Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919). Through the Brazilian Wilderness. 1914.
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The Work of the Field Zoologist and Field Geographer in South America |
| PORTIONS of South America are now entering on a career of great social and industrial development. Much remains to be known, so far as the outside world is concerned, of the social and industrial condition in the long-settled interior regions. More remains to be done, in the way of pioneer exploring and of scientific work, in the great stretches of virgin wilderness. The only two other continents where such work, of like volume and value, remains to be done are Africa and Asia; and neither Africa nor Asia offers a more inviting field for the best kind of field worker in geographical exploration and in zoological, geological, and paleontological investigation. The explorer is merely the most adventurous kind of field geographer; and there are two or three points worth keeping in mind in dealing with the South American work of the field geographer and field zoologist. |
| Roughly, the travellers who now visit (like those who for the past century have visited) South America come in three categories—although, of course, these categories are not divided by hard-and-fast lines. |
| First, there are the travellers who skirt the continent |