354 THE PKOGRESS OF GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 



same Held a,s ourselves. 1 hav^c l)ut lately letunied from a journey 

 full of oeographieal interest which has carried nio over souk^ of the 

 tracks left many years ago hy :i 15ritisli scientific expedition to the 

 South Seas, which will l)c ever associated in the memory of all geog- 

 raphers with the names of Charles Darwin, and H. M. S. BedgJr. With 

 the wider scope for gathering information which is afforded in these 

 days by the growth of civilization and the shooting out of its long ten- 

 drils into tlie waste i)laces of Patagonia, it has been possible to verity 

 some of the suggestions as to the structure and geographical configura- 

 tion of that southern continent which were offered })y the observations 

 of Darwin, and to examine here and thei'c, in some detail, the results of 

 recent local surveys in testing the accuracy of the coast outline and of 

 the coast soundings established by the Beiujlv. Of the former I can 

 only say that they seem to me prophetic; of the latter, so little change 

 has taken place in South American coast configuration during the last 

 fifty years that practically the charts of the Beagle arc the charts of 

 the Chilian and Argentine admiralties of to-day, with hardly a notice- 

 able variation. Such magnificent results as were achieved then are 

 hard to beat at any time. We do not hope to beat them. We can 

 only hope to imitate them. They stand good for all time, and it is 

 useful to recall them now and then in order to emphasize a truism which 

 is occasionally overlooked by modern geographical explorers. It is 

 not the most recent work in the field of exploration which is necessa- 

 rily the most valuable. One of the great sins of omission in modern 

 exploration is that of a failure to apjDreciate the efforts of preceding 

 geographers in the same field of research as ourselves — the want of a 

 patient absorption of all available previous knowledge before we 

 attempt to add to the sum of it. We are not all of us gifted with the 

 patient determination of that great travcder Sven Hedin, who spent 

 three years in reading about central Asia before he wrote a word on 

 the subject. It can not be too strongly urged in these days of narrow- 

 ing fields for activity that although geographical research is essentially 

 an active function of an active life it demands yet more and more, as 

 time goes on, the application of the scholar added to the determined 

 energy of the explorer. 



FORMATION OF A CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF GEOOKAl'lIICAL ADVISERS. 



It is in this coimectloji that 1 would advance a suggestion which I 

 have alread}' heard discussed l)y travelers anxious to apply their ener- 

 gies in well-directed efforts toward the aciiuisition of really useful 

 scientific information. It concerns the possibility of establishing a 

 central geographical committee which should gather together expert 

 knowledge in all branches of natural scii^ice, and be prepared to give 

 technical advice to travelers and explorers, not only as to the literary 

 sources from which the best information may be derived, but also to 



