September 3, 1891] 



NATURE 



427 



methods can be mathematically correct unless it is based upon 

 horizontal contours. 



The credit of having done most towards the promotion of 

 cartography in the course of the eighteenth century belongs to 

 France. It was France which first equipped expeditions to 

 determine the size of the earth ; France which produced the first 

 topographical map based upon scientific survey — a work begun 

 by Cesar Fran9ois Cassini in 1744, and completed by his son 

 five years after his father's death ; it was France, again, which 

 gave birth to D'Anville, the first critical cartographer whom the 

 world had ever seen. 



Delisle (1675-1726), a pupil of Cassini's, had already been 

 able to rectify the maps of the period by utilizing the many 

 astronomical observations which French travellers had brought 

 home from all parts of ihe world. This work of reform was 

 carried further by D'Anville (1697-1782), who swept away the 

 fanciful lakes from off the face of Africa, thus forcibly bringing 

 home to us the poverty of our knowledge ; who bjldly refused 

 to believe in the existence of an Antarctic continent covering 

 half the southern hemisphere, and always brought sound judg- 

 ment to bear upon the materials which the ever-increasing 

 number of travellers placed at his disposal. And whilst France 

 led the way, England did not lag far behind. 



In that country the discoveries of Cook and of other famous 

 navigators, and the spread of British power in India, gave the 

 first impulse to a more diligent cultivation of the art of represent- 

 ing the surface of the earth on maps. There, to a greater extent 

 than on the Continent, the necessities of the navigator called 

 info existence a vast number of charts, amongst which are many 

 hundreds of sheets published by Dalrymple and Joseph Desbarres 

 (1776). Faden, one of the most prolific publishers of maps, 

 won distinction, especially for his county maps, several of which, 

 like that of Surrey by Linley and Gardner, are based upon 

 trigonometrical surveys carried on by private individuals. 

 England was the first to follow the lead of France in under- 

 taking a regular topographical survey (1785). Nor did she lack 

 critical cartographers. James Rennell (born 1742) sagaciously 

 arranged the vast mass of important information collected by 

 British travellers in India and Africa ; but it is chiefly the name 

 of Aaron Arrowsmith (died 1823) with which the glory of the 

 older school of English cartographers is most intimately con- 

 nected. Arrowsmith became the founder of a family of 

 geographers, whose representative in the third generation, up to 

 the date of his death in 1873, worthily upheld the ancient re- 

 putation of the family. Another name which deserves to be 

 gratefully remembered is that of John Walker, to whom the 

 charts published by our Admiralty are indebted for that per- 

 spicuous, firm, and yet artistic execution which, whilst it 

 enhances their scientific value, also facilitates their use by the 

 mariner. 



Since the beginning of the present century Germany has once 

 more become the head-quarters of scientific cartography ; and 

 this is due as much to the inspiriting teachings of a Ritter and a 

 Humboldt as to the general culiure and scientific training, com- 

 bined with technical skill, commanded by the men who more 

 especially devoted themselves to this branch of geography, which 

 elsewhere was too frequently allowed to fall into the hands 

 of niere mechanics. Men like Berghaus, Henry Kiepert, and 

 I'etermann, the best known pupil of the first of these, must 

 always occupy a foremost place in the history of our department 

 of knowledge. Berghaus, who may be truly described as the 

 founder of the modern school of cartography, and who worked 

 under the immediate inspiration of a Ritter and a Humboldt, 

 presented ns with the first comprehensive collection of physical 

 maps (1837). Single maps of this kind had, no doubt, been 

 published before — Kircher (1665) had produced a map of the 

 ocean currents, Edmund Halley (1686) had embodied the results 

 of his own researches in maps of the winds and of the variation 

 of the compass (1686), whilst Ritter himself had compiled a set 

 of physical maps (1866)— but no work of the magnitude of 

 Berghaus's famous " Physical Atlas " had seen the li^ht before. 

 Nor could it have been published even then had it not been for 

 the unstinted support of a firm like that of Justus Perthes, 

 already the publisher of Stieler's "Atlas" (1817-23), and sub- 

 sequently of many other works whic'a have carried its fame into 

 every quarter of the globe. 



And now, at the close of this nineteenth century, we may 

 fairly b:)ast that the combined science and skill of surveyors and 

 cartographers, aided as they are by the great advance of the 



NO. II 40, VOL. 44] 



graphic arts, are fully equal to the production of a map which 

 shall be a faithful image of the earth's surface. Let us imagine 

 for one moment that an ideal map of this kind were before us, a 

 map exhibiting not merely the features of the land and the depth 

 of the sea, but also the extent of forests and of pasture-lands, 

 the distribution of human habitations, and all those features the 

 representation of which has become familiar to us through 

 physical and statistical atlases. Let us then analyze the vast mass 

 of facts thus placed before us, and we shall hiid that they form 

 quite naturally two well-defined divisions— namely, those of 

 physical and political geography — whilst the third department of 

 our science, mathematical geography, deals with the measure- 

 ment and survey of our earth, the ultimate outcome of which is 

 the production of a perfect map, 



I shall abstain from giving a laboured definition of what I 

 consider geography should embrace, for definitions of this kind 

 help practical workers but little, and will never deter anyone, 

 who feels disposed and capable from straying into fields which' 

 an abuse of logic has clearly demonstrated to lie outside his 

 proper domain. But I wish to enforce the fact that topography 

 and chorography, the description of particular places or of entire 

 countries, should always be looked upon as integral portions of 

 geographical research. It is they which furnish many of the 

 blocks needed to rear our geographical edifice, and which con- 

 stitute the best training school for the education of practkalJ 

 geographers, as distinguished from mere theorists. 



That our maps, however elaborate, should be supplemented 

 by descriptions will not even be gainsaid by those who are most 

 reluctant to grant us our independent existence among the 

 sciences which deal with the earth and man who inhabits it. 

 This concession, however, can never content us. We cannot 

 allow ourselves to be reduced to the position of collectors of 

 facts. We claim the right to discuss ourselves the facts we have 

 collected, to analyze them, to generalize from them, and to trace 

 the correlations between cause and effect. It is thus that 

 geography becomes comparative ; and whilst comparative 

 physical geography, or morphology, seeks to explain the origin of 

 the exiting surface features of our earth, comparative political 

 geography, or anthropo-geography, as it is called by Dr. Ratzel, 

 one of the most gifted representatives of geographical science in 

 Germany, deals with man in relation to the geographical con- 

 ditions which influence him. It is this department of geography 

 which was so fruitfully cultivated by Karl Ritter. 



Man is indeed in a large measure " the creature of his envi- 

 ronment," for who can doubt for a moment that geographical 

 conditions have largely influenced the destinies of nations, have 

 directed the builders of our towns, determined the paths of 

 migrations and the march of armies, and have impressed their 

 stamp even upon the character of those who have been subjected 

 to them for a sufficiently extended period ? . . . . 



It must not, however, be assumed for one moment that 

 the dependence of man upon Nature is absolute. The natural 

 resources of a country require for their full development a 

 people of energy and capacity ; and instances in which they 

 have been allowed to lie dormant, or have been wasted, are 

 numerous. 



Perhaps one of the most instructive illustrations of the complex 

 human agencies which tend to modify the relative importance of 

 geographical conditions is presented to us by the Mediterranean. 

 The time when this inland sea was the centre of civilization and 

 of the world's commerce, whilst the shores of Western Europe 

 were only occasionally visited by venturesome navigators or 

 conquering Roman hosts, does not lie so very far behind us. 

 England, at that period, turned her face towards Continentail 

 Europe, of which it was a mere dependency. The prosperity 

 of the Mediterranean countries survived far into the middle 

 ages, and Italy at one time enjoyed the enviable position of 

 being the great distributor of the products of the East, which 

 found their way across the Alps into Germany, and through the 

 gates of Gibraltar to the exterior ocean. But a change was 

 brought about, partly through the closing of the old Oriental 

 trade routes, consequent upon the conquests of the Turks, partly 

 through the discovery of a new world and of a maritime highway 

 to India. When Columbus, himself an Italian, returned from 

 the West Indies in 1493, and Vasco da Gama brought the first 

 cargo of spices from India in 1499, the star of Italy began to 

 fade. And whilst the spices of the Indies and the gold of 

 Guinea poured wealth into the lap of Portugal, and Spain grew 

 opulent on the silver mines of Mexico and Peru, Venice was 



