224 



NATURE 



i January 6, 1898 



Consequent pressure of population or change in the avail- 

 abiHty of resources sets up migratory movements along 

 natural lines dictated by land-form, water-flow, and soil- 

 covering ; conquest and delimitation ensue, and the 

 straight boundary lines of the map, which come last, are, 

 after all, natural relations to geographical facts associated 

 with the whole body of the earth itself and its rotation. 

 The grouping of dwelling-places around certain centres 

 leading to the origin of towns may also, as a rule, be 

 explained by geographical considerations. 



Of the six continents which are usually recognised two 

 stand out from the rest, distinguished by the simplicity of 

 their great features and the clearness of the interdepen- 

 dence of the various relationships. These are North and 

 South America, either of which forms an ideal subject 

 for a geographical monograph. 



We have mentioned the superiority of the new issue of 

 " Stanford's Compendium " over the old ; but there is one 

 point of distinct inferiority. The old issue retained some 

 traces of the original design, giving it a certain unity ; 

 the new is not so much a compendium as a series of 



ing of the provinces of the Dominion. Unexpected 

 comparisons and contrasts of the aptest kind with the 

 course of history in other lands and other times con- 

 tinually delight the reader's mind and illuminate the 

 story. But when froiti history the author enters geo- 

 graphy the wheels seem to drop from his chariot, and 

 he drives heavily. One could imagine that he wrote 

 with effort, perhaps even with distaste. His comparisons 

 lose point, and are sometimes inaccurate. Canada is not, 

 as stated on p. 29, " above all others the land of abund- 

 ance of waters." Finland or Sweden would, we believe, 

 correspond better — certainly as well — to the definition. 

 If any great river is to be celebrated for the length of 

 its tributaries it should surely be the Amazon, the Congo, 

 the Mississippi, rather than the St. Lawrence (p. 34). 

 As to climate, we dispute the suggestion that tobacco 

 cannot be grown in England (p. 47), and we must re- 

 member the success of Lord Bute's wine-making from 

 grapes grown in the open air at Cardiff. The treatment 

 of climate is otherwise not fully satisfactory. While no 

 attempt is made to deny that the Canadian winter is 



Fig. 2. — The Prairie, Manitoba. 



separate works. Dr. S. E. Dawson's " North America, 

 Vol. i.," is not, strictly speaking, the first part of a 

 geographical description of North America. It is the 

 description of the Dominion of Canada and Newfound- 

 land, written not from the standpoint of a geographer, 

 but from that of an imperialist British subject and patriotic 

 Canadian. The author infuses warm colour into his 

 narrative, which, gratifying as it must be to the senti- 

 ments of the people of the British Empire, does not 

 enhance the value of the work as a scientific treatise. 

 Dr. S. E. Dawson is obviously not himself a geographer 

 — his strength lies in his treatment of history. Having 

 expressed our view as to what a geographical treatise on 

 a continent should be, we need only add that " North 

 America, Vol. i.," is written without regard to the guiding 

 principles of geographical science. 



We have seldom, if ever, read more satisfying or more 

 graceful renderings of history than the chapters of this 

 book dealing with the discovery, exploration and occupy- 



NO. 147 1, VOL. 57] 



cold, the author seems more concerned to combat what 

 he believes to be the average Englishman's exaggerated 

 ideas on the subject than to describe the actual con- 

 ditions. With regard to the French of Quebec (p. 295), 

 which some people seem to have called a patois^ the 

 author observes : " English is not spoken in the same way 

 over all the United Kingdom, but no one speaks of a 

 Dublin or an Aberdeen patois, or for that matter of a 

 London patois." We can assure him that some people 

 do speak of the dialect (a word as displeasing as patois) 

 of these parts, and many authors, with an eye to popu- 

 larity, delight to exaggerate rather than minimise such 

 differences. The tunnel at Sarnia, 6025 feet long (p. 391), 

 cannot be termed " one of the greatest in the world, ' 

 unless the standard of greatness is put very low, and the 

 number of great tunnels made very large. 



These are instances which do not seriously detract 

 from the value of the book to the general reader ; but 

 Canada is so great, and its natural resources are so vast, 



