United States or Western Sahara ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
This may be counted as one of the causes of the rather frigid reception accorded to Le Geographe. The only fact that lends any colour to Freycinet's supposition of prejudice, is that the Moniteur article of 27th Thermidor suggested a certain unsatisfactoriness about the charts sent home by Baudin.
Judging from the chart in Freycinet's "Atlas," I should have supposed that it had been regularly fringed; but as nothing is said in the "Hydrog. TONGATABOU: In the "Atlas of the Voyage of the 'Astrolabe'," the whole south side of the island is represented as narrowly fringed by the same reef which forms an extensive platform on the northern side.
Establishment of the First Empire. Reluctance of the French Government to publish a record of the expedition. Report of the Institute. The official history of the voyage authorised. Peron's scientific work. His discovery of Pyrosoma atlanticum. Other scientific memoirs. His views on the modification of species. Geographical results. Freycinet's charts.
It will be understood that we should not follow Freycinet's narrative of past events in the history of this archipelago, were it not that the manuscripts and works of every kind which he was permitted to consult enabled him to treat the subject de novo, and throw upon it the light of real knowledge.
But the public as well as the official mood was conceivably due rather to intense concentration upon national affairs, during a period of amazing transition, than to the prejudice which Freycinet's ruffled pride suggested.
The work could not be dropped, since faith had to be kept with purchasers. It was not "une reduction exacte." The imperial bird had flown, and the names had undergone systematic revision. The Bonaparte family were pitilessly evicted. It was a new and smaller map, with a new allocation of names. Freycinet's name appeared upon it, and he probably wrote the inscription in the corner.
But, it being determined to denominate the land between Wilson's Promontory and Cape Adieu "Terre Napoleon," Westernport might well have been counted as the port of the beginning of the exploration of the territory, and, as such, it would truly have been the Port du Debut. But assuredly there was no mere error on Freycinet's part.
TASMANIA: Eleven Bird Refuges have been created, with a total area of 26,000 acres, an excellent record for Tasmania! Freycinet's Peninsula. At present this wild-life sanctuary is not adequately protected from illicit hunting and trapping; but its full protection is now demanded, and no doubt this soon will be provided by the government.
The circumstances attending the imprisonment of Flinders, and the precipitate haste with which Freycinet's work was pushed forward, undoubtedly furnished prima facie justification for the suspicion, indignantly voiced by contemporary English writers, and which has been hardened into a direct accusation since, that an act of plagiarism was committed, dishonest in itself, and doubly guilty from the circumstances in which it was performed.
M. de Freycinet's study of the problem they present has, however, led him to the conclusion that they existed ab origine, thus testifying rather to the preventive than to the perturbing power of the giant planet. The existence, too, of numerous asteroidal pairs travelling in approximately coincident tracks, must date from a remote antiquity.
Word Of The Day