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Applied Mathematics with
Open-Source Software
Chapman & Hall/CRC Series in Operations Research
Series Editors:
Malgorzata Sterna, Bo Chen, Michel Gendreau, and Edmund Burke

Rational Queueing
Refael Hassin
Introduction to Theory of Optimization in Euclidean Space
Samia Challal
Handbook of The Shapley Value
Encarnación Algaba, Vito Fragnelli, and Joaquín Sánchez-Soriano
Advanced Studies in Multi-Criteria Decision Making
Sarah Ben Amor, João Luís de Miranda, Emel Aktas, and Adiel Teixeira de Almeida
Handbook of Military and Defense Operations Research
Natalie Scala and James P. Howard II
Understanding Analytic Hierarchy Process
Konrad Kulakowski
Introduction to Optimization-Based Decision Making
João Luís de Miranda
Applied Mathematics with Open-Source Software
Operational Research Problems with Python and R
Vincent Knight and Geraint Palmer

For more information about this series please visit: https://www.routledge.com/

Chapman--HallCRC-Series-in-Operations-Research/book-series/CRCOPSRES
Applied Mathematics with
Open-Source Software
Operational Research
Problems with Python and R

Vincent Knight
Cardiff University, United Kingdom

Geraint Palmer
Cardiff University, United Kingdom
First edition published 2022
by CRC Press
6000 Broken Sound Parkway NW, Suite 300, Boca Raton, FL 33487-2742
and by CRC Press
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
© 2022 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Knight, Vincent (Vincent A.), author. | Palmer, Geraint, author.

Title: Applied mathematics with open-source software : operational research
problems with Python and R / authored by Vincent Knight, Cardiff
University, United Kingdom, Geraint Palmer, Cardiff University, United
Kingdom.
Description: First edition. | Boca Raton : C&H/CRC Press, 2022. | Series:
Chapman & Hall/CRC series in operations research | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2021055603 (print) | LCCN 2021055604 (ebook) | ISBN
9780367348687 (hbk) | ISBN 9780367339982 (pbk) | ISBN 9780429328534
(ebk)
Subjects: LCSH: Operations research--Data processing. | Mathematics--Data
processing. | Python (Computer program language) | R (Computer program
language)
Classification: LCC T57.5 .K55 2022 (print) | LCC T57.5 (ebook) | DDC
658.4/0340285--dc23/eng/20220202
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021055603
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021055604

ISBN: 978-0-367-34868-7 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-0-367-33998-2 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-32853-4 (ebk)
DOI: 10.1201/9780429328534

Typeset in Latin Modern font

by KnowledgeWorks Global Ltd.

Publisher’s note: This book has been prepared from camera-ready copy provided by the authors.
Contents

Authors ix

Section I Getting Started

Chapter 1  Introduction 3

1.1 WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR? 3

1.2 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY APPLIED MATHEMATICS? 4
1.3 WHAT IS OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE 4
1.4 HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF THIS BOOK 5
1.5 HOW CODE IS WRITTEN IN THIS BOOK 6

Section II Probabilistic Modelling

Chapter 2  Markov Chains 11

2.1 PROBLEM 11
2.2 THEORY 11
2.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 13
2.4 SOLVING WITH R 19
2.5 WIDER CONTEXT 25

Chapter 3  Discrete Event Simulation 27

3.1 PROBLEM 27
3.2 THEORY 28
3.2.1 Event Scheduling Approach 30
3.2.2 Process-Based Simulation 30
3.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 30
3.4 SOLVING WITH R 35
3.5 WIDER CONTEXT 41

v
vi  Contents

Section III Dynamical Systems

Chapter 4  Differential Equations 45

4.1 PROBLEM 45
4.2 THEORY 45
4.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 46
4.4 SOLVING WITH R 50
4.5 WIDER CONTEXT 53

Chapter 5  Systems Dynamics 55

5.1 PROBLEM 55
5.2 THEORY 55
5.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 58
5.4 SOLVING WITH R 64
5.5 WIDER CONTEXT 68

Section IV Emergent Behaviour

Chapter 6  Game Theory 71

6.1 PROBLEM 71
6.2 THEORY 71
6.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 74
6.4 SOLVING WITH R 77
6.5 WIDER CONTEXT 80

Chapter 7  Agent-Based Simulation 81

7.1 PROBLEM 81
7.2 THEORY 81
7.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 84
7.4 SOLVING WITH R 89
7.5 WIDER CONTEXT 94
 Contents  vii

Section V Optimisation

Chapter 8  Linear Programming 97

8.1 PROBLEM 97
8.2 THEORY 98
8.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 102
8.4 SOLVING WITH R 106
8.5 WIDER CONTEXT 114

Chapter 9  Heuristics 115

9.1 PROBLEM 115

9.2 THEORY 115
9.3 SOLVING WITH PYTHON 119
9.4 SOLVING WITH R 126
9.5 WIDER CONTEXT 133

Bibliography 135

Index 141
Authors

Vincent Knight Geraint Palmer

Cardiff University School of Mathematics Cardiff University School of Mathematics
Cardiff, Wales, UK Cardiff, Wales, UK

ix
 I
Getting Started

1
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

hank you for starting to read this book. This book aims to bring together two
T fascinating topics:

• Problems that can be solved using mathematics;

• Software that is free to use and change.

What we mean by both of those things will become clear through reading this
chapter and the rest of the book.

1.1 WHO IS THIS BOOK FOR?

This book is aimed at readers who want to use open-source software to solve the
considered applied mathematical problems.
If you are a student of a mathematical discipline, a graduate student of a subject
like operational research, a hobbyist who enjoys solving the travelling salesman prob-
lem or even if you get paid to do this stuff: this book is for you. We will introduce
you to the world of open-source software that allows you to do all these things freely.
If you are a student learning to write code, a graduate student using databases
for their research, an enthusiast who programs applications to help schedule weekly
chores, or even if you get paid to write software: this book is for you. We will introduce
you to a world of problems that can be solved using your skill set.
It would be helpful for the reader of this book to:

• Have access to a computer and be able to connect to the internet to be able to

download the relevant software;

• Have done any introductory tutorial in the languages they plan to use;

• Be prepared to read some mathematics. The topics covered use some algebra,
calculus and probability. Technically you do not need to understand the specific
mathematics to be able to use the tools in this book.

By reading a particular chapter of the book, the reader will have:

DOI: 10.1201/9780429328534-1 3
4  Applied Mathematics with Open-Source Software

1. the practical knowledge to solve problems using a computer;

2. an overview of the higher level theoretic concepts;

3. pointers to further reading to gain background understand and research under-

taken using the concepts.

1.2 WHAT DO WE MEAN BY APPLIED MATHEMATICS?

We consider this book to be a book on applied mathematics. This is not, however, a
universal term, for some applied mathematics is the study of mechanics and involves
things like modelling projectiles being fired out of canons. We will use the term a bit
more freely here and mean any type of real-world problem that can be tackled using
mathematical tools. This is sometimes referred to as operational research, operations
research, mathematical modelling or indeed just mathematics.
One of the authors, Vince, used mathematics to understand just how bad one of
the so called “worst plays in Super Bowl history was”. Using an area of mathematics
called game theory (seen in Chapter 6), he showed that perhaps the strategic decision
making was not as bad as it seemed, the outcome was just unlikely1 .
The other author, Geraint, used mathematics to find the best team of Pokémon.
Using an area of mathematics called linear programming (seen in Chapter 8) which
is based on linear algebra he was able to find the best makeup of Pokémon2 .
Here, applied mathematics is the type of mathematics that helps us answer ques-
tions that the real world asks.

1.3 WHAT IS OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE

Strictly speaking open-source software is software with source code that anyone can
read, modify and improve. In practice this means that you do not need to pay to use
it which is often one of the first attractions. This financial aspect can also be one of
the reasons that someone will not use a particular piece of software due to a confusion
between cost and value: if something is free, is it really going to be any good?
In practice open-source software is used all over the world and powers some of
the most important infrastructure around. A good example of this is cryptographic
software which should not rely on secrecy for security3 This implies that cryptographic
systems that do not require trust in a hidden system can exist. In practice these are
all open-source.
Today, open-source software is a lot more than a licensing agreement: it is a
community of practice. Bugs are fixed faster, research is implemented immediately
and knowledge is spread more widely thanks to open-source software. Bugs are fixed
1
At the time of writing this is available to read at: https://vknight.org/unpeudemath/
gametheory/2015/02/15/on-the-worst-play-in-superbowl-history.html
2
At the time of writing this is available to read at: http://www.geraintianpalmer.org.uk/2018/
05/29/pokemon-team-pulp/
3
This is also referred to as Kerckhoffs’s principle which states that “a cryptosystem should be
secure, even if everything about the system, except the key, is public knowledge” [32].
 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON.

BREHM’S PLACE AMONG NATURALIST-TRAVELLERS.

Though Brehm’s lectures might well be left, as his son has said, to
speak for themselves, it seems useful to introduce them in their
English dress with some notes on the evolution of the naturalist-
traveller and on Brehm’s place in the honourable list; for an
adequate appreciation of a book like this depends in part on a
recognition of the position it occupies among analogous works, and
on having some picture of the illustrious author himself.
In sketching the history of the naturalist-traveller it is not necessary
to go very far back; for though it is interesting to recall how men of
old followed their migrating herds, as the Lapp or Ostiak does his
reindeer, and were led by them to fresh fields and new conquests, or
how others followed the salmon down the rivers and became the
toilers of the sea, this ancient lore is full of uncertainty, and is,
besides, of more moment to the sociologist than to the naturalist.
What we attempt here is merely to indicate the various types of
naturalist-traveller who have in the course of time succeeded one
another in the quest for the new.

I.
The foundations of zoology were laid by Aristotle some three
hundred years before Christ, but they remained unbuilt on for nearly
eighteen centuries. Here and there some enthusiast strove unaided,
but only a fragmentary superstructure was reared. In fact, men were
pre-occupied with tasks of civilization more serious than the
prosecution of zoology, though that is not trivial. Gradually, however,
great social movements, such as the Crusades and the collapse of
Feudalism; great intellectual and emotional movements, such as
those of the Renaissance; great inventions, such as that of printing,
gave new life to Europe, and zoology shared in the re-awakening.
Yet the natural history of the Middle Ages was in great part mystical;
fancy and superstition ran riot along paths where science afterwards
established order, and, for all practical purposes, the history of
zoology, apart from the efforts of a few pioneers, may be said to date
from the sixteenth century.
Now, one indubitable factor in the scientific renaissance of the
sixteenth century was the enthusiasm of the early travellers, and this
stimulus, periodically recurrent, has never failed to have a similar
effect—of giving new life to science. But while science, and zoology
as a branch of it, has been evolving during the last three centuries,
the traveller, too, has shared in the evolution. It is this which we wish
to trace.
I. The Romantic Type. Many of the old travellers, from Herodotus
onwards, were observant and enthusiastic; most were credulous and
garrulous. In days when the critical spirit was young, and verification
hardly possible, there could not but be a strong temptation to tell
extraordinary “travellers’ tales”. And they did. Nor need we scoff at
them loudly, for the type dies hard; every year such tales are told.
Oderico de Pordenone and other mediæval travellers who give some
substance to the mythical Sir John de Maundeville were travellers of
this genial type. Oderico describes an interesting connecting link
between the animal and vegetable kingdom, a literal “zoophyte”, the
“vegetable lamb”, which seems to have been a woolly Scythian fern,
with its counterpart in the large fungus which colonials sometimes
speak of as the “vegetable sheep”. As for the pretended Sir John, he
had in his power of swallowing marvels a gape hardly less than that
of the great snakes which he describes. But even now do we not see
his snakes in at least the picture-books on which innocent youth is
nurtured? The basilisk (one of the most harmless of lizards) “sleyeth
men beholding it”; the “cocodrilles also sley men”—they do indeed
—“and eate them weeping, and they have no tongue”. “The griffin of
Bactria hath a body greater than eight lyons and stall worthier than a
hundred egles, for certainly he will beare to his nest flying, a horse
and a man upon his back.” He was not readily daunted, Sir John, for
when they told him of the lamb-tree which bears lambs in its pods,
his British pluck did not desert him, and he gave answer that he
“held it for no marvayle, for in his country are trees which bear fruit
which become birds flying, and they are good to eate, and that that
falleth on the water, liveth, and that that falleth on earth, dyeth; and
they marvailed much thereat”. The tale of the barnacle-tree was a
trump card in those days!
Another example of this type, but rising distinctly above it in
trustworthiness, was the Venetian Marco Polo, who in the thirteenth
century explored Asia from the Black Sea to Pekin, from the Altai to
Sumatra, and doubtless saw much, though not quite so much as he
describes. He will correct the fables of his predecessors, he tells us,
demonstrating gravely that the unicorn or rhinoceros does not allow
himself to be captured by a gentle maiden, but he proceeds to
describe tailed men, yea, headless men, without, so far as can be
seen, any touch of sarcasm. Of how many marvels, from porcupines
throwing off their spines and snakes with clawed fore-feet, to the
great Rukh, which could bear not merely a poor Sinbad but an
elephant through the air, is it not written in the books of Ser Marco
Polo of Venezia?
II. The Encyclopædist Type.—This unwieldy title, suggestive of an
omnivorous hunger for knowledge, is conveniently, as well as
technically, descriptive of a type of naturalist characteristic of the
early years of the scientific renaissance. Edward Wotton (d. 1555),
the Swiss Gesner (d. 1565), the Italian Aldrovandi (d. 1605), the
Scotsman Johnson (d. 1675), are good examples. These
encyclopædists were at least impressed with the necessity of getting
close to the facts of nature, of observing for themselves, and we
cannot blame them much if their critical faculties were dulled by the
strength of their enthusiasm. They could not all at once forget the
mediæval dreams, nor did they make any strenuous effort to
rationalize the materials which they so industriously gathered. They
harvested but did not thrash. Ostrich-like, their appetite was greater
than their power of digesting. A hasty judgment might call them mere
compilers, for they gathered all possible information from all sources,
but, on closer acquaintance, the encyclopædists grow upon one.
Their industry was astounding, their ambition lofty; and they
prepared the way for men like Ray and Linnæus, in whom was the
genius of order.
Associated with this period there were many naturalist-travellers,
most of whom are hardly now remembered, save perhaps when we
repeat the name of some plant or animal which commemorates its
discoverer. José d’Acosta (d. 1600), a missionary in Peru, described
some of the gigantic fossils of South America; Francesco Hernanded
published about 1615 a book on the natural history of Mexico with
1200 illustrations; Marcgrav and Piso explored Brazil; Jacob Bontius,
the East Indies; Prosper Alpinus, Egypt; Belon, the Mediterranean
region; and there were many others. But it is useless to multiply what
must here remain mere citations of names. The point is simply this,
that, associated with the marvellous accumulative industry of the
encyclopædists and with the renaissance of zoology in the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries, there were numerous naturalist-travellers
who described what they saw, and not what they fancied might be
seen.
III. The General Naturalist Type.—As Ray (d. 1705) and Linnæus
(d. 1778) began to reduce to order the accumulations of the
encyclopædists, and as the anatomists and physiologists began the
precise study of structure and function, the naturalist-travellers
became more definite in their aims and more accurate in their
observations. Linnæus himself sent several of his pupils on precisely
scientific journeys. Moreover, in the eighteenth century there were
not a few expeditions of geographical and physical purpose which
occasionally condescended to take a zoologist on board. Thus
Captain Cook was accompanied on his first voyage (1768-1781) by
Banks and Solander, and on his second voyage by the Forsters,
father and son. On his third voyage he expressly forbade the
intrusion of any naturalist, but from all that we can gather it would
have been better for himself if he had not done so. In these
combined voyages there was nascent the idea of co-operative
expeditions, of which the greatest has been that of the Challenger.
In illustration of travellers who were not specialists, but in varying
degrees widely interested naturalists, it will be sufficient to cite three
names—Thomas Pennant, Peter Pallas, and, greatest of all,
Alexander von Humboldt.
Of Thomas Pennant (1726-1798) we may note that he was one of
the early travellers in Scotland, which was then, as he says, almost
as unknown as Kamchatka, and that he extorted from Dr. Johnson
the admission, “He’s a Whig, sir, a sad dog; but he’s the best
traveller I ever read; he observes more things than any one else
does”. He knew Buffon and corresponded with Linnæus, and was
the author of several works on British and North American zoology.
His so-called Arctic Zoology is mainly a sketch of the fauna in the
northern regions of North America, begun “when the empire of Great
Britain was entire, and possessed the northern part of the New
World with envied splendour”. His perspective is excellent! the
botanist, the fossilist, the historian, the geographer must, he says,
accompany him on his zoological tours, “to trace the gradual
increase of the animal world from the scanty pittance given to the
rocks of Spitzbergen to the swarms of beings which enliven the
vegetating plains of Senegal; to point out the causes of the local
niggardness of certain places, and the prodigious plenty in others”. It
was about the same time (1777) that E. A. W. Zimmermann,
Professor of Mathematics at Brunswick, published a quarto in Latin,
entitled Specimen Zoologiæ Geographicæ Quadrupedum, “with a
most curious map”, says Pennant, “in which is given the name of
every animal in its proper climate, so that a view of the whole
quadruped creation is placed before one’s eyes, in a manner
perfectly new and instructive”. It was wonderful then, but the map in
question looks commonplace enough nowadays.
Peter Simon Pallas (1741-1811) was a student of medicine and
natural science, and did good work as a systematic and anatomical
zoologist. He was the first, we believe, to express the relationships of
animals in a genealogical tree, but his interest for us here lies in his
zoological exploration of Russia and Siberia, the results of which are
embodied in a series of bulky volumes, admirable in their careful
thoroughness. We rank him rather as one of the forerunners of
Humboldt than as a zoologist, for his services to ethnology and
geology were of great importance. He pondered over the results of
his explorations, and many of his questionings in regard to
geographical distribution, the influence of climate, the variation of
animals, and similar problems, were prophetic of the light which was
soon to dawn on biological science.
Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was undoubtedly one of the
greatest naturalists of the century which his life well nigh covered.
Geologist, botanist, zoologist, and more, he was almost the last of
the all-round naturalists. In this indeed lay his weakness as well as
his strength, for great breadth of view is apt to imply a lack of
precision as to details. In boyhood, “when life”, as he says, “appears
an unlimited horizon”, he had strong desires after travel, which were
in part gratified by excursions with George Forster and by Swiss
explorations with the sagacious old geographer Leopold von Buch.
These, however, only whetted his enthusiasm for journeys with a
larger radius. At length, after many discouragements, he sailed in
1799 from Corunna, with Aimé Bonpland as companion, and spent
five years in exploring the equinoctial regions of the New World. The
full record of his voyage one cannot be expected to read, for there
are about thirty volumes of it in the complete edition, but what we
should all know is Humboldt’s Personal Narrative, in which the chief
results of his explorations are charmingly set forth. Later in life
(1829) he went with Ehrenberg and Rose to North Asia, and his
crowning work was the publication of Cosmos (1845-58), which
originated in a series of lectures delivered in the University of Berlin.
In front of that building his statue now stands, along with that of his
not less famous brother Wilhelm.
We think of Humboldt not so much as an early explorer of tropical
America, nor because he described the habits of the condor and
made observations on electric eels, nor because he furnished Cuvier
and Latreille with many new specimens, but rather as a magnificent
type of the naturalist-traveller, observant, widely interested, and
thoughtful, who pointed forward to Darwin in the success with which
he realized the complexity of inter-relations in nature. Many a
traveller, even among his contemporaries, discovered more new
plants and animals than the author of Cosmos, but none approached
him as an all-round naturalist, able to look out on all orders of facts
with keenly intelligent eyes, a man, moreover, in whom devotion to
science never dulled poetic feeling. His work is of real importance in
the history of geographical distribution, for he endeavoured to
interpret the peculiarities of the various faunas in connection with the
peculiar environment of the different regions—a consideration which
is at least an element in the solution of some of the problems of
distribution. It is especially important in regard to plants, and one
may perhaps say that Humboldt, by his vivid pictures of the
vegetable “physiognomy” of different regions, and by his
observations on the relations between climate and flora, laid the
foundations of the scientific study of the geographical distribution of
plants. We find in some of his Charakterbilder, for example in his
Views of Nature, the prototype of those synthetic pictures which give
Brehm’s popular lectures their peculiar interest and value.
IV. The Specialist Type.—It would say little for scientific discipline if
it were true that a man learned, let us say, in zoology, could spend
years in a new country without having something fresh to tell us
about matters outside of his specialism—the rocks, the plants, and
the people. But it is not true. There have been few great travellers
who have been narrow specialists, and one might find more than one
case of a naturalist starting on his travels as a zoologist and
returning an anthropologist as well. Yet it is evident enough that few
men can be master of more than one craft. There have been few
travellers like Humboldt, few records like Darwin’s Voyage of the
Beagle (1831-6). Hence we recognize more and more as we
approach our own day that naturalist-travellers have been successful
either as specialists, or, on the other hand, in so far as they have
furnished material for generalization (Type V.). The specialism may
of course take various forms: a journey may be undertaken by one
who is purely an ornithologist, or it may be undertaken with one
particular problem in view, or it may be organized, like the
Challenger expedition, with the co-operation of a number of
specialists.
The French took the lead in organizing zoological expeditions. As
early as 1800 they sent out the Géographe, Naturaliste, and
Casuarina, zoologically conducted by Bury de St. Vincent, Péron,
and Lesueur. Further expeditions followed with Quoy and Gaimard,
Lesson, Eydoux, Souleyet, Dupetit-Thouars, and others as
zoological guides. The English whaling industry gave early
opportunity to not a few naturalists; and it is now a long time since
Hooker went with Sir James Ross on the South Polar expedition and
Huxley went on the Rattlesnake to the Australian Barrier Reef. The
Russians were also active, one of the more famous travellers being
Kotzebue, who was accompanied on one of his two voyages (1823-
6) round the world by Chamisso and Eschscholtz. In the early part of
this century the Americans were also enterprising, the work of Dana
being perhaps the most noteworthy. It would require several pages
to mention even the names of the naturalists who have had their
years of wandering, and have added their pages and sketches to the
book of the world’s fauna and flora, but such an enumeration would
serve no useful purpose here.
There is, however, one form of zoological exploration which
deserves a chapter to itself, that is the exploration of the Deep Sea.
Several generations of marine zoologists had been at work before a
zoology of the deep sea was dreamed of even as a possibility. It is
true that in 1818 Sir John Ross had found a star-fish (Astrophyton) at
a depth of 800-1000 fathoms, but this was forgotten; and in 1841
Edward Forbes dredged to no purpose in fairly deep water in the
Ægean Sea. Indeed those who thought about the great depths at all
deemed it unlikely that there could be life there, and if it had not
been for the practical affair of laying the ocean cables, we might
possibly have been still in ignorance of the abyssal fauna.
But the cables had to be laid—no easy task—and it became
important to know at least the topography of the depths. Cables
broke, too, and had to be fished up again, and when that which ran
between Sardinia and Algiers was lifted, in 1860, from a depth of 60-
1000 fathoms, no less than 15 different species of animals were
found on it. This was a discovery to fire enthusiasm, and Britain led
the way in following it up. In 1868 Wyville Thomson began his
explorations on the Lightning, and proved that most of the types of
backboneless animals were represented at depths of at least 600
fathoms. Soon followed the similar cruise of the Porcupine, famous
inter alia for the discovery of Bathybius, which many sceptics regard
as a mare’s nest. From various quarters the quest after the deep-sea
fauna began to be prosecuted.
It is now more than a score of years since the world-famous
Challenger sailed from Portsmouth with Wyville Thomson, Moseley,
John Murray, and Willemoes-Suhm as naturalists. During three and
a half years the explorers cruised over 68,900 nautical miles,
crossed the Atlantic no less than five times, reached with the long
arm of the dredge to depths equal to reversed Himalayas, raised
treasures of life from over 500 stations, and brought home spoils
over which the savants of Europe have hardly ceased to be busy,
and the records of which, now completed under Dr. Murray’s
editorship, form a library of about forty huge volumes.
The Challenger expedition was important not only in itself, but in the
wave of scientific enthusiasm which it raised. From Germany went
forth the Gazelle; Norway sent the Vöringen to Spitzbergen; America
has despatched the Tuscarora, the Blake, and the Albatross; from
Sweden the Vega and the Sophia sailed to Arctic seas: Count
Liechtenstein’s yacht Hertha explored Adria; the Prince of Monaco’s
Hirondelle darted hither and thither; the French sent forth the
Travailleur and Talisman; the Italians the Vettor Pisani and
Washington; Austria and Hungary organized the Poli for work in the
Mediterranean; the Germans again have recently specialized in
investigating the Plankton, or surface-life of the ocean; and so, with a
range even wider than we have indicated, the wave of enthusiasm
has spread, one of the latest barques which it has borne being the
Prince of Monaco’s, which was specially built for marine exploration.
Specialism in travelling has, of course, gone much further. Thus to
cite only three examples, we have Semper’s zoological work on the
Philippines, the researches of the Sarasins in Ceylon, and the first
results of Semon’s recent visit to Australasia, all of them passing far
beyond records of zoological exploration into monographs on the
structure and development of characteristic members of the fauna of
these countries. And it is no exaggeration to say that private
enterprise, Royal Society subsidies, British Association grants, and
the like have sent scores of naturalists from Britain half round the
world in order to solve special problems, as to the larva of a worm,
for instance, or as to the bird-fauna of some little island.
V. The Biological Type. In some ways the most important scientific
journey ever made was Darwin’s voyage on the Beagle. It was the
Columbus-voyage of zoology. There is a great deal to be said for the
Wanderjahre of the old students, for to have time to think is one of
the conditions of intellectual progress. Not that the Beagle voyage
was one of idleness, but it gave Darwin, at the age of twenty-two, a
wealth of impressions and some measure of enforced leisure
wherein to gloat intellectually over what he saw. He has said, indeed,
that various sets of facts observed on his voyage, such as the aspect
of the Galapagos Islands, started him on paths of pondering which
eventually led to his theory of the origin of species.
We take Darwin as the type of the biological, or, we may almost say,
evolutionist travellers; but he must share this position with his
magnanimous colleague, Alfred Russel Wallace, whose journeyings
were more prolonged and not less fruitful. Before Darwin the
naturalist-travellers had been, for the most part, describers,
systematists, and analysts, and it goes without saying that such work
is indispensable, and must continue; but in the light of the conception
of evolution all things had become new; the present world of life was
henceforth seen as a stage in a process, as a passing act in a
drama, not merely as a phantasmagoria to be admired and pictured,
but as a growth to be understood.
It is within this group of biological travellers, which includes such
men as Bates and Belt, that we must also place Brehm. For although
he perhaps had not the firmness of grasp or the fineness of touch
necessary for the successful handling of the more intricate biological
problems, especially those which centre around the factors of
evolution, he had unusual power as an observer of the habits of
animals. His contributions, which must be judged, of course, from his
great Tierleben,[A] as well as from his popular lectures, were rather
to the old natural history than to biology in the stricter sense. His
works show that he was as much interested in men as in beasts, that
he was specially an ornithologist, that he was beneath the naturalist
a sportsman; but so scores of other travellers have been. His
particular excellence is his power of observing and picturing animal
life as it is lived in nature, without taking account of which biology is
a mockery and any theory of evolution a one-sided dogma.
[A] This well-known treasure-house of Natural History appeared
originally in 1863-69 in six big volumes, which have since
increased to ten. Even the first edition took a foremost place
among similar works on the Natural History of Animals. With a
wealth of personal observation on the habits of animals in their
native haunts, it combined the further charm of very beautiful
pictorial illustration.
Let us now bring together briefly the outstanding facts of this
historical outline.
In early days men followed their wandering herds or pursued their
prey from region to region, or were driven by force of competition or
of hunger to new lands. Many of the most eventful journeys have
been among those which had to be taken.
I. Gradually, intellectual curiosity rather than practical need became
the prompter, and men travelled with all manner of mixed aims
seeking what was new. When they returned they told travellers’
tales, mostly in as good faith as their hunting ancestors had done in
the caves of a winter night, or as the modern traveller does after
dinner still. We pass insensibly from Herodotus to Marco Polo, from
“Sir John Maundeville” to Mr. X. Y. Z., whose book was published
last spring. This is the type romantic.
II. But when science shared in the renaissance there ensued the
extraordinary industry of the encyclopædist school, with which many
naturalist-travellers were associated. Some of these were great men
—perhaps Gesner was greatest of all—but all had the defects of
their qualities. They gathered into stackyards both wheat and tares,
and seldom found time to thrash. The type survives afield in the
mere collector, and its degenerate sedentary representatives are
called compilers.
III. Just as Buffon represents the climax of the encyclopædists, and
is yet something more, for he thrashed his wheat, so Humboldt,
while as ambitious as any encyclopædist traveller, transcended them
all by vitalizing the wealth of impressions which he gathered. He was
the general naturalist-traveller, who took all nature for his province,
and does not seem to have been embarrassed. Of successful
representatives of this type there are few, since Darwin perhaps
none.
IV. Meanwhile Linnæus had brought order, Cuvier had founded his
school of anatomists, Haller had re-organized physiology, the
microscope had deepened analysis, and zoology came of age as a
specialism. Henceforth travellers’ tales were at a discount; even a
Humboldt might be contradicted, and platitudinarian narratives of a
voyage round the world ceased to find the publisher sympathetic or
the public appetized. The naturalist-traveller was now a zoologist, or
a botanist, or an ornithologist, or an entomologist; at any rate, a
specialist. But it was sometimes found profitable to work in
companies, as in the case of the Challenger expedition.
V. Lastly, we find that on the travellers, too, “evolution” cast its spell,
and we have Darwin and Wallace as the types of the biological
travellers, whose results go directly towards the working out of a
cosmology. From Bates and Belt and Brehm there is a long list down
to Dr. Hickson, The Naturalist in Celebes, and Mr. Hudson, The
Naturalist in La Plata. Not, of course, that most are not specialists,
but the particular interest of their work is biological or bionomical.
I have added to this essay a list of some of the most important works
of the more recent naturalist-travellers with which I am directly
acquainted, being convinced that it is with these that the general,
and perhaps also the professional student of natural history should
begin, as it is with them that his studies must also end. For, not only
do they introduce us, in a manner usually full of interest, to the
nature of animal life, but they lead us to face one of the ultimate
problems of biology—the evolution of faunas.

II.
Alfred Edmund Brehm (1829-1884) was born at Unter-Renthendorf
in Sachsen-Weimar, where his father—an accomplished ornithologist
—was pastor. Brought up among birds, learning to watch from his
earliest boyhood, accompanying his father in rambles through the
Thuringian forest, questioning and being questioned about all the
sights and sounds of the woods, listening to the experts who came to
see the famous collection in the Pfarr-haus, and to argue over
questions of species with the kindly pastor, young Brehm was almost
bound to become a naturalist. And while the father stuffed his birds
in the evenings the mother read aloud from Goethe and Schiller, and
her poetic feeling was echoed in her son. Yet, so crooked are life’s
ways, the youth became an architect’s apprentice, and acted as
such for four years!
But an opportunity presented itself which called him, doubtless most
willing, from the desk and workshop. Baron John Wilhelm von Müller,
a keen sportsman and lover of birds, sought an assistant to
accompany him on an ornithological expedition to Africa, and with
him the youth, not yet out of his teens, set forth in 1847. It was a
great opportunity, but the price paid for it was heavy, for Brehm did
not see his home again for full five years, and was forced to bear
strains, to incur responsibilities, and to suffer privations, which left
their mark on him for life. Only those who know the story of his
African journeys, and what African travel may be with repeated
fevers and inconsiderately crippled resources, can adequately
appreciate the restraint which Brehm displays in those popular
lectures, here translated, where there is so much of everything but
himself.
After he returned, in 1852, rich in spoils and experience, if otherwise
poor, he spent several sessions at the universities of Jena and
Vienna. Though earnestly busy in equipping himself for further work,
he was not too old to enjoy the pleasures of a student life. When he
took his doctor’s degree he published an account of his travels
(Reiseskizzen aus Nordostafrica. Jena, 1855, 3 vols.).
After a zoological holiday in Spain with his like-minded brother
Reinhold—a physician in Madrid—he settled for a time in Leipzig,
writing for the famous “Gartenlaube”, co-operating with Rossmässler
in bringing out Die Tiere des Waldes, expressing his very self in his
Bird-Life (1861), and teaching in the schools. It was during this
period that he visited Lapland, of whose bird-bergs the first lecture
gives such a vivid description. In 1861 he married Matthilde Reiz,
who proved herself the best possible helpmeet.
In 1862, Brehm went as scientific guide on an excursion to Abyssinia
undertaken by the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, and subsequently
published a characteristic account of his observations Ergebnisse
einer Reise nach Habesch: Results of a Journey to Abyssinia
(Hamburg, 1863). On his return he began his world-famous
Tierleben (Animal Life), which has been a treasure-house to so
many naturalists. With the collaboration of Professors Taschenberg
and Oscar Schmidt, he completed the first edition of this great work,
in six volumes, in 1869.
Meanwhile he had gone to Hamburg as Director of the Zoological
Gardens there, but the organizing work seems to have suited him ill,
and he soon resigned. With a freer hand, he then undertook the
establishment of the famous Berlin Aquarium, in which he partly
realized his dream of a microcosmic living museum of nature. But,
apart from his actual work, the business-relations were ever irksome,
and in 1874 he was forced by ill-health and social friction to abandon
his position.
After recovery from serious illness he took up his rôle as popular
lecturer and writer, and as such he had many years of happy
success. A book on Cage Birds (1872-1876), and a second edition of
the Tierleben date from this period, which was also interrupted by his
Siberian journeys (1876) and by numerous ornithological
expeditions, for instance to Hungary and Spain, along with the
Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria. But hard work, family sorrows, and
finally, perhaps, the strain of a long lecturing tour in America aged
Brehm before his time, and he died in 1884.
For these notes I am indebted to a delightful appreciation of Brehm
which Ernest Krause has written in introduction to the third edition of
the Tierleben, edited by Pechuel-Loesche, and as regards the
naturalist’s character I can only refer to that essay. As to his
published work, however, every naturalist knows at least the
Tierleben, and on that a judgment may be safely based. It is a
monumental work on the habits of animals, founded in great part on
personal observation, which was always keen and yet sympathetic. It
is a classic on the natural history of animals, and readers of Darwin
will remember how the master honoured it.
Doubtless Brehm had the defects of his qualities. He was, it is said,
too generous to animals, and sometimes read the man into the beast
unwarrantably. But that is an anthropomorphism which easily besets
the sympathetic naturalist. He was sometimes extravagant and
occasionally credulous. He did not exactly grip some of the subjects
he tackled, such as, if I must specify, what he calls “the monkey-
question”.
It is frankly allowed that he was no modern biologist, erudite as
regards evolution-factors, nor did he profess to attempt what is
called zoological analysis, and what is often mere necrology, but his
merit is that he had seen more than most of us, and had seen, above
all, the naturalist’s supreme vision—the vibrating web of life. And he
would have us see it also.

III.
The success of the pictures which Brehm has given us—of bird-
bergs and tundra, of steppes and desert, of river fauna and tropical
forest—raises the wish that they had been complete enough to
embrace the whole world. As this ideal, so desirable both from an
educational and an artistic standpoint, has not been realized by any
one volume, we have ventured to insert here a list of some more or
less analogous English works by naturalist-travellers, sportsmen,
and others—
Adams, A. Leith. Notes of a Naturalist in the Nile Valley
and Malta (Edinburgh, 1870).
Agassiz, A. Three Cruises of the “Blake” (Boston and New
York, 1888).
Baker, S. W. Wild Beasts and their Ways: Reminiscences
of Europe, Asia, Africa, and America (London, 1890).
Bates, H. W. Naturalist on the Amazons (6th Ed. London,
1893).
Belt, T. Naturalist in Nicaragua (2nd Ed. London, 1888).
Bickmore, A. S. Travels in the East Indian Archipelago
(1868).
Blanford, W. T. Observations on the Geology and Zoology
of Abyssinia (London, 1870).
Bryden, H. A. Gun and Camera in Southern Africa
(London, 1893). Kloof and Karroo (1889).
Burnaby, F. A Ride to Khiva (8th Ed. London, 1877).
Buxton, E. N. Short Stalks, or Hunting Camps, North,
South, East, and West (London, 1893).
Chapman, A. and C. M. Buck. Wild Spain (London, 1892).
Cunningham, R. O. Notes on the Natural History of the
Straits of Magellan (Edinburgh, 1871).
Darwin, C. Voyage of the “Beagle” (1844, New Ed.
London, 1890).
Distant, W. L. A Naturalist in the Transvaal (London,
1892).
Drummond, H. Tropical Africa (London, 1888).
Du Chaillu, P. B. Explorations and Adventures in
Equatorial Africa (London, 1861). Ashango Land (1867).
Eha. A Naturalist on the Prowl, or in the Jungle (London,
1894).
Forbes, H. O. A Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Eastern
Archipelago (London, 1885).
Guillemard. Cruise of the “Marchesa” (London, 1886).
Heilprin, A. The Bermuda Islands (Philadelphia, 1889).
Hickson, S. J. A Naturalist in North Celebes (London,
1889).
Holub, Emil. Seven Years in South Africa (1881).
Hudson, W. H. The Naturalist in La Plata (London, 1892).
Idle Days in Patagonia (London, 1893).
Humboldt, A. von. Personal Narrative of Travels to the
Equinoctial Regions of America. Views of Nature (Trans.
1849). Cosmos (Trans. 1849-58).
Johnston, H. H. Kilima Ndjaro Expedition (1885).
Kingsley, C. At last! A Christmas in the West Indies
(1889).
Lumholtz. Among Cannibals (London, 1889).
Moseley, H. N. Notes by a Naturalist on the “Challenger”
(London, 1879. New Ed. 1892).
Nordenskiöld, A. E. Voyage of the “Vega” (London, 1881).
Oates, F., Ed. by C. G. Oates. Matabele Land, the Victoria
Falls, a Naturalist’s Wanderings in the Interior of South
Africa (1881).
Phillipps-Wolley. Big-Game Shooting (Badminton Libr.
London, 1893).
Rodway, J. In the Guiana Forest (London, 1894). British
Guiana (London, 1893).
Roosevelt, Th., and G. B. Grinell. American Big-Game
Hunting (Edinburgh, 1893).
Schweinfurth, G. The Heart of Africa (1878).
Seebohm, H. Siberia in Europe (London, 1880), Siberia in
Asia (London, 1882).
Selous, F. C. A Hunter’s Wanderings (1881). Travel and
Adventure in South-East Africa (London, 1893).
Sibree, Rev. J. The Great African Island (1879).
Solymos, B. (B. E. Falkenberg). Desert Life (London,
1880).
Stanley, H. M. How I Found Livingstone (1872, New Ed.
1885). The Congo (1885). Through the Dark Continent
(1890). In Darkest Africa (1890).
Swayne, H. G. C. Seventeen Trips through Somaliland
(London, 1895).
Tennent, J. E. Natural History of Ceylon (London, 1861).
Thomson, Wyville. The Depths of the Sea (London, 1873).
Narrative of the Voyage of the “Challenger” (1885). And, in
this connection, see S. J. Hickson. Fauna of the Deep Sea
(London, 1894).
Tristram, H. B. The Land of Israel (1876). The Land of
Moab (1873). The Great Sahara (1860).
Wallace, A. R. Malay Archipelago (London 1869). Tropical
Nature (1878). Island Life (1880). Travels on the Amazon
and Rio Negro (1889).
Waterton, Ch. Wanderings in South America (Ed. by J. G.
Wood, 1878).
Woodford, C. M. Naturalist among the Head-hunters
(London, 1890).
 FROM

NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR.

 THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.
“When the Creator of the worlds had made the earth, best loved of
all, and was rejoicing in His perfect work, the devil was seized with a
desire to bring it all to nought. Not yet banished from heaven, he
lived among the archangels in the abodes of the blessed. Up to the
seventh heaven he flew, and, seizing a great stone, hurled it with
might down on the earth exulting in the beauty of its youth. But the
Creator saw the ruthless deed, and sent one of His archangels to
avert the evil. The angel flew even more swiftly than the stone to the
earth beneath, and succeeded in saving the land. The huge stone
plunged thundering into the sea, and hissing waves flooded all the
shores for many a mile. The fall shattered the crust of the stone, and
thousands of splinters sank on either side, some disappearing into
the depths, and some rising above the surface, bare and bleak like
the rock itself. Then God took pity, and in His infinite goodness
resolved to clothe even this naked rock with life. But the fruitful soil
was all but exhausted in His hand; there remained scarce enough to
lay a little here and there upon the stone.”
So runs an ancient legend still current among the Lapps. The stone
which the devil threw is Scandinavia; the splinters which fell into the
sea on either side are the skerries which form a richly varied wreath
around the peninsula. The rents and cracks in the rock are the fjords
and the valleys; the sprinkling of life-giving soil which fell from the
gracious Creator’s hand forms the few fertile tracts which
Scandinavia possesses. To appreciate the full depth and meaning of
the childish story one must one’s self have visited Scandinavia, and
especially Norway, have steered a boat among the skerries, and
have sailed round the country from the extreme south to the farthest
north. Marvellous, indeed, is the country; marvellous are its fjords;
still more marvellous is the encircling wreath of islands and reefs.
Scandinavia is an alpine country like Switzerland and the Tyrol, yet it
differs in a hundred ways from both of these. Like our Alps it has