Sublime

On May 22, 1963, Tom Hornbein, a thirty-two-year-old doctor from Missouri, and Willi Unsoeld, thirty-six, a professor of theology from Oregon, reached the summit of Everest via the peak’s daunting West Ridge, previously unclimbed.

John Muir is remembered primarily as a no-nonsense conservationist and the founding president of the Sierra Club, but he was also a bold adventurer, a fearless scrambler of peaks, glaciers, and waterfalls whose best-known essay includes a riveting account of nearly falling to his death, in 1872, while ascending California’s Mt. Ritter.

Magellan va de navire en navire, examinant surtout la cargaison. Combien de fois n’a-t-il pas déjà grimpé et descendu les échelles, combien de fois n’a-t-il pas fait l’inventaire du bord ! Aujourd’hui encore nous pouvons nous rendre compte d’après les archives de la précision et de la minutie avec lesquelles une des aventures les plus fantastiques

They could sail further, faster, and for longer. They had less need to hug the coastline and, since the spice-producing islands lay on the opposite side of the world, they had a choice of sailing east or west.

When the first handful of Norwegians showed up on the shores of Iceland in the ninth century, the papar decided the country had become too crowded—even though it was still all but uninhabited. The monks’ response was to climb into their curraghs and row off toward Greenland. They were drawn across the storm-racked ocean, drawn west past the edge of

Car l’essentiel est fait : il a prouvé qu’en poursuivant toujours dans la même direction, que ce soit du côté où le soleil se lève ou du côté opposé, on doit revenir au point d’où l’on est parti. Ce que les savants supposaient depuis des milliers d’années est devenu, grâce au courage d’un individu, une certitude : la terre est ronde et voici un hom

meet him off Gravesend with a barge