Program To Present Views Of New World Wilderness

"The Endless Wilderness," a five-part reading, lecture and discussion program focusing on the unspoiled wilderness that greeted the first European explorers of the New World, is scheduled to begin Thursday from 7 to 9 p.m. at the Camden County Library in Voorhees.

"It's not for people with a scientific background at all," said Robert Flanagan, a librarian who supervises reader services and is responsible for adult programming at the Camden County Library.

The program, which features speakers from several universities, was developed by the New Jersey Committee for the Humanities, Flanagan said. The committee approached eight libraries in the state and asked if they were interested in presenting it.

"The topic sounded interesting and important to me, so I thought it was something we should try to do," Flanagan said. The library also has had experience in such programs, having done a reading/discussion series on the 1930s last fall.

"The Endless Wilderness" will hark back to the era of the early European settler naturalists/explorers in the New World and the state of the environment at that time, Flanagan said.

"I think what the series attempts to do is say this is what the (New World) was like, this is what these explorers saw when they came here," Flanagan said. This will be accomplished through the reading of works by early explorers, including men who navigated the Amazon and explored the plant and animal life of Nicaragua in the 19th century.

Some of these readings, which participants are asked to complete before the appropriate program, can be challenging, Flanagan said.

"These are a little more demanding readings" than the fiction featured in the fall lecture/reading series, he said.

The series, which is free but limited to 45 people (21 had signed up by early last week), begins Thursday with a program on "The Vastness of Time and Space." The featured speaker will be Delano West, a historian from the University of Northern Arizona, and participants are asked to read The Naturalist on the River Amazon, an account of the exploration of the river by 19th-century naturalist Henry Walter Bates.

The program continues at two-week intervals, with "Richness and Diversity of Flora and Fauna," featuring biologist David Dobkin from Rutgers University-Camden, on March 15; and, on March 29, "The Original Americans," about Native Americans, with anthropologist Marshall Becker of West Chester University.

The series continues April 12 with "Conflicting Perceptions: The Practical & the Romantic," featuring Robert Peck, historian of science from the Academy of Natural Sciences. The concluding program, April 26, is on "Awareness of Environmental Change," which contrasts the findings of the early explorers with the current state of the environment, and is presented by geoscientist John Navarra of Jersey City State College.

Each program will probably feature an hour of lecture and an hour of discussion by the audience. Participants must register in advance for the entire program, and books are provided free of charge. For more information, call the library at 772-1636.