Enjoyable exploration and preservation of areas of pristine beauty

" The Explorers: A Century of Discovery " In Washington, D.C. the Trustees of//the National Geographic Societygatherto have a formal portrait taken. The picture will help commemorate//the Society's Centennial. In 1988 Geographic completes//one hundred years of exploration, research, and education. Everybody looking right at the lens. Ready? All right. Okay. Fine. Right here. Nice big smile now. Come on. Here, in 1913, //a similar photograph was taken. Back then, the highest mountain//had yet to be climbed, and no one knew the ocean deep, or what fire illuminates the stars. All this lay in the futurethe greatest adventure mankind//has ever known. The explorers have left monuments//all over the world. One of the most meaningful, //and at the same time little-known, is to be found high on a hilltop//in Nova Scotia. Here, alone with the sigh of the wind, are the graves of Alexander Graham Bell//and his wife, Mabel. Bell called their estate here//Beinn Bhreagh, or " beautiful mountain " In the late 1800s Bell spent much of//his time promotingthe National Geographic Society. It was the favorite preoccupations//of a manwhose boundless creativity//changed everyone's life forever. Inventing the telephone made//Bell's fortune. It also freed him to pursue//his many interestsand enjoy his growing family. Enthusiastic, generous, //and warmhearted, Bell became a grandfather figure//to the world. When young Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor//caught the eyeof Bell's elder daughter, Elsie, Bell offered him a job in Washington. The couple was married in 1900. They set up housekeeping not far//from Grosvenor's officeat 15th Street and Pennsylvania AvenueIt was an exciting time to be alive. Americans were thrilled//by modern innovationsand their growing political power. Grosvenor became the first full-time//employee of National Geographic, Which was kept going mainly///be Bell's contributions. In a tiny office sometimes piled high//with unsold Magazines, Grosvenor worked to realize Bell's hopethat Geographic's journal could//somehow pay the Society's way. From its first issue the Magazine//had been a liability. It had been called " suitable for//diffusing geographic knowledge amongthose who already had it, ///and scaring off the rest ". It often featured day, scholarly articles not meant//for the general public. But there were also pictures//photographs of far-away peopleand places that stirred//the imagination. When be became Managing Editor in 1900Grosvenor started publishing//more photographs, selected according to one of//his favorite maxims: " The mind must see//before it can believe ". A famous Geographic tradition//began in 1896 with this picture. Grosvenor stoutly defended the policy//of showing people dressed, or undressed, //according to the customs in their landAt the turn of the centurythe eye of the camera//was capable of wondrous revelations. In 1906 an entire issue of//National Geographic was devotedto portraits of animals taken//in the wild. Photographer George Shiras sneaked up//on his subjects at nightwith a camera and//explosive flash powder. His pictures astonished the world. With a later technique Shiras//startled animalswith a blank gun shotand then captured them//an instant later in ghostly flight. Geographic and its Magazine//soon prosperedand more innovations followedEven before true color photography//was practical, colored pictures were publishedby hand tinting black-and-white prints//according to notes the photographerhad made in the field. Purists found these pictures artificialbut readers loved them just the same. From the beginning the most popular//Geographic authors were explorers. The Magazine made history in 1909when it published Robert Peary's//account of discovering the North Pole. Peary once wrote: I shall not be//satisfied that I have done my bestuntil name is known from one end of//the world to the other. Peary's closest associatewas the pioneering black explorer//Mattew Henson. In 1908 he and Peary set out together//on their fourth polar expedition. On March 1, 1909. //Peary set off for the pole. According to plan, the rest of the party turned back//as supplies ran down. After a month only Peary, Henson, and four Eskimos were left to press on//with the dogs. Peary's account of the next few days//remains controversial. He reported good weather//and excellent progress. Later, some thought his story too//good to be true. In any event, Peary reported he reached the pole//on April 6, 1909. Peary wrote in his diary:// " The Pole at last! Linking hands with Roald Amundsenwho reached the South Pole//two years later, Robert Peary found the fame//he had sought so long. In 1913 he and Amundsen met//for the first timewhen being honored//by the National Geographic. Hardly less pleased were Dr. Belland his son-in-law Gilbert Grosvenor. National Geographic was a going concernand Bell was delighted to have it//all in the family. Grosvenor's decorum veiled his daring//and ambition. He took quite literally Bell's//expansive admonition that " the world and all that is//in it is our theme ". Some four years after//the sensation over Peary, another explorer became//a household name. Hiram Bingham was a professor//of Latin American history at Yale. In search of a fabled lost city, //he traveled to Peru. So he found Machu Picchu, Abandoned by the Incas 450 years ago, The first National Geographic//archaeological grantwas made to help clear//and map the colossal ruins. It took more than $20,000 and months//of labor to reveal them all. In 1917 one of the first//National Geographic expeditionsto be documented in motion pictures//explored a rare freak of naturethe Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes//in Alaska. This bizarre landscape was//the aftermathof a gigantic volcanic explosion//several years before. In this nightmare world, superheated steam hissed//from millions of ventsand often, it seemed, //the ground itself was aliveScientists attempted to explore//the larger fissures, but barely escaped being boiled alive. More than half a million members//now shared in the explorationof such natural wonders. And the home of Alexander Graham Bellhad become the unofficial summer//headquarter of the National GeographiC$on holidays the hard-pressed Grosvenor//set up his office in a tenton the lawn of Beinn Bhreagh. On these visits the//Grosvenor children enchantedtheir legendary Grandfather Bell. The great inventor was over 60, //but still a bold explorer. He astonished and sometimes alarmedhis Nova Scotia neighbors//with his odd inventions. Giant kites made up of tetrahedral//cells were Bell's obsession. They taught him much about aeronauticsand some were large enough//to life a man. Bell's avid interest in aviation//culminated in 1909with the first flight in Canada//by a powered airplane. One of Bell's last experiments was//a hydrofoil speedboat called the HD-4. It worked perfectly. 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 curiousabout the world than ever. Six-hundred-and-fifty-six thousand//of them had joined National Geographicand 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 adventurein 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 themand 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 lifeor death over his 22,000 subjects. *** TRANSLATION ENDS HERE *** 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. Archaeologist 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 cliches 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. But the National Geographic//remained much the same. The Magazine had become a fixture in//school libraries and doctor's offices. Society members wrote to editors as//if they were old friends. And almost all collected the Magazine because they couldn't bear//to throw it away. Techniques of color reproduction were//by now far advanced. And no one published more//or finer color photographs than National Geographic. There could only be one subject for the first color cover,//published the war. But not until 1959 did a picture on//the cover become a regular feature. Wherever war did not reach,//explorers carried on. A number of expeditions to Mexico,//led by Dr. Matthew Stirling, revealed a mysterious pre-Columbian//culture called the Olmec. A series of dramatic discoveries//included the excavation of a gigantic stone head//weighing 25 tons. The work pushed the existence of//pre-Columbian civilization in America further into antiquity and carried on a Geographic tradition of leadership//in New World archaeology. The war had barely ended when,//on the coast of France, a new species of man appeared. Led by Jacques-Yves Cousteau, these creatures, awkward on land, were originally called "fish men". Co-inventor of the Aqua-Lung Cousteau//revolutionized undersea exploration. National Geographic photographer//Luis Marden eagerly followed Cousteau into a dazzling new world. Cousteau once remarked: when we are invited to//live on this earth. There is no reason we should not//visit the basement. But unlike some explorers before him,//Cousteau sought not to conquer but to cherish the//creatures of the sea. By the 1950s there were//few places on earth that did not bear the mark of man. One of them was the summit//of Mount Everest, 29,028 feet high, the last great prize of//the classic explorer. An era came to an end with//this National Geographic article and when President Dwight Eisenhower//gave the Society's Hubbard Medal to the British Everest//Expedition leader, Sir John Hunt,//and climber Sir Edmund Hillary. But there would be new adventures//and new ways to share them. The first National Geographic//TV Special documented the American expedition to Everest,//led by Norman Dyhrenfurth. The climbing team of 19 Americans and 32 Nepaless Sherpas//made the attempt. And, on television, tens of millions//would later share the adventure. And on the morning of May 1st, the peak is boiling in//its plume of snow. Those below were sure that there//would be no summit attempt that day. But they were wrong. Big Jim and Gombu decide to//make their try, and for hour after hour inch up the//battlements of the Southeast Ridge. For a while Norman Dyhrenfurth and//Ang Dawa climb after them. But the cold is too bitter,//the wind too fierce. Filmmaking is all but impossible. At last Norman and Ang Dawa turn back. Jim and Gombu go on alone. At last... They are there on top of the world. Jim Whittaker and Nawang Gombu. At one o'clock on the afternoon//of May first, whittaker planted the American//flag on the summit, and with it the flag of//the National Geographic Society. These are the first moving pictures//ever taken from the summit of Everest. Some one-and-a-half//million photographs more than forty thousand rolls of film are//turned in here in Washington each year. It's a staggering task merely to//catalog and store them. All the elements are there. Nice lady with her family. The world, and all that is in it that//was Alexander Graham Bell's modest description of the Society's mission. So editors, writers,//and researchers try valiantly to do the impossible in books and other publications,//maps and films as well as the 12 annual//issues of the Magazine. A typical mind-boggling//Geographic statistic: the press run of one Magazine issue//would make a stack 53 miles high. The original vision of Gilbert//Grosvenor had been far exceeded by the time of his death in 1966. Leadership has passed to his son,//Melville Bell Grosvenor, Editor of the Magazine for//ten brilliant years. Now Gilbert M. Grosvenor is//President of the Society, continuing family traditions that//have taken him all over the world, and even to the North Pole. I think it all started when my//grandfather flew over the North Pole. And this was, I guess, in about maybe//the 50s early 50s because I was still in college. And he sent us a little postcard. It had the North Pole//and it had the lines of longitude and latitude//and where they all met. And he signed it and said,//I flew over the footsteps of Robert E. And then my father he//flew over the North Pole, and he did the same thing. He sent me a postcard. And I was kind of getting//tired of this. Gilbert Grosvenor's visit the//pole had a new twist. Accompanied by underwater//photographer Al Giddings and Canadian explorer Joe MacInnis, he would join the select few who have ventured under//the ice at 90�XNorth. Under six feet of ice, in 29�Xwater, human life hangs by//the slenderest of threads. As fragile as the flame//of a single candle, the human spirit trembles here, Even as it did in the time of Peary. Have you ever? Have you ever? Seventy years ago this flag came to//the North Pole with Robert E. Peary. Terrific. And it's a great pleasure//to bring it back. We say we have explored the earth. But there are still regions almost as//remote as the surface of the moon. Most dramatically, seven-tenths of the earth'surface//is covered with water, and we have only a hazy idea of what//is hidden beneath the waves. You ready for me? This is "Project Beebe", a pioneering study of//life in the deep ocean. The remarkable Dr. Eugenie Clark, University of Maryland zoologist//and shark expert, is the principal scientist. I don't know about that laser the//laser-sighted Canon on the front. The project is the brainchild//of Emory Kristof, A National Geographic photographer who is an expert on deep-sea//exploration and photography. Aboard the research submersible//Pisces VI, Dr.Clark will descend several thousand//feet to the ocean floor and remain there up to 12 hours. She'll use the submersible as a//deep-sea observation post, attracting marine animals with bait. Here off Bermuda, William Beebe made//his epic dives 50 years ago. And the curiosity that drove him//now inspires Dr. Clark. Never though I'd be doing this. You know, as a child, I worshipped//Beebe and read all his books and wanted to go down in the//bathysphere the way he did. Never really though I'd do it,//but I wanted to. This one is huge. This one is big. Oh, my gosh! Within minutes deep-sea sharks appear. Up to 20 feet long, these sixgill sharks have only rarely//been seen alive. Yeah, it really is exciting. Wow! You ought to see the//size of this one. We've got the biggest one so far. He's right outside the window now. It will take generations to fully//explore this mysterious deep frontier. And no one can say what strange//creatures we may someday discover here. Off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, National Geographic has helped//explore an ancient ship that was wrecked here 3,400 years ago. Now a word about//what we're doing today. We're working in the upper part of the//wreck and finding it just thick with amphoras and//ingots and so forth. And so I want you to//just to hand-fan down... George Bass is from//Texas A & M University. One of the world's leading//nautical archaeologists, He has been completely absorbed//by a small plot of seabed 50 yards from shore and//some 150 feet down. Slowly, the evidence mounts up. Bass and his team have//gained unprecedented knowledge of such an ancient ship. It was about 50 feet long and carried goods of at//least seven different cultures, including pottery, ivory, tin,//and the oldest glass ingots ever found. But the principal cargo was copper some 200 ingots,//each weighing about 60 pounds. When combined with tin,//such ingots make bronze, and the wreck did prove to be of//the Late Bronze Age the oldest shipwreck known. In 1986 an expedition from Woods Hole,//Massachusetts, sought to explore the most celebrated//shipwreck of modern times A luxury liner that sank in 1912//with a loss of more than 1,500 lives. For years the grave of the Titanic has//fascinated Dr. Robert Ballard. Now he has pinpointed the wreck//and hear echoes of tragedy. Here lies Titanic, seen again by human//eyes after 74 dark and silent years. Ballard leached Titanic with Alvin, a manned submersible//designed for deep-sea research. Knowing that Titanic could be//desecrated by salvagers, Dr. Ballard felt it necessary//to leave a plaque here asking that she be left intact. But only a year passed before a rival//expedition reached the wreck and took objects from Titanic. Someday we may see beneath the waves//with godlike ease and penetrate countless mysteries. There is a great void//in the story of early man. And this tantalized a scientist named//Louis Leakey are lured him to a place in Africa//called Olduvai Gorge. And now I'm down//at the bottom of the gorge. My feet are resting on the black//lava which formed the old land surface on//which these lake beds formed. And here behind me are the earliest//part of the Olduvai series, deposits that were formed just//nearly two million years ago. It was here that, in 1931, we first found examples of//simple tools like this, Just a water-worn pebble with a jagged cutting edge stone tools//that go back to a very, very remote past in time, nearly three times as old as//anything previously found. Who were the men who made these tools? Where did they live//and how did they live? And that was the problem//that Mary and I went out to look for. We wanted the answer: Who these men? In 1959 Leakey and his wife, Mary,//found the fossil jaw of Zinjanthropus, a primitive form of ape-man who lived one-and-three-quarter//million years ago. The find stunned the scientific world. For 30 years the Leakeys had//faced skepticism and ridicule. Now at last they found support as National Geographic//underwrote their research. Melville Bell Grosvenor made a//commitment to the Leakey's work that would endure for a//quarter of a century. Leakey's son Richard//also became a leading scientist. In 1984 a team led by Richard Leakey found the nearly complete skeleton//of an early human one-and-a-half//million years old. The Leakey legacy endures the now accepted ideas//that man evolved in Africa, That he is far older//than we once thought, and that more than one kind//of man-like creature lived at the same time. Louis Leakey's interest in human//origins took fascinating turns. As his urging//Jane Goodall began her epic study of chimpanzee behavior in the wild. Goodall's study led to a//new appreciation of the similarities between//chimpanzees and man. The chimps form distinct family groups They use tools and//sometimes even wage war. And over the years Jane Goodall came//to regard many of them as friends. Another of Leakey's disciples//sought to study the mountain gorilla in Rwanda. With extraordinary patience,//Dian Fossey at last succeeded in winning the trust of these powerful//but extremely shy creatures. At such moments of contact Dian was deeply moved//by the gorillas gentleness and trust. One of her favorites was "Digit", so-called because of his twisted,//broken finger. In December 1977 Digit was//killed by poachers, probably to sell//his hands as souvenirs. Later, other mountain gorillas in Dian's study group//were also slaughtered. Finally, Dian herself was murdered by//persons unknown, quite possibly poachers. As much as any recent event,//her death foreshadowed a desperate new era//in the age of ecology. We are led to ask: If we cannot protect wild creatures,//can we save ourselves? In the remote highlands of//Papua New Guinea there lives a group//of endangered people. They call themselves the "Hagahai". Until a few years ago no outsiders//knew of their existence. And they have been so isolated//they have not developed antibodies to protect them against//common diseases. Dr. Carol Jenkins is a//medical anthropologist. She first came here to document//the Hagahais decline. She returned to try to save them. As part of a medical team, Jenkins is fighting a desperate//battle against her own grim statistics This baby is special because it's//the only one that's lived this year. There have been eight babies born//since '87 began. There have been eight babies is about//two months old and it's the only living baby. The Hagahai are so vulnerable, only the most wrenching//changes can help them. Trained to observe such cultures, Carol Jenkins finds herself helping//to profoundly alter this one. As tropical rain forests give way//to human demands, there is danger on every hand. This is the richest,//most complex ecosystem on earth. From it have come many of our drugs, our food plants, our useful chemicals. Can we survive without this//blessing of diversity? As the century of//discovery comes to an end, a century of destruction//could be beginning. And of all living creatures//only man has the power to decide what the future holds//for the planet Earth. Often quietly and in//unspectacular ways, the task of discovery goes on. And technology can make//explorers of us all. A few years ago Jean Mueller//was a librarian. Seeking a new challenge, she went to work for//Palomar Observatory in California. Jean works on the//Second Palomar Sky Survey, a project partially sponsored by//National Geographic. Its goal is to make a photographic//map of the heavens that shows more detail//than we have ever seen before. On a mountaintop in the dead of night, Jean often sees what no one//has ever seen before an image on a newly developed//glass plate 14 inches square. Each pinpoint on the plate is a star,//possibly a galaxy worlds upon worlds so numerous that//we cannot comprehend them. The scale of this vision is staggering Every plate contains//millions of pinpoints, And it will take 894 separate plates//to scan the skies over Palomar. And this represents the//Northern Hemisphere alone. To explore this, much less//understand it, seems incredible. But what wonders have we seen//in these last hundred years. And in the next hundred, what more?  up.

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