474 



NATURE 



{Sept. II, 1879 



traveller to observe with scientific accuracy, and to bring home 

 really valuable results in various branches of inquiry. It is very 

 desirable that this resolution of the Geographical Society should 

 be widely known, and I trust that the local members of this 

 section will co-operate so far as to bear in mind that this aid is 

 offered by the Geographical Society, when the intention of any 

 native of Ilallam^hire to visit a distant region comes to their 

 notice. Incalculable good may be done to the cause of geography 

 by a systeai which will have the effect of making every traveller 

 a scientific and intelligent observer. 



The surveying and mapping of the ocean is only second in 

 importance to that of the land ; and this work also divides itself 

 into three sections, namely, the coasts surveyed, the coasts 

 partially surveyed, and the unsurveyed coasts. Ilydrography 

 will not be completed until all the coasts in the world are 

 included in the first section, which is now very far indeed from 

 being the case. Yet this is not merely a question of science, of 

 the study of the physical geography of the ^ea, interesting as 

 this branch of our subject has become. Upon the accuracy and 

 completeness of charts hangs the safety of thousands of lives, 

 and the prosperity of commerce in all parts of the world. When 

 it is remembered how much depends upon the work of marine 

 surveys, it must be a subject of astonishment that so many 

 hundreds of miles of coast line frequented by our shipping 

 remain unsurveyed ; and that even, in some cases, when the 

 surveys have been executed and charts published by foreign 

 governments, they are not accessible in an English form. In the 

 interests of humanity and of the well-being of our trade, the 

 efforts of geographers in urging the completion of marine surveys 

 ought to be cordially seconded by Chambers of Commerce, and 

 by all those whose material interests are concerned in the pro- 

 vision of accurate charts of all coasts visited by our shipping. 



Hitherto I have invited your attention to the basis of geography, 

 to the measurement of the surface of land and sea, and of their 

 heights and depths ; to the mapping of the world, and to the 

 innumerable uses of maps and charts. But this only forms the 

 skeleton of our science, which is endued with flesh and blood, 

 %\ ith life and motion, by those who study the causes and nature 

 of the changes that have taken place and are now taking place 

 upon the earth ; by comparative and physical geographers, by 

 those who study and classify natural phenomena, and demonstrate 

 their connection with each other and their places in the great 

 scheme of nature. 



Geography and geology are, from one point of view, sister 

 sciences. The former treats of the earth as it now is and of 

 changes which have occurred within historical times. The latter 

 deals with the condition of the earth and the changes on its 

 surface which went on during the cycles of ages before the 

 dawn of history. The two sciences are quite distinct, while they 

 aid each other. No geological survey can be undertaken without 

 the previous completion of geographical maps, and the geologist 

 is enabled to comprehend the condition of the earth in remote 

 a^'es by studying the phenomena of physical geography. On 

 the other hand, the geographer acquires a correct understanding 

 of the present state of the eartli's surface by considering the 

 records of those marvellous changes which can be gathered from 

 history and from the narratives of travellers and observers in 

 all ages. Without their services, geography would lose half its 

 interest. 



Comparative geography (the study of the changes which have 

 taken place on the earth's surface within historical times) is, 

 tlierefore, a most important branch of our science ; and it enlists 

 the historian and the topographer in our service. It is a branch 

 of geography which has not hitherto received the amount of 

 attention it deserves. 



The importance of the study of history and of early narratives 

 for the elucidation of points in physical geography will appear 

 from the consideration of a few instances. Take for example 

 ilie great and fertile basin of the river Ganges in India. The 

 Sanscrit historian finds reason for the belief that in 3000 B.C. the 

 only habitable part of the alluvial plain of India was the water- 

 parting or ridge between the Sutlej and the Jumna. The rest 

 was a great estuary or arm of the sea. It has only been fit for 

 man's occupation within the historical period, and hundreds of 

 square miles of the delta have become habitable since the days of 

 Lord Clive. The wonderful history of these changes can be 

 traced by the student, who thus enables the geographer to explain 

 the phenomena which he observes. Mr. Blanford, in his charm, 

 ing work on physical geography for the use of Indian schools 

 supposes a native of the country to be standing on the bank oi 



the river that flows by his village, watching the turbid flood 

 swirling past. The chur opposite, which the river left dry when 

 its waters fell at the close of the last rainy season, and which, 

 till lately, was covered by a rich green crop of indigo, is now 

 more than half cut away, and buried beneath the water. 

 Masses, many times larger than the house he lives in, from timp 

 to time detach themselves, and are swallowed up by the deep 

 muddy stream. If the Hindu ponders over what he sees he will 

 perhaps be led to make inquiries, and old people will probably 

 tell him that half a century ago the river itself was a moderate- 

 sized khall, and that the old channel, seven or eight miles off, 

 now little more than a string of pools, was at that time a great 

 river. These facts and their causes will open to him an interest- 

 ing chapter in physical geography ; which is made more complete 

 and more interesting by the ancient records of his people. But 

 geography is an applied science. This body of facts and their 

 causes is not a suViject for mere speculative study only. It is of 

 practical utility ; for the knowledge of the way in which Nature 

 has worked in past ages discloses her present and future opera- 

 tions, and enables the enlightened administrator and engineer to 

 work in harmony with them. 



Again, to pass to another part of the world. The student of 

 history reads of the great sea fight which King Edward III. 

 fought with the French oflf Sluys ; how, in those days, the 

 merchant vessels came up to the walls of that flourishing seaport 

 by every tide ; and how a century later a Portuguese fleet con- 

 veyed Isabella from Lisbon, and an English fleet brought 

 Margaret of York from the Thames, to marry successive Dukes 

 of Burgundy at the port of Sluys. In our time if a modern 

 traveller drives twelve miles out of Bruges across the Dutch 

 frontier he will find a small agricultural town surrounded by com 

 fields and meadows, and clumps of trees, whence the sea is not 

 in sight from the top of the town-hall steeple. This is Sluys. 

 A physical geographer will seek out the causes which have 

 brought about this surprising change. They are most inter- 

 esting, and most conducive to an intelligent comprehension of 

 his science, and he will find them recorded in history. Thus 

 the historian and the geographer work hand in hand, each 

 aiding and furthering the researches of the other. 



Once more. We turn to the great Baie du Mont Saint 

 Michel, between Normandy and Brittany. In Roman authors 

 we read of the vast forest called " Setiacum nemus," in the 

 centre of which an isolated rock arose, surmounted by a temple 

 of Jupiter, once a college of Druidesses. Now the same rock, 

 with its glorious pile dedicated to St. Michael, is surrounded by 

 the sea at high tides. The story of this transformation is even 

 more striking than that of Sluys ; and its adequate narration 

 justly earned for M. Manet the gold medal of the French 

 Geographical Society in 1828. 



Once again let us turn for a moment to the Mediterranean 

 shores of Spain, and the mountains of Murcia. Those rocky 

 heights, whose peaks stand out against the deep blue sky, 

 hardly support a blade of vegetation. The algarobas and olive? 

 at their bases are artifically supplied with soil. It is scarcely 

 credible that these are the same mountains which, according to> 

 the forest book of King Alfonso el Sabio, were once clothed to 

 their summits with pines and other forest trees ; while soft clouds 

 and mist hung over a rounded shaggy outline of wood, where 

 now the naked rocks make a hard line against the burnished 

 sky. But Arab and Spanish chroniclers alike record the facts, 

 and geographical science explains the cause. 



There is scarcely a district in the whole range of the civilised 

 world where some equally interesting geographical story has not 

 been recorded, and where the same valuable lessons may not be 

 taught. This is comparative geography. 



The peasant of Bengal sees the mould falling into his turbidj 

 river, and learns the first lesson of a course which teaches him^ 

 the history of the formation of the mighty basin of the Gangesj 

 So should we, in England, to use the words of Professor Huxley^ 

 "seek the meanings of the phenomena offered by the brook] 

 which runs through our village, or of the gravel pit whence ousi 

 roads are mended." Their meaning is equally significant,'! 

 equally instructive, and it is thus that w'e should all begin to 

 learn geography. 



M. de Brazza read a paper On his Exjloration of the O^ove 

 River, details of which have already been published at various 

 times in Nature. After leaving the basin of the Ogove and 

 crossing the watershed he came upon the Alima, a large river 

 flowing eastwards, which he has no doubt is a tributary of the 

 Congo. 



