2 50 



NATURE 



[November 6, 19 19 



Sciences, and it is hoped may be connected with 

 the great arc in 98° W. which has been under- 

 taken by the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. 

 Other arcs of special importance have been 

 measured in Europe and Asia. 



One of the great problems with which geo- 

 graphy has to deal is that of distribution. It is 

 obvious, on the face of it, that the many types 

 of features which are distributed over the surface 

 of the earth must have a potent influence on the 

 distribution and activities of humanity, which lives 

 and moves and has its being among them. There 

 can be no doubt as to the influence of geo- 

 graphical conditions on history and other human 

 activities, and perhaps even on race ; but, as 

 Ellsworth Huntington points out, the claims in 

 this respect are often too vague to convince the 

 sceptical historian. What we want is a more 

 precise statement as to the nature and amount, 

 the quantity and quality, in each case in this 

 environmental influence compared with various 

 other elements. Several attempts have been 

 made to deal with the problem in recent years ; 

 definite areas should be selected and the problem 

 worked out in detail on the spot. 



In what precedes we have dealt mainly with 

 the geosphere; but the hydrosphere is an 

 important section of geography, both in itself 

 and in its influence on the former. Hydrography 

 is a convenient term to include the various forms 

 in which water is distributed over the face of the 

 earth — rivers, lakes, and the ocean itself. 

 Potamology, or the study of rivers and their 

 rdgime, has attracted much attention in recent 

 years. Limnology, the study of lakes — depth, 

 movement of their waters, distribution of life, 

 physical nature of their basins — initiated by Forel 

 in the 'eighties and 'nineties on the Lake of 

 Geneva, has been continued in the Scottish lochs 

 with voluminous results of high scientific value. 

 But it is in oceanography that the greatest 

 advances have been made during the half-century. 

 A certain amount of work on a limited scale had 

 been done in oceanic research, but it remained 

 for the great Challenger Expedition during its 

 1872-76 cruise over the oceans of the world 

 to create a new department of science 

 under the name of Oceanography. This was 

 followed by other similar expeditions in the 

 Sihofra, the Planet, and the Michael Sars, the 

 result being a vast accumulation of data on the 

 ocean in all its aspects — its depths, the nature of 

 its bed, distribution of life at all depths, saltness, 

 temperature, its surface and under-currents, and 

 other features. 



As the result of a movement initiated by the 

 Royal Geographical Society in 1884, geography 

 has obtained a place in education in Great Britain 

 which it had never held before, while the standard 

 of the subject has been raised to a much higher 

 level. The subject has at last received ample 

 recognition at Oxford and Cambridge and other 

 universities in the kingdom, while radical reforms 

 have been made in schools of all grades. On the 

 NO. 2610, VOL. 104] 



university programme we have such heads as the 

 Principles of Geography ; Survey of the Natural 

 Regions of the Globe ; Land Forms and Morpho- t 

 logy of the Continents; Meteorology, Climato- 1 

 logy, and Oceanography ; Human Geography in j 

 its Various Phases; Geographical Methods of }; 

 Notation, and so on. This will show how high is '; 

 the standard and how wide the field of the subject • 

 compared with the position even thirty or forty" 

 years ago. I 



Such, briefly, is a review of the progress of i 

 geography during the past half-century and its > 

 present position in this country. It has made 

 vast advances in all directions and risen far above 

 the lowly position assigned to it fifty years ago. 

 Still it has by no me^ns reached the position 

 claimed for it by the late Sir Joseph Hooker ; " it 

 must permeate," he said, "the whole of educa- 

 tion to the termination of the university career, 

 every subject taught having a geographical 

 aspect." Notwithstanding all that has been 

 accomplished in the more or less scientific ex- 

 ploration of the face of the earth, much still 

 remains to be done before our knowledge of its 

 features is adequate. The great blanks which 

 disfigured the map of .\frica fifty years ago have, 

 no doubt, been filled up, but it is doubtful if more 

 than one-tenth of its surface has been mapped 

 with anything like accuracy. Of Australia, large 

 areas have only been provisionally mapped, and 

 the same may be said of Asia. Even in the case 

 of Canada and the United States much remains 

 to be accomplished before these countries are as 

 thoroughly mapped as the United Kingdom, 

 India, and even Japan. Of South America, only 

 fragments have been adequately mapped, and 

 probably a million square miles are entire! v 

 unexplored. 



Oceanography has by no means completed its 

 task, though when Amundsen returns in four or 

 five years' time he may be able to tell us all we 

 want to know about the Arctic basin. While 

 there is no need for a network of mapping on the 

 Antarctic continent, still we desire further addi- 

 tions to our knowledge of its great features, its 

 geology, its meteorology, as well as its resources, 

 if there are any of value accessible. There 

 remains ample room for work by trained explorers 

 in many of the islands of the ocean. It is thus 

 evident that plenty of work still remains to be 

 done in exploration, in survey, in mapping, and 

 in collecting the varied material which will enable 

 the trained geographer to work out those 

 problems which bear on the relations between man 

 and his geographical environment. Happily, the 

 marked educational advance during the last thirty 

 years in the status of geography, and the great 

 improvement in geographical education, have 

 resulted in producing an increasing number of 

 young geographers capable of dealing on scien- 

 tific lines with the problems presented ; in this 

 respect we are rapidlv approaching the standard 

 which has for long been almost a monopoly of 

 Germany. 



