PRESENT PROBLEMS OF GEOGRAPHY 665 



relation to altitude, configuration, soil, and climate. Such phenomena 

 are comparatively simple, and the influence of the various modi- 

 fications of geographical control is capable of being discovered. I 

 need only mention the similar problems in animal distribution, both 

 on land and in the sea, to the elucidation of which many able workers 

 are devoting themselves. 



Difficulties increase when the more complicated conditions of 

 human activity are taken into account. The study of the geograph- 

 ical causes determining, or assisting to determine, the sites of towns, 

 the lines of roads and railways, the boundaries of countries, the 

 seats of industries, and the course of trade, is full of fascination and 

 promise. It has yielded interesting results in many hands; above 

 all, in the hands of the leading exponent of anthropogeography, the 

 late Professor Ratzel, of Leipzig, whose sudden death last month is 

 a grievous loss to geographical science. Had he lived, he might have 

 carried the lines of thought, which he developed so far, to their 

 logical conclusion in the formulation of general laws of universal 

 application; but that task devolves on his disciples. 



Separate efforts in small and isolated areas are valuable, but a 

 much wider basis is necessary before general principles that are more 

 than hypotheses can be deduced. For this purpose there must be 

 organized cooperation, international if possible, but, in the present 

 condition of things, more probably on a national footing for each 

 country. To be effective, the work would have to be on a larger 

 scale, and to be continued for a longer time, than is likely to appeal 

 to an individual or a voluntary association. One experienced 

 geographer could direct an army of workers, whose task would be 

 to collect materials on a properly thought-out plan, and from these 

 materials the director of the work could before long begin to pro- 

 duce results, probably not sensational, but accurate and definite, 

 which is far better. The director of such a piece of work must be 

 free to disregard the views of the collectors of the facts with which 

 he deals, if, as may very well happen, these views are at variance 

 with scientific principles. 



A complete geographical description should commence with a 

 full account of the configuration of the selected area, and in this 

 I lay less stress than some geographers feel it necessary to do upon 

 the history of the origin of surface features. The features them- 

 selves control mobile distributions by their form, irrespective of the 

 way in which that form was produced, and, although considerations 

 of origin are often useful and always interesting, they are apt to be- 

 come purely geological. The second point to discuss is the nature 

 of the actual surface, noting the distribution of such geological 

 formations as volcanic rocks, clays, limestones, sandstones, and 

 economic minerals, the consistency and composition of the rocks 



