SECTION F GEOGRAPHY 



(Hall 11, September 22, 3 p. m.) 



CHAIRMAN: PROFESSOR ISRAEL, C. RUSSELL, University of Michigan. 

 SPEAKERS: HUGH ROBERT MILL, Director of the British Rainfall Organization, 



London. 



H. YULE OLDHAM, King's College, Cambridge. 

 SECRETARY: R. D. SALISBURY, University of Chicago. 



THE PRESENT PROBLEMS OF GEOGRAPHY 



BY HUGH ROBERT MILL 



[Hugh Robert Mill, Director of the British Rainfall Organization, 62 Camden 

 Square, London, N. W. b. May 28, 1861, Thurso, Scotland. B. Sc. University 

 of Edinburgh, 1883; D.Sc. 1886; LL.D. University of Saint Andrews, 1900; 

 Makdougall Brisbane Medal, Royal Society of Edinburgh, 1894; Post-graduate, 

 University of Edinburgh, 1884-86; University Extension Lecturer, Edin- 

 burgh, Oxford, and London, 1887-1900; Librarian to the Royal Geographical 

 Society, 1892-1900; Secretary of Sixth International Geographical Congress, 

 London, 1895; Fellow, Royal Society of Edinburgh, Royal Geographical Society, 

 Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Royal Meteorological Society; Honorary 

 Corresponding Member of the Geographical Societies in Brisbane, Philadel- 

 phia, Paris, Berlin, Budapest, and Amsterdam. Author of The Realm of Nature; 

 The Clyde Sea Area; The English Lakes; New Lands, their Resources, etc.; The 

 Siege of the South Pole ; and various school-books. Editor of British Rainfall; 

 Symon's Meteorological Magazine; and The International Geography. Carrisd out 

 several researches in Physical Geography, especially in the departments of 

 oceanography and meteorology, described in more than a hundred published 

 papers.] 



THE present problems of a science may, I hope, be viewed as those 

 problems the solution of which at the present time is most urgent and 

 appears most promising. Were present problems held to include the 

 whole penumbra of our ignorance, I at least have neither the desire nor 

 the competence to discourse upon them. So much has been written on 

 the problems of geography in recent years that a detailed summary of 

 the existing literature would be a ponderous work, and afford much 

 dull and contradictory reading. I cannot even attempt to associate 

 different views of the problems of geography with the names of their 

 leading exponents, though, perhaps, if I were to do so, I should quote 

 with almost entire approval the masterly address recently delivered 

 to the American Association for the Advancement of Science by Pro- 

 fessor W. M. Davis. 



Believing that every geographer should approach such a question 

 as this by the avenue of his own experience, I offer a frankly personal 

 opinion, the outcome of such study, research, and intercourse with 

 kindred workers as have been possible to me during the last twenty 



