PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—SECTION E. U7 
in the study of Geography as a science. I cannot illustrate better 
than by quoting some statistics ] have come across. They are 
extracted from Professor Wagner’s Geographisches Jahrbuch as 
follows :— 
| | 
SOCIETIES. MEMBERS. | REVENUE. | SERIALS. 
| | 
— 7 
| France and her colonies... 29. 19,800 | £12,200 | 45 | 
| Germany Jk 3ae 345 22. | 9,200 £4,600 Aisi 
| Great Britain and Possessions 9 5,650 | £12,000 | 10 | 
NoMENCLATURE. 
A matter of considerable importance to geographical science 
has been referred to in several quarters recently. It is with 
respect to the application of names to newly-discovered natural 
features and localities, and it is satisfactory to observe that a 
unanimous consensus of opinion seems to prevail in all authorita- 
tive sources that in every case the native name should, if possible 
of being ascertained, be retained in preference to the much-to-be 
deprecated practice, unfortunately but too common, of servilely 
attaching complimentary and but too frequently utterly mean- 
ingless ones, to the exclusion of already well-established and 
generally appropriate native designations. As we are well aware, 
there are few landmarks or waterways in our colonies but have 
an appellation in the euphonious and poetic language of the unfor- 
tunate race that are so speedily becoming extinct. Let us hope 
that the strongly-expressed opinion upon this point will be regarded 
by explorers in the future, and that, in this part of the globe at 
any rate, the history of a human race, who must in the course of 
avery short period be but a memory of the past, may be per- 
petuated in a small degree by the scant justice of at least paying 
respect to their right of nomenclature to possessions of which 
they were forcibly deprived. . 
The past year has been, as before observed, exceptionally 
remarkable for the universal interest shown in the wide field of 
geographical observation, and the unanimous and spontaneous 
desire to promulgate the higher and broader order of knowledge 
occupied by the more liberally interpreted problems of scientitic 
geography. This common centre of organised effort, constituting 
the event of the year, has been, of course, the great meeting in 
Paris. Here, in the centre of activity of geographical science, 
the ancient Geographical Society of Paris befittingly concentrated 
all its co-workers from every part of the world, representing 
nearly every kindred institution in existence, for the discussion of 
the various important questions having relation to the science 
of geography. This, the fourth International Congress of 
Goegraphical Sciences, was opened by the veteran president, 
