THK PROGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 853 



advHticcd by tliis international attack on tlic gTcat unknown soutliern 

 land of more intsM-ost tlian that which pertains to the history of tiie 

 world's o-eot>ra[)hy. Independently of securino- a tirnier outline to the 

 vao'ue definition of southern land areas of the present day, it is there 

 that we hope to hnd evidences of another distribution of those areas 

 in primeval times. Shall we be aide to trace the Pataoonian forma- 

 tions, those recent basaltic lavas which overlie trees, beyond that 

 point in Grahams Land whei'e we know that they occur ayain, to the 

 Australian side of the Southern Pole? Shall we rind that Krebus and 

 Terror are ])ut the natural extension of that mai^'niricent array of vol- 

 canic cones which overlook the Paciric from the Patayoniaii Andes? 

 AVill the Miolania, the i^-reat turtle of Patagonia, not unknown in Aus- 

 tralia, complete with his bones another liidv in that chain of many 

 evidences that Patagonia and Australia once met across the extreme 

 south? You may say this is not geography. I hardly know" whether 

 in these days it is still necessary to plead that between geography and 

 natural sciences, whether of geology, biology, or anthropology, the 

 connection is so intimate that in the actual held of research it is 

 impossibh^ to disconnect them. Modern geography is but a develop- 

 ment, and while the process of its evolution is perhaps to ))e found in 

 strictly geological rields, it has so modiried and influenced the prob 

 lems of lif(^ and the distribution of it throughout the world that a col- 

 lector of facts like myself rinds it convenient to accept, for the mere 

 sake of simplicity, the science of geography as the l)est basis for 

 divergent iiKjuiries into many other scientiric rields, which can l)e dif- 

 ferentiated at leisure ])v the natural philosopher. 



NECESSITY FOR STUDY OF GEOGRAPHICAL HISTORY. 



But while we are justiried in expecting nuich from this great inter- 

 national movement, we nuist still moderate our ex})ectations. AVe 

 nuist admit that in the rield of purely naval exploration we hav(^ not 

 the same developments in mechanical and instrumental accessories 

 which place within our reach the possibility of conducting land expe- 

 ditions on far more scientific and exact methods tlian wert^ possible to 

 our grandfathers. Wireless telegraphy, for instance, will not yet ena- 

 l)l(^ a ship fast bound in arctic ice to determine her longitude, and the 

 restless ocean still precludes the use of many of the more rintdy gradu- 

 ated instruments which are essential to the exact measurements per- 

 taining to triangulation. Methods and instruments, indeed, will not 

 differ materially from those adopted b\' Franklin oi' by Ross more than 

 half a century ago. Better insti'uments of their class no doubt are 

 within I'cach, owing to the extraordinary accuracy of modern pi'oduc- 

 tion; but better hands to hold them it would be impossi])le to rind. 

 We are often so pleased with ourselves in these days that we art' apt 

 to forget what has been done by our geographical forerunners in the 



SM 1902 28 



