THE PROGKESS OF WEOGRAPHTCAL KNOWLEDGE. 863 



Frenchmen in the world of exploration and of exploratory map- 

 making are only equaled by the seientitic knowledge and literary abil- 

 ity displayed in their technical literature on the sul)ject. Colonel 

 Lairssedat's contribution to the History of Topograph}' is to b(^ reck- 

 oned with as a standard work. In C-anada and North America ^vo have 

 perhaps a practical exposition of the art of oeographical surveying 

 which is as unequaled in completeness and compreliensiveness as the 

 country with which it has to deal is luiecpialed as a subject for its 

 application. There the close association between geological structure 

 and geographical conformation is so fully recognized that the same 

 technical process of surveying is applied for the ])urp()se of the double 

 illustration. The Canadian geological survey is their geographical 

 survey, and I think that it is t(^ Canada (if not to India) that wt^ ow(» 

 the first recognition of th(^ fact that geographical sur\'eying is a sepa- 

 rate, distinct, and most important branch of the general art, which 

 should form the basis — the mother survey as it were — from which all 

 other surveys should spring. In India 1 am hap])v to think that this 

 advance in the science of geography is now wcdl understood. It has 

 been more or less forced on us l)y the necessity for such rapid and 

 comprehensive surveys as are recpiired for frontier military operations, 

 for the purposes of boundary demarcation, and for the important duty 

 of keeping our own transfrontier information up to the level of that 

 of our neigh))()rs. In our African colonies it has, alas, been discov- 

 erinl a little too late thiit geographical surveys are a sound preliminary 

 to ndlitary operations; l)ut the discovery once made it is not likely to 

 be overlooked. Here, indeed, was presented a most forcible illustra- 

 tion of the danger of building up a geographical puzzle map; of piling- 

 one on to another the results of local tiscal surveys in the hope that 

 when they were all put together they might make a good topograph- 

 ical guide to the country. Needless to say the result was disastrous 

 from the scientific point of view, and it might almost l)e said of it that 

 it was disastrous from the military point of \ie\v as well. Imagine 

 for an instant that the Canadian system of a geological survey (involv- 

 ing of course accurate topography) had been applied ab initio to South 

 xVl'rica, who can possibly say what the result might not have been by 

 this time^ The expansion of the Randt mines, foi' example, depends 

 at present on local experiment carri(Hl out no doubt by most al>le engi- 

 n('(>rs with ail the knowl(>dge of scientific miiung that is to be acciuired 

 in tiiese days of advanced spiM-ialism. Hut all the same J may be per- 

 mitted to suggest that tlunr experimental ventures, their tentative 

 borings, are su))ject to a good deal that is almost gu(\sswork for theii- 

 application, and that a com[)rehensive, carefully conducted geological 

 surv(\y of the whole countiy would ))robal)ly have afforded valual)le 

 indications in many unexpected directions. So also as regards schemes 

 for local irrigation. Take the northw (\stern part of Cape CV)lony, for 



