journey

Botanicals and books on zoology, insect, and marine life are important sources for design and ornament; coloration and patterns from the natural world inspire artists and designers in many ways. The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library has a great collection of these resources available for study. The Cabinet was published as monthly issues and contains entries on the natural history of various species in America as well as accounts of hunting expeditions.

One of the most pristine and wild areas of North America is the Canadian Northwest. It is over 400,000 square miles with less than 50,000 inhabitants, and due to its northerly location and weather, has been largely untouched by man. Author and environmentalist Sigurd F.

The Southern Cross Expedition (otherwise known as the British Antarctic Expedition) holds a special place in history: it was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, the first to ever winter on the Antarctic mainland, the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier in over 50 years, and a pioneer of Antarctic survival and travel techniques. Roald Amundsen, the first man to reach the South Pole, even stated that the expedition’s work helped him and other explorers.

The Caledonian railway, or The Caley as it was fondly named, was a Scottish railway system that connected Scotland to London from the 1840’s until its dissolution in the 1920’s. This compilation of book excerpts, articles, news clippings, and advertisements chronicles and romanticizes the waning decades of the Caledonian Railway from the turn of the century until 1923 when The Caley was absorbed into the London, Midland, and Scottish Railway by The Railways Act of 1921, an act that streamlined 120 individual British railway systems into just four.