explorers-from-the-united-states

"The history of the world is replete with illustrations to the effect that the greater the ignorance the greater the abomination of unconforming opinion, and the greater the knowledge the greater the charity for dissenting opinions."

"In the past, history has been devoted chiefly to the exploits of heroes and the story of wars; but history is now being speedily reorganized and rewritten upon a scientific basis, to exhibit the growth of culture in all its grand departments. History itself is now a science, and is no longer an art in which men exploit in rhetorical paragraphs."

"Possible ideas and thoughts are vast in number. A distinct word for every distinct idea and thought would require a vast vocabulary. The problem in language is to express many ideas and thoughts with comparatively few words."

"Many years have passed since the exploration, and those who were boys with me in the enterprise are—ah, most of them are dead, and the living are gray with age. Their bronzed, hardy, brave faces come before me as they appeared in the vigor of life; their lithe but powerful forms seem to move around me; and the memory of the men and their heroic deeds, the men and their generous acts, overwhelms me with a joy that seems almost a grief, for it starts a fountain of tears. I was a maimed man; my right arm was gone; and these brave men, these good men, never forgot it. In every danger my safety was their first care, and in every waking hour some kind service was rendered me, and they transfigured my misfortune into a boon."

"We have an unknown distance yet to run, an unknown river to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. Ah, well! we may conjecture many things. The men talk as cheerfully as ever; jests are bandied about freely this morning; but to me the cheer is somber and the jests are ghastly."

"Indian nouns are extremely connotive; that is, the name does more than simply denote the thing to which it belongs; in denoting the object, it also assigns to it some quality or characteristic."

"In science nothing can be permanently accepted but that which is true, and whatever is accepted as true is challenged again and again. It is an axiom in science that no truth can be so sacred that it may not be questioned. When that which has been accepted as true has the least doubt thrown upon it, scientific men at once re-examine the subject. No opinion is sacred. “It ought to be” is never heard in scientific circles. "It seems to be" and "we think it is" is the modest language of scientific literature."

"The verb is relatively of much greater importance in an Indian tongue than in a civilized language."

"The exploration was not made for adventure, but purely for scientific purposes, geographic and geologic, and I had no intention of writing an account of it, but only of recording the scientific results."

"The mountain slopes...are covered with dense forests of pines and firs. The lakes are often fringed with beautiful aspens, and when the autumn winds come their golden leaves are carried over the landscape in clouds of resplendent sheen."

"On the walls, and back many miles into the country, numbers of monument-shaped buttes are observed. So we have a curious ensemble of wonderful features—carved walls, royal arches, glens, alcove gulches, mounds, and monuments. From which of these features shall we select a name? We decide to call it Glen Canyon."

"The landscape everywhere, away from the river, is of rock—cliffs of rock, tables of rock, plateaus of rock, terraces of rock, crags of rock—ten thousand strangely carved forms; rocks everywhere, and no vegetation, no soil, no sand. In long, gentle curves the river winds about these rocks."

"On my return from the first exploration of the canyons of the Colorado, I found that...a story of disaster had been circulated, with many particulars of hardship and tragedy, so that it was currently believed throughout the United States that all the members of the party were lost save one. A good friend of mine had gathered a great number of obituary notices, and it was interesting and rather flattering to me to discover the high esteem in which I had been held by the people of the United States. In my supposed death I had attained to a glory which I fear my continued life has not fully vindicated."

"Scientific education is catholic; it embraces the whole field of human learning. No student can master all knowledge in the short years of his academic life, but a young man of ability and industry may reasonably hope to master the outlines of science, obtain a deep insight into the methods of scientific research, and at the same time secure an initiation into some one of the departments of science, in such a manner that he may fully appreciate the multitude of facts upon which scientific conclusions rest, and be prepared to enter the field of scientific research himself and make additions to the sum of human knowledge."

"The wonders of the Grand Canyon cannot be adequately represented in symbols of speech, nor by speech itself. The resources of the graphic art are taxed beyond their powers in attempting to portray its features. Language and illustration combined must fail. The elements that unite to make the Grand Canyon the most sublime spectacle in nature are multifarious and exceedingly diverse. The Cyclopean forms which result from the sculpture of tempests through ages too long for man to compute, are wrought into endless details, to describe which would be a task equal in magnitude to that of describing the stars of the heavens or the multitudinous beauties of the forest with its traceries of foliage presented by oak and pine and poplar, by beech and linden and hawthorn, by tulip and lily and rose, and by fern and moss and lichen. Besides the elements of form, there are elements of color, for here the colors of the heavens are rivaled by the colors of the rocks. The rainbow is not more replete with hues. But form and color do not exhaust all the divine qualities of the Grand Canyon. It is the land of music. The river thunders in perpetual roar, swelling in floods of music when the storm gods play upon the rocks and fading away in soft and low murmurs when the infinite blue of heaven is unveiled. With the melody of the great tide rising and falling, swelling and vanishing forever, other melodies are heard in the gorges of the lateral canyons, while the waters plunge in the rapids among the rocks or leap in great cataracts. Thus the Grand Canyon is a land of song. Mountains of music swell in the rivers, hills of music billow in the creeks, and meadows of music murmur in the rills that ripple over the rocks. Altogether it is a symphony of multitudinous melodies. All this is the music of waters. The adamant foundations of the earth have been wrought into a sublime harp, upon which the clouds of the heavens play with mighty tempests or with gentle showers.The glories and the beauties of form, color and sound unite in the Grand Canyon—forms unrivaled even by the mountains, colors that vie with sunsets, and sounds that span the diapason from tempest to tinkling raindrop, from cataract to bubbling fountain. But more, it is a vast district of country. Were it a valley plain it would make a State. It can be seen only in parts from hour to hour and from day to day and from week to week and from month to month. A year scarcely suffices to see it all. It has infinite variety, and no part is ever duplicated. Its colors, though many and complex, at any instant change with the ascending and declining sun; lights and shadows appear and vanish with the passing clouds, and the changing seasons mark their passage in changing colors. You cannot see the Grand Canyon in one view, as if it were a changeless spectacle from which a curtain might be lifted, but to see it you have to toil from month to month through its labyrinths. It is a region more difficult to traverse than the Alps or the Himalayas, but if strength and courage are sufficient for the task, by a year’s toil a concept of sublimity can be obtained, never again to be equaled on the hither side of Paradise."

"The integers of language are sentences, and their organs are the parts of speech. Linguistic organization, then, consists in the differentiation of the parts of speech and the integration of the sentence."

"In Ute the name for bear is "he seizes," or "the hugger." In this case the verb is used for the noun, and in so doing the Indian names the bear by predicating one of his characteristics. Thus noun and verb are undifferentiated."

"Scientific education is a training in mental integrity. All along the history of culture from savagery to modern civilization men have imagined what ought to be, and then have tried to prove it true. This is the very spirit of metaphysic philosophy. When the imagination is not disciplined by unrelenting facts, it invents falsehood, and, when error has thus been invented, the heavens and the earth are ransacked for its proof."

"Economy in speech is the force by which its development has been accomplished, and it divides itself properly into economy of utterance and economy of thought. Economy of utterance has had to do with the phonic constitution of words; economy of thought has developed the sentence."

"In Seneca the north is "the sun never goes there," and this sentence may be used as adjective or noun; in such cases noun, adjective, verb, and adverb are found as one vocable or word, and the four parts of speech are undifferentiated."

"Years of drought and famine come and years of flood and famine come, and the climate is not changed with dance, libation or prayer."

"Honest investigation is but the application of common sense to the solution of the unknown. Science does not wait on Genius, but is the companion of Industry."

"Realizing the difficulty of painting in word colors a land so strange, so wonderful, and so vast in its features, in the weakness of my descriptive powers I have sought refuge in graphic illustration."

"(quote from p. 36)"

"While it was generally observed by early travelers among the , that they employed plants for medicinal purposes, it was long believed, even by scientific students, that the practice of Indian doctors was purely . The late Dr. , however, declared from the beginning of his ethnological investigations that the Indians employed many plants of real value in medicine."

"The long winter nights were devoted by the to the ceremonies of their secret fraternities, exhorting their most benevolent gods; rain priests in retreat invoked their anthropic deities for rain to fructify the earth, and elders taught the youths, sitting attentively at their knees by the flickering firelight, the mysteries of their life and religion. Of all the secrets of their lives none is more strictly guarded or more carefully transmitted than the knowledge of healing. The "doctor" instructs in the lore of plants, and the relation of plants to man and beast."

"The children are industrious and patient little creatures, the boys assisting their elders in farming and , and the girls performing their share of domestic duties. A marked trait is their loving-kindness and care for younger brothers and sisters. Every little girl has her own water vase as soon as she is old enough to accompany her mother to the river in capacity of assistant water-carrier, and thus they begin at a very early age to poise the vase, Egyptian fashion, on their heads."

"Whilst the old still occupied the , they were attacked by the to avenge the supposed death of a priest who had been sent among them as a missionary many years before. The priest, feeling himself entirely forgotten by his own people, had identified himself with those among whom he had dwell so long. Apprised of the approach of the hostile Spaniards, the Indians prepared to defend themselves with huge stones to be hurled among the enemy should they attempt to scale the mesa by the only practicable pathway up the almost perpendicular face of the cliff. But when the cause of the hostile demonstration became known to the Indians, the priest in the absence of paper on which to write, scraped a smooth and wrote upon it a message to the attacking party. The skin was fastened to a large stone and thrown down into the valley. Upon this information of the safety of the priest, the Spaniards retired, leaving the Indians undisturbed. This tradition is very similar to the account given in ’ ”Conquest of Mexico,” of 's attack upon , and this author states that "beyond doubt ancient Zuñi and Cibola were the same Pueblo.""

"I dislike hearing people talk about the scientific method. Science is simply the art of understanding nature, including man, of course, using all rational methods. There are a thousand scientific methods, and their only common thread is that they are all rational."

"I do not believe the greatest threat to our future is from bombs or guided missiles. I don’t think our civilization will die that way. I think it will die when we no longer care — when the spiritual forces that make us wish to be right and noble die in the hearts of men. Arnold Toynbee has pointed out that 19 or 21 notable civilizations have died from within and not by conquest from without. There were no bands playing and no flags waving when these civilizations decayed; it happened slowly, in the quiet and the dark when no one was aware. ... "If America is to grow great, we must stop gagging at the word spiritual!" Our task is to rediscover and reassert our faith in the spiritual, nonutilitarian values on which American life has really rested from its beginning."

"Science is not a form of black magic. A thousand blind alleys must often be explored before a right road is found; a thousand amateurs must have their fling before a Darwin or an Einstein comes along."

"Some came for sheer love of adventure and wanted no reward beyond that; some wanted fame or its counterfeit, publicity; some were mercenary and thought primarily in terms of what they were going to get out of it; and lastly there was that small group, the like of which gives character to any expedition of merit — not necessarily scientists at all, but men who could understand the lure, if not the love, of knowledge for its own sake; men who came not for position or money but who found full reward for their effort in the pursuit of an ideal."

"All over Russia princes are as plenty as pickpockets in London."

"I have always remarked, that women, in all countries, are civil and obliging, tender and humane; that they are ever inclined to be gay and chearful, timorous, and modest; and that they do not hesitate, like men, to perform a generous action. Not haughty, not arrogant, not supercilious; they are full of courtesy, and fond of society: more liable in general to err than man, but in general also more virtuous, and performing more good actions than he. To a woman, whether civilized or savage, I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man it has often been otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, and frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar; if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, the women have ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so: and to add to this virtue, (so worthy the appellation of benevolence), these actions have been performed in so free and so kind a manner, that if I was dry I drank the sweetest draught, and, if hungry, I eat the coarse morsel with a double relish."

"Keen's experience on inextricably linked her with the . In 1914 she returned to explore the in , hiring the plucky Handy, a local sourdough, and a topographer from Boston. The later named a section of the near the Harvard Glacier the Dora Keen Range. Keen wrote and gave lectures about her expeditions. She wanted to reach out in particular to other women."

"On May 19, 1912, after 27 days of climbing, Dora (one month shy of her 41st birthday) became the first person to reach the top of Mount Blackburn. When she got home, people flocked to her lectures and photo presentations about her climb. She used her platform to advocate for women’s rights and philanthropic causes. ... END NOTE: In the 1960’s, determined that the highest summit of Mount Blackburn wasn’t actually the eastern side that Dora (and George) climbed but the Western peak which is taller by 200 feet. However, the eastern route is much longer and harder, so many guides today still give her credit for this first ascent."

"... my mother got a phone call from Dora one day. And it was in 1948. And she said to my mother, "Have you decided who you are going to vote for in the for ?" And my mother said, "No, I haven't." "Well," she said, "I'll be up to talk to you about it." And my mother was one vote. And she drove from all the way to for one vote."

", 16,140 ft., and latitude 61º 44', is within 60 ft. of the highest of the . The completion of the , 196 miles long, from to the famous of the , in April, 1911, brought Mt. Blackburn tow within 35 miles of civilization. I had gone to Alaska merely to see the wonderful scenery, of the southwest coast, by boat and train, and because I wished to see the only remaining pioneer region of America. Knowing that I should find no Swiss guides in Alaska, I had no idea of doing any serious mountain climbing. Indeed, it was late in July that I first read of Mt. Blackburn, by chance, in a prospector's cabin, in the wilds of the Kenai Peninsula, where I was hunting for a big brown bear. There, in a Report of the United States Geological Survey, Mt. Blackburn was mentioned as never having been ascended, and as "worthy of the hardiest mountaineer.""

"April, 1912, found her back again at , where she met George W. Handy, in whom she had confidence, and invited him to join the party. With six other men and dog sledges they started up on the 22nd. This time she was determined and would not be stopped if it were humanly possible to succeed. Thirty-three days altogether were spent on the snow and ice, 22 without tents and 10 almost without food. Caves dug in the snow provided shelter up to 12,000 feet. From there, in weather clearing after a succession of severe storms, she and Handy reached the summit on May 19, 8:30 a.m. It had taken four weeks. The view was perfect in every direction for up to 200 miles. The return took three days to Base Camp and two more to ."

"I climb for pleasure, for the wonderful views and the vigorous exertion, for the relaxation of a complete change for mind and body, and because of the inspiration to the spirit. To combine exploration with must, no doubt, so increase the interest as to well repay the augmented difficulties. All I would emphasize is that to climb anywhere repays the effort, even if it must be within reach of civilization and where others have gone before. To me there is ample reward in the uplift of the spirit; in the moral discipline, the keen interest, and the training to think, of a hard battle carefully planned, in the satisfaction of a love of adventure, and in the invigorating physical exercise."

"The ages of the wild, misgiving mystery of the North Pole are over, today, and forever it stands under the folds of Old Glory."

"I think I'm the first person to sit on the top of the world."

"Another world's accomplishment was done and finished, and as in the past, from the beginning of history, wherever the world's work was done by a white man, he had been accompanied by a colored man."

"You know, there’s a limit. You know, at some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed. Don’t get in your car. Don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules."

"I don’t think it’s very dangerous. If you look at submersible activity over the last three decades, there hasn’t even been a major injury, let alone a fatality."

"I have grown tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation and new entrants from entering their small existing market. Since Guillermo and I started OceanGate we have heard the baseless cries of "you are going to kill someone" way too often. I take this as a serious personal insult."

"All that can happen is something on the outside can get hurt. We’re not getting hurt. We are now the safest five people on the planet."

"If you're not breaking things, you're not innovating. If you're operating in a known environment as most submersible manufactures do, they don't break things. To me, the more stuff you've broken, the more innovative you've been."

"I’d like to be remembered as an innovator. I think it was General MacArthur who said: ‘You are remembered for the rules you break’. And I've broken some rules to make this. I think I've broken them with logic and good engineering behind me. Carbon fibre and titanium? There's a rule you don't do that. Well, I did."

"There hasn’t been an injury in the commercial sub industry in over 35 years. It’s obscenely safe."