Maritime expeditions and voyages round the world have rightly conferred fame on naturalists and astronomers appointed by their governments, but while these distinguished men have given precise notions of the coasts of countries, of the natural history of the ocean and islands, their expeditions have advanced neither geology nor general physics as travels into the interior of a continent should have. Interest in the natural sciences has trailed behind geography and nautical astronomy. During long sea-voyages, a traveler hardly ever sees land; and when land is seen after a long wait it is often stripped of its most beautiful products. Sometimes, beyond a sterile coast, a ridge of high mountains covered in forests is glimpsed, but its distance only frustrates the traveler.