Among the columns of Karnak.
Egypt through a traveller’s sketchbook.
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Expedition
From the Arctic to the banks of the Nile. Maps, navigation and the objects that travelled with our desire to go further.
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13 storiesStories from this world.
The Table Across the Basket
James Glaisher arranged a laboratory across a balloon basket. On 5 September 1862, his instruments and his body began to fail at different speeds. Henry Coxwell had to bring them down—and the famous seven-mile height had to be worked out afterwards.
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Leaving Manila
Guillaume Le Gentil knew Manila had good observing weather. He left anyway. His voyage account explains the choice that took him to a ruined palace in Pondicherry for the transit of Venus—and records the observation made by the friend he left behind.
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Buying Fish for London
Mary Kingsley’s 1895 fish collection had to survive bargaining, a shortage of alcohol and the Ogooué rapids. Three specimens from Kondo-Kondo eventually reached a London museum, where an adult and two young fish helped Albert Günther distinguish a new species.
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Already a Botanist
Jeanne Baret carried plant folders through the Strait of Magellan and kept working after Bougainville’s ships moved on. A Mauritian specimen and an abandoned botanical name help trace the labour behind a collection credited to Philibert Commerson.
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West of the Account
On a homeward voyage in 1762, Nevil Maskelyne measured the Moon against a star. His handheld quadrant supplied the angles; finding the ship’s longitude required a watch, tables and a considerable amount of work afterwards.
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The Weight of a Spoon
Silverware helped John Rae connect Inuit reports to Franklin's missing expedition. In Britain, a critic thought the same forks and spoons made the story harder to believe.
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A Mountain in Profile
Edward Whymper's drawings helped him question the Matterhorn's apparent steepness. Reaching its summit in 1865 required guides to test the mountain at close quarters; explaining the descent would prove harder.
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Clearing a View
Frederick Catherwood's Copán prints began with cut vegetation, difficult light and the work of Bruno, Francisco and their neighbours. Getting the carvings onto paper was only the first stage in making the ruins into a picture.
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Room for Cotopaxi
Humboldt and Bonpland's famous plant-geography plate gathers the equatorial Andes into a single mountain view. Making it meant moving a volcano, calculating heights and fitting a journey's unfinished knowledge onto one sheet.
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The Unfinished Photographs
Nils Strindberg took his camera onto the Arctic pack ice in 1897. No one from the expedition returned to develop the film. Thirty-three years later, John Hertzberg had to find a way to turn the damaged rolls into pictures.
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H4, Taken Apart
John Harrison spent years making large clocks for the sea. A watch made by John Jefferys helped him change direction. Inside H4, four springs and a fast-moving balance carried the experiment across the Atlantic; explaining it to other makers required another kind of work.
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Paid by the Tide
At the wreck of HMS Royal George, a diving helmet opened a new workplace. The men below earned their pay in the intervals between strong currents; the men above kept their air, signals and heavy loads moving.
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