shangri-la,

Muli knew little of the outside world.

Rock was told he was

the first American ever to come here.

Summoning Rock to his place,

the King of Muli politely

asked the explorer

if the could ride horseback

to Washington.

He treated Rock kindly,

offering him delicacies

like ancient yak cheese

and mutton crawling with maggots.

By the 1920s the unexplored parts

of the world were rapidly shrinking.

But man's past was like

a hidden continent.

And in 1922 the entrance to

a royal Egyptian tomb was found.

Archeologist Howard Carter and

his sponsor, Lord Carnarvon,

Announced they would open the burial

chamber officially on February 18, 1923

"Can you see anything?"

Lord Carnarvon had asked Carter

when he first looked inside

the tomb three months earlier.

"Yes", Carter had replied.

"I see wonderful things".

It was the tomb of Tutahkhamun.

Nothing like it had been found before

or since a time capsule 3300 years old.

By the end of the 1920s,

National Geographic was prepared

to sponsor major expeditions.

It subscribed $50,000 toward

Richard Byrd's attempt

to fly to the South Pole.

Byrd's ship left New Zealand

in December 1928,

still summer in the Antarctic.

According to Byrd's elaborate plan,

the party would land in Antarctica

and dig in for the winter.

When weather improved in the spring,

he'd attempt the 800mile flight to the

pole over largely unknown territory.

An advance party prepared to travel

overland more than halfway to the pole

They would make geological studies

and stand by to rescue Byrd

if his plane was forced down.

The expedition not only survived

the winter, it prospered.

There were nearly 100 dogs

when the sun set in April.

By August there were many more.

The six men in

the Geological Party departed.

They would be gone almost three months

Byrd planned to drop an American flag

to mark the spot

when he reached the pole.

On November 28, 1929,

a full year after leaving New Zealand,

Byrd decided to go.

A film camera went along and

months later audiences in Washington

would see this movie

of Byrd's adventure.

There they are at the South Pole.

The observations click.

It is 1:
25 in the morning

of November 29th, 1929.

Dick takes out the flag,

weighted with a stone

from Floyd Bennett's grave.

It is the symbol and the monument

of a supreme accomplishment.

Through the trap door the flag

and stone drop together.

There they go down, down forever

at the very bottom of the world.

A nation plunging into

the Great Depression

still gave Richard Byrd

a glorious welcome home.

He received his second

National Geographic modal

at the White house

from President Herbert Hoover.

Your contribution to exploration

and scientific research has done honor

to this country.

Your daring and courage have

thrilled each one of us individually

because they have proved anew the

worth and the glory of the qualities

which we believe are latent

in the American people.

Africa long regarded as

the Dark Continent

and the natural habitat

of the great explorer.

Leading huge safaris deep

into the bush,

Martin Johnson typified a new breed

of showman-explorer.

His wife, Osa, was equally famous

and equally skilled with guns

and their many cameras.

Together the Johnson made a series of

films that brought both the realities

and the clichs of African adventure

vividly to life on the screen.

Scenes of African wildlife thrilled

standing-room-only audiences

at the Johnson's early films

and lectures.

Technology, it seemed,

made anything possible.

Pioneering scientists like

William Beebe were going

where no one had ever been before.

Off Bermuda Beebe tried out

his so-called bathysphere,

lowering the two-ton steel ball-to

a depth of 3,000 feet.

On one test dive the unoccupied

sphere sprang a leak.

Water was trapped inside

at deep-sea pressure.

Releasing it showed what could happen

to a person trapped inside.

Unperturbed, Beebe and his companion,

Otis Barton,

made repairs and then committed

themselves to fate.

Bolted in, dangling on the end

of a steel cable less

than an inch in diameter,

they would be helpless

if anything went wrong.

Descending past 2,000 feet,

Beebe peered out into

the eternal darkness

and glimpsed creatures no one had

ever seen before.

Painted by an artist working from

Beebe's descriptions,

these were like creatures from

another planet,

alien and bizarre.

Another ocean lay above.

Earth's great canopy of air challenged

the explorers.

In 1934, with a hydrogen-filled balloon

National Geographic

and the U.S. Army Air Corps

joined forces to probe

the stratosphere.

A launch site was readied near

Rapid City, South Dakota.

The balloon was launched

on July 28, 1934.

It carried three Air Corps officers

and was called Explorer.

All went well as Explorer soared

above 60,000 feet.

Then, the three men in the gondola

heard ominous sounds and,

seconds later,

realized that the balloon

was tearing open.

Fearing the thin air and

cold at high altitude,

the balloonists dared not use their

parachutes until the last moment.

They escaped just in time.

Explorer shattered on impact.

Almost immediately it was decided

to try again.

A second balloon, Explorer II,

was constructed.

The largest balloon in the world,

it would stand more than 300 feet high

when fully inflated.

In November 1935 Explorer II soared

into the stratosphere,

reaching nearly 14 miles,

a new world record.

After eight hours aloft,

the balloon touched down

in a farmer's pasture.

Casual heroes, wearing helmets borrowed

from a local high-school football team

The crew basked in the admiration

of a crowd that appeared out of

nowhere on the plains of South Dakota.

When World War II began,

Washington changed forever as it

became a wartime boom town.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes