president's address —section e, 121 



sun round which the other sciences circulate, like so many con- 

 tributory planets." 



It would be difficult, indeed, to say what geography does not 

 include, since a description of the earth would be incomplete 

 without a knowledge of the elements of which it is composed ; of 

 its natural features, climates, and products; the different races of 

 beings by whom it is inhabited, and of the part which these have 

 played in the past history of the earth- 



I am far from wishing it to be understood that an accurate 

 acquaintance with all the details of each particular science is 

 necessary to the right concteption and comprehension of geography, 

 but it is, I think, self-evident that any system of geography worthy 

 •of the name must embrace a general view of the other sciences with 

 which it is so intimately allied. In Germany and Austria this com- 

 prehensive view of geography is now fully recognised, and there it 

 ranks much higher in the educational system than it does in any 

 other part of the world. 



It has been said that geography covers so great a variety of 

 departments of natural science ttiat it really can call none its own. 

 Geologists have taken possession of the modifications of the earth's 

 surface, meteorologists lay claim to the science which treats of the 

 atmosphere and its phenomena, and among the other sciences there 

 seems little Ir^ft to the geographer. 



The late Professor Green, in his " Short Geography of the British 

 Islands," even maintains that " history strikes its roots in geography, 

 for without a clear vivid realisation of the physical structure of a 

 country the incidents of the life which men have lived in it can 

 have no interest or meaning. Through history, again, politics strike 

 their roots in geography, and many a rash generalisation would 

 have been avoided had political thinkers been trained in a know- 

 ledge of the earth they live in, and of the influence which its 

 varying structure must needs exert on the varying political 

 tendencies and institutions of the people who part its empire 

 between them." 



Precise observation has now supplied satisfactory proof that the 

 •earth's surface, with all that is on it, has been evolved through 

 countless ages by a process of constant change. Those features 

 that at first appear most permanent, yet in detail undergo perpetual 

 modification, under the operation of forces which are inherent in 

 the materials of which the earth is composed, or are developed by- 

 its movements, and by its loss or gain of heat. 



The highest mountain which rears its lofty crest is slowly but 

 surely being thrown down ; the sternest, most impregnable rock 

 which frowns above the sea is gradually being worn away by that 

 insidious enemy ; the deepest waters, the wddest oceans, are 

 unceasingly being filled up. The destructive agencies of nature are 

 in never ceasing activity ; the erosive and dissolving power of 

 water in its various forms, the disinte<j:ratin2: forces of heat and 



