Journeys over Land and Sea

In every age, pioneers pushed beyond their own boundaries to chart new lands and observe exotic plants, animals, and peoples. Their tales of discovery, along with new and better navigational tools, compelled others to pursue the unknown farther from home.

Although nations undertook the great voyages of exploration primarily to expand their territories, scientific and artistic discoveries abounded. Voyagers returned with specimens from the natural world, which scholars cataloged and organized. By the early 1600s, learned societies and mercantile groups launched expeditions solely for scientific and commercial purposes. The specimens they collected and recorded are now housed in natural history museums around the world.

Scientists and artists were essential partners in these expeditions. They collaborated with writers and printers to record and depict the expanding world, producing lavishly illustrated volumes of great beauty. Their work forms an important body of literature of unparalleled value to historians, ecologists, scientists, and many others.

• Travelers and Places
• Botany and Zoology
• In the Air
• Astronomy and Navigation
• All items from this section
• All items in exhibition

Smithsonian Institution Libraries The Smithsonian Libraries collections of travel voyages document the ever-expanding world view of humankind. Among the earliest works are maps, republished in the Renaissance, that were originally prepared for the Greek and Roman geographers/naturalists Ptolemy and Pliny. Star charts, bestiaries, and herbals, often copied from manuscripts or gathered from travelers' stories, contain pictures and descriptions that provide evidence about life in earlier centuries. Other books in the collections express the anxieties of the earliest travelers, who journeyed into the unknown fearful of monsters, savage weather, and plummeting over the edge of the map. More recent works, which range from explorations of the American West to fictional accounts of space travel for children and adults, reveal their authors' wonder at the unusual, whether real or imagined.