THE pr()gkp:ss of geogkaphical knowledge. 365 



finally to oi'odesy to support the framework of our geography and to 

 give it its rightful place in the great total of the world's iuapi)ing. 

 But the demand for geographical mapping is not satisfied with the 

 prouuse of an elaborate basis for the work which has fii'st to be con- 

 structed with the expenditure of much time and mon<'y before any- 

 thing in the nature of a final map can be produced for purposes of 

 administration. The political world, too, can not always sit patiently 

 through all the international disagreements, the losses, the unrest, and 

 the positive national danger to which an unsettled boundary' gives 

 rise, while the geodesist works slowly through the country year after 

 year, piling up sheaves of equations and folios of observations. ])ut 

 never a square mile of practical topography. As for the military 

 department I hardly know what to say. There is the example before 

 us of Germans, Russians, French, and Americans, all conducting their 

 campaigns with maps in their hands, taking every special means at 

 their command in order to acquire such maps before they commence 

 operations; while the Boers have fought us to the bitter end with a 

 practical knowledge of the country which is even better than maps, 

 and which is exactly that class of knowledge which maps are supposed 

 to replace or supplement. None of them wait for geodes3^ 



Certainly the attitude of the military department is not one of neu- 

 trality. They would like the maps, they are even anxious to get 

 them, Init they are not quite certain that they are worth paying for. 

 However that ma}^ be, 1 can only express my own conviction that 

 geographical mapping will be found to be an urgent necessity in every 

 corner of the unmapped world sul»ject to British infiuence. We 

 would like to wait for those accurate determinations of geodesy which 

 would at once furnish us with the best of all possible means for com- 

 mencing a comprehensive geographical survey. But we can nottitt'ord 

 to wait, and the great geographical i)roblem of the age is how to 

 reverse the natural sequence of scientific procedui'e and to obtain 

 maps of the unmapped world which no sul)se([ui'nt geodetic opera- 

 tions shall condemn as inaccurate. It is not a (juestion of expediency; 

 it has been one of necessity ft>r many years ])ast; and inasnmch as 

 necessity is the mother of invention, 1 thiidv that it will tinally be 

 conceded that means have been found for insuring sufiicient accuracy 

 in geographical work to render it capable of enduring the subsecjuent 

 tests of coni[)leted geodetic measurement without dislocation and 

 without interference with the general utility of th(» maps, even if 

 that accuracy be not scientifically perfect. 



It is not ni}^ intention to bore you with technical (h^tails. I only 

 wish to impress upon you that in the field of scientific geography, as 

 in other fields, "the old ord(>r changeth." We must work on new 

 principles in arder to meet new demands. 



