GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION. 549 



geology, zoology, and botany ; but the debt is not all on one side. 

 Save for the impetus derived from geographical research, many of these 

 sciences would not be in their present advanced condition. They gain 

 in vast augmentation of facts, and may cheerfully lend their aid in 

 correlating these for geographical requirements. 



In no respect does modern geography stand out more prominently 

 than in the greater precision and fullness of its work. It has fitted 

 out exploratory expeditions, and in so doing has been careful to see 

 them provided with the instruments and apparatus necessary to enable 

 them to contribute accurate and definite results. It has guided and 

 fostered research, and has been eager to show a generous appreciation 

 of the labors of those by whom our knowledge of the earth has been 

 extended. Human courage and endurance are not less enthusiastically 

 applauded than they once were ; but they must be united to no com- 

 mon powers of observation before they will now raise a traveler to 

 the highest rank. When we read a volume of recent travel, while 

 warmly appreciating the spirit of adventure, fertility of resource, pres- 

 ence of mind, and other moral qualities of its author, we instinctively 

 ask ourselves, as we close its pages, What may be the sum of its addi- 

 tions to our knowledge of the earth ? From the geographical point of 

 view and it is to this point alone that these remarks apply we must 

 rank an explorer according to his success in widening our knowledge 

 and enlarging our views regarding the aspects of nature. 



The demands of modern geography are thus becoming every year 

 more exacting. It requires more training in its explorers abroad, more 

 knowledge on the part of its readers at home. The days are drawing 

 to a close when one can gain undying geographical renown by strug- 

 gling against man and beast, fever and hunger and drought, across 

 some savage and previously unknown region, even though little can 

 be shown as the outcome of the journey. All honor to the pioneers 

 by whom this first exploratory work has been so nobly done ! They 

 will be succeeded by a race that will find its laurels more difficult to 

 win a race from which more will be expected and which will need to 

 make up in the variety, amount, and value of its detail, what it lacks 

 in the freshness of first glimpses into new lands. 



With no other science has geography become more intimately con- 

 nected than with geology, and the connection is assuredly destined to 

 become yet deeper and closer. These two branches of human knowl- 

 edge are, to use Hakluyt's phrase, " the sunne and moone, the right eye 

 and the left," of all fruitful inquiry into the character and history of 

 the earth's surface. As it is impossible to understand the genius and 

 temperament of a people, its laws and institutions, its manners and 

 customs, its buildings, and its industries, unless we trace back the his- 

 tory of that people, and mark the rise and effect of each varied influence 

 by which its progress has been molded in past generations ; so it is 

 clear that our knowledge of the aspect of a continent, its mountains 



