THE rKOGKESS OK (JKOdKArHICAL KNOWLEDGE. 355 



fiii'uisli hints as to tli(^ best localitios for reseaivli in tin}' special branch 

 of science. This wouhl certainly shoi'ten the preliminarv hihor of 

 collectino- information; and in many cases when expeditions are phmned 

 at short notice it would be lin'alua])le in indicating- opportunities for 

 special research which would otherwise ])e o\'erlooked. It is so much 

 more freijuently want of time, rather than want of incliinition, which 

 prevents the actjuisition of that preliminary and most essiMitial knowl- 

 edge which alone can riyhtly direct the ctibrt to thi; ()})portunity and 

 tit tht> two together, that 1 have much sympathy with the pathetic 

 appeal of more than one younj;- explorer who has comjjlained that it is 

 necessary to travel all around London in order to tind the man (to say 

 nothing" of the 1)()ok) who will t(dl you in concise langiiage exactly what 

 to look for in the land which you are visiting. 



CONTKACTION OF TIIK WORLD's '"TEKKA INCOCNITA.'' 



It is, however, when wo leave the high seas with their almost inex- 

 haustible store of unexplored ocean tloors and icebound coast line, and 

 turn from oceanography to the more familiar aspects of land geog- 

 raphy that we tind those spaces within which ""pioneer" exploration 

 can 1)0 usefully carried to be so rapidly contracting year by year as to 

 force upon our attention the necessity for adapting our methods for a 

 progressive s^^stem of world-wide map making, not only to the re(|uire- 

 ments of al)stract science, but to the utilitarian doujands of commercial 

 and political enterprise. 



ASIA. 



Take Asia, for example. Nearly half of the great continent pertains 

 to Siberia, and within the limits of Russian territor}^ the admira1)lG 

 organization of her own system of geographical exploration leaves no 

 room for outsiders to assist usefully, even if political objections did 

 not exist. In central and southern Arabia there is undoul)todly still 

 much to learn, but of the remaining countries which intervene between 

 the Mediterranean and India, of Persia, Afghanistan, and Baluchistan, 

 it can only be said that the work of the geographical pioneer has already 

 ended where that of the engineer and surveyor has commenced. In 

 the Farthest East again — in Manchuria, China, Tonkin, and Siam — there 

 is much more room for the practical exploration of the road and rail- 

 way maker than there is for the irresponsible career of the geograph- 

 ical traveler. The highway from China to India is almost as well 

 known as that from London to India, and the activit}^ of railway enter- 

 prise in the south of Asia bids fair to rival the triumphs of Sil)eria. 

 It is only in the central deserts of Mongolia and the wastes of Tibet 

 spreading southward to the Himalayas that we can find untrodden areas 

 of any great magnitude, and even in central Asia before venturing on 

 a statement of future possibilities in the tield of exploration, it would 



