CONTENTS 



PAGE 



No. x. GEOGRAPHY. IN ITS PHYSICAL AND ECONOMICAL RE- 

 LATIONS. Inaugural Lecture as University Reader 

 in Geography delivered at Cambridge in October, 1889 i 



Introduction. The principal theme of this lecture is 

 the influence exercised by the application of steam to 

 land transport in facilitating travel and stimulating 

 trade in old countries, and in opening up new countries. 

 By the colonisation of these the food-supply of the world 

 is increased, with the natural consequence that the 

 population of the world is correspondingly increased. 

 The selection of this theme was due to the fact that the 

 date of my birth \vas nearly synchronous with that of 

 railways. 



I was born in the year 1844, when there existed one 

 or two separate local lines, but no railway system in 

 Great Britain, and on the continent of Europe they 

 were represented only by short lines, which connected 

 one or two of the capitals with the summer residences of 

 their sovereigns, as, for instance, the lines between 

 Paris and Versailles, Berlin and Potsdam, Hanover 

 and Herrenhanseii. They had no more importance 

 than local tramway >. and did not form part of a 

 railway system. Since then the railways of the world 

 have increased at an ever-increasing rate, and tlr 

 development has always been for me an interest i 



idy. 



iiiiiiK '<li.it> ior choosing this as the 



bject of mv Inaugural l.niure at Cambridge was 



t I had just Mm- Kepublir twice 



with an interval .l tWO vrai- ami a halt between the 



n able personal I y t" witness the 



in peopling 



1 been 



only sparsely jx.j 



