Written by authors who know NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC best, the National Geographic editions Atlas is an intimate and lively retrospective of the Society s extended family, both past and present. Here are the adventurers, scientists, and others who for more than a century have epitomized the Society's enduring mission to explore our world and everything in it. People such as Richard Byrd and Hiram Bingham; mountaineer Edmund Hillary and polar trekker Will Steger; divers Jacques Cousteau and Bob Ballard. With an insightful foreword by Peter H. Raven, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden and chairman of the Society's Committee for Research and Exploration.

Founded more than 112 years ago "for the increase and diffusion of geographic knowledge" the National Geographic Society has chroni-cled the exploits of some of the most famous explorers of the 20th century,and often helped fund those efforts. Roald Amundsen and Robert Byrd. Hiram Bingham and Howard Carter. Charles Lindbergh and Alan Shepard. Jacques Cousteau. Edmund Hillary. Will Steger. Bob Ballard. John Glenn.

In addition, the Society has reported on a different sort of explorer: anthro-pologists Louis and Mary Leakey, for example, primatologists Dian Fossey and Jane Goodall, and archaeologists such as Matthew Stifling and Kent Weeks.

  National Geographic Expeditions Atlas, illustrated with hundreds of historic and contemporary photographs and more than 60 maps (both vintage and new), celebrates the achievements of Society luminaries. Some, like moun-taineer Barry Bishop and diver Luis Marden, have been staff members.Many have contributed to the Society's official journal, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC magazine: Amazonian explorer Loren McIntyre, for example; divers Sylvia Earle and David Doubilet; adventurer-scientists Joseph Rock and Roy Chap-man Andrews; cartographer Bradford Washburn; mariners Amos Burg and Robin Lee Graham. Also part of GEOGRAPHIC'S family: winners of the Hubbard and Grosvenor Medals, and recipients of the nearly 7,000 grants awarded by the Society over the past century to support scientific and geographic explorations.

National Geographic Expeditions Atlas is dedicated not only to all GEOGRAVHIC explorers past and present, but also to the enduring spirit that makes such expeditions possible: an insatiable thirst for knowledge about our planet and everything in it.

FOREWORD

INTRODUCTION

THE LAY OF THE LAND

TO THE ENDS OF THE EARTH

INTO THIN AIR

BEYOND THE HORIZON

THE DEEP

SEARCHING FOR THE PAST

THE FAMILY OF MAN

LIST OF EXPEDITIONS

NOTES ON THE AUTHORS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS CREDITS

ADDITIONAL  READING

INDEX

CREDITS, CIP,AND COPYRIGHT DATA