438 International Journal ofMaritime History details of this remarkable story, it is enough to note that his father was an Irish immigrant who settled in rural Georgia in 1818, where he became prosperous enough to buy a number of slaves. With one of these he had ten children, most of whom survived childhood. All of them were legally slaves, and what was remarkable about the story is how Healy's father dealt with the situation; suffice it to say that one son became a Roman Catholic bishop, and another became the president of Georgetown University. Three of the daughters entered Roman Catholic orders, though one left to get married. Michael Healy, the only rebel of the brood, followed a different path, running away to sea. The stress in Healy's life came from the need to conceal his racial background by "passing for white," as the contemporary phrase had it. No African-American commanded a naval or coast guard ship in the nineteenth century, and had his secret come out, he would have been instantly stripped of his officer's rank and relegated to the lower decks. Nowadays, when a man whose racial background is similar to Healy's has become President of the United States, it is important to remember how terrible a secret a mixedrace background was not very long ago - so terrible that when around 1950 a member of the family looked into Healy's diaries, she was so horrified that she immediately burned them. The stress ofconcealing what was then a dreadful secret, combined with the rigours of Arctic service, probably contributed to his bouts with alcoholism, a conviction for drunkenness, and the attempts at suicide that marred his service record. There are, therefore, a number of reasons to read this engrossing and wellwritten book. It can be read simply as a tale of Arctic adventure, and even more as a story of one family's mostly successful attempt to free themselves from the constraints of draconian racial laws. Finally, it is also the story of a man who, if he really achieved heroic status, did so not only because of the physical hardships he endured, but also because of the tremendous psychological burden that he had to overcome to succeed in his chosen career. William R. Morrison University of Northern British Columbia Prince George, BC, Canada Raymond John Howgego, Encyclopedia ofExploration. Vol. IV: 1850 to 1940: Continental Exploration. Sydney, NSW: Hordern House [www.hordern.com or www. explorersencyclopedia.com], 2008. xi + 1047 pp., index. AUS $295, approx. US $277 .27, €183.76 [plus s&h], cloth; ISBN 978-1-875567-42-3 (Combined set, Vols. I-IV, AUS $1080 [plus s&h], ISBN 978-1-875567-44-7). Reference books are the unsung heroes ofthe world ofbooks, subject to easy criticism for lack ofdepth, insufficient breadth, bias, inconsistency ofapproach, and inaccuracy, among other faults. Such complaints are as old as the genre and, in many cases, are justified; with enough time and resources, an ambitious author, editor or publisher can overcome virtually any fault. The first edition of the Encylopaedia Britannica (1768-71) was hopelessly unbalanced; the three volumes of roughly equal length covered topics from A to Z. Today, the fifteenth edition runs to thirty-two volumes, and its editorial plan is accessible to all through an examination of its "Outline of Knowledge," which reveals the ways in which one can assemble a syllabus on a wide array of topics from the encyclopaedia's roughly 65,000 articles. Whether explicit or withheld, such a plan informs all encyclopaedias, and the success of an encyclopaedia depends on the ability of the author to devise a comprehen- Downloaded from ijh.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 8, 2016 Book Reviews 439 sive organizing principle and to stick with it. Although limiting the number ofcontributors helps preserve an encyclopaedia's structural integrity, it imposes a corresponding burden on the authors whose expertise and stamina must be equal to the task. When the work in question runs to more than 4500 articles in 3660 pages - more than 3.7 million wordssupported by more than 50,000 bibliographical citations, and there is only one author, a reader or reviewer cannot help but be awestruck. Raymond John Howgego' s reputation as a master ofthe genre and authority on his chosen subject was assured with the publication ofthe Encyclopedia ofExploration to 1800, the first volume of the quartet, only six years ago (see reviews in the IJMH XV, No. I [2003], XVII, No. 2 [2005] and XIX, No. I [2007]). The previous volume, on exploration of "The Oceans, Islands and Polar Regions" in the same period, has a more traditional maritime orientation, to be sure, yet this fourth and final volume is ofparticular interest for its coverage of what we might call fresh-water maritime history. Howgego's extensive coverage of riverine exploration plunges headlong up the Congo and its tributaries in central Africa, along the Amazon and its tributaries in South America, and countless rivers in Canada, the United States and Asia. In an inversion of the maritime historian's traditional proposition that seas are highways rather than barriers between continents, we come to see how unreliable rivers were as highways through continental interiors. To take only one example among many, one is impressed by the arduous nature ofEmil Heinrich Snethlage's peregrinations in the Amazon basin in the 1920s and 1930s, when commercial navigation was so limited that he had to build himself a raft to begin his descent of the Tocantins River. After seven years in Berlin, Snethlage returned to Brazil and ascended the Amazon and Madeira Rivers to Porto Velho. Howgego relates his subsequent travels on a number of rivers in western Brazil, including the Guapore (which for part of its length forms the border with Bolivia), the Rio Mequens and Rio Cautario (tributaries ofthe Guapore), and the Rio Branco, a southern tributary ofthe Madeira. The principle caveat about this entry - and the book generally - is that it cannot be read with any real comprehension without access to The Times Atlas ofthe World. Others simply lack the detail necessary to follow Howgego's subjects. The Oxford Atlas of the World includes neither the Mequens nor the Cautario, and the Internet has next to nothing on the latter. Nor does Howgego include any maps, although a fascinating "Note on Place Names and Routes" advises that "Explorers' routes are detailed with reference to places marked and names in The Times Atlas of the World, Comprehensive Edition (II th ed., 2003)." While the lack of maps in a book that covers such an overwhelming wealth of obscure detail is lamentable, it is understandable on the grounds ofeconomy and practicality. For this reason, Hordern House has also published online a somewhat useful "GeoChronological Index" (although this could be improved by cross-referencing the volumes in which articles appear). While Howgego's choice of epigraph for the final volume of this great workfrom Catullus' Carmen 3 I : "0 what is better than to be free from cares, when the mind drops its burden and, exhausted from foreign labors, we come home and rest in our longed-for bed?" - suggests that he has closed the book on this project, one cannot resist the plea that he consider compiling an ancillary volume ofmaps. Even if he baulks at such an effort, he has earned his rest, and the thanks of at least a generation or two of students, scholars and armchair travellers. Lincoln Paine Portland, ME, USA Downloaded from ijh.sagepub.com at COLUMBIA UNIV on December 8, 2016