PHILBY (Harry St John Bridger).
The Empty Quarter: being a Description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub' al Khali.
PHILBY'S MOST REMARKABLE JOURNEY
PHILBY (Harry St John Bridger).
The Empty Quarter: being a Description of the Great South Desert of Arabia known as Rub' al Khali.
Considered his most remarkable journey, Philby’s exploration of the Rub’ al Khali was not the first by a westerner (Bertram Thomas had traversed the region a year previously), but did make major scientific and geographical contributions to the western understanding of this area, described as “the most inhospitable regions of a barren land”.
“By day he collected place names, temperatures, compass bearings, barometric pressures, rocks, fossils, flora and fauna, and ancient inscriptions. At night he wrote them up in his diaries, squatting in the sand by lamplight and hiding his work from his suspicious Arab escort. These journeys […] won him high honour with the Royal Geographical Society, the British Museum, Kew Gardens, and academic societies all over the world. He was awarded the founder’s gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1920 and the Sir Richard Burton memorial medal of the Royal Asiatic Society in 1925.” (ODNB).
References: Ghani, 302; Howgego III, p.31; Macro, 1781.
