October 1, 1895.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



223 



GEOGRAPHICAL ORTHOGRAPHY. 



Mr. G. G. Chisholm, M.A., read a paper on " The 

 Orthography of Place-names," in support of the proposal of 

 the Congress to appoint a committee on the subject. Such 

 a committee would have to consider, firstly, how far it is 

 desirable to adopt the principle of transliteration m place 

 of phonetic writing, for the Kussian and Greek present 

 peculiar difficulties in the way of adopting the phonetic 

 principle. Again, what signs are to be used for certain 

 sounds which have no exact equivalents in the scheme of 

 orthography to be employed ■.' What, too, is to be under- 

 stood by the " local pronunciation " — that usually heard at 

 the place, or that of an educated speaker of the country ? 

 In China different dialects are spoken by the educated over 

 wide areas, and the peculiarities of one or other of these 

 dialects are frequently extended to the writing of all 

 Chinese names. 



Dr. .J. Burgess followed with a paper on " Geographical 

 Place-names in Europe and the East." 



A paper was then read on " The Transliteration and 

 Pronunciation of Place-names," by Dr. G. Eicchieri, who 

 dwelt on the importance of uniformity. 

 C-VRTO(;raphy. 



General Sir Charles Wilson brought up reports on 

 Prof. Penck's proposal for a map of the world on the 

 scale 1 : 1,000,000, which scale was approved, and it was 

 recommended that the sheets be limited by parallels and 

 meridians, and that the projection be trnnconiijue. The 

 size of the sheets is of less importance, and so left to 

 discussion, but the meridian of Greenwich and the metre 

 as the unit of measurement were approved. Prof. De 

 Lapparent favoured the reports, but Mr. Eavenstein 

 thought Great Britain, Russia and the United States 

 would not issue maps with the metre for a unit. Prof. 

 AYagner thought the time had not yet arrived for such a 

 map, and Prof. Schrader expressed an opinion entirely in 

 its favour. 



A report from the Geographical Society of Marseilles 

 was presented by MM. Fabry and Leotard, expressing 

 approval of the proposed map and submitting various 

 desiderata . 



M. Elisee Eeclus submitted the following proposals for 

 the construction of a globe on the scale of 1 : 100,000. 

 (1) Take stock of existing well-made relief plans on scales 

 not smaller than 1 : 100,000 : (2) reduce them to the 

 scale of 1 : 100,000, with the real proportions in height 

 and place ; (3) complete them by construction of relief 

 maps of the intermediate regions ; (4) proceed to the 

 construction, at one of the great centres of the world, of a 

 spheroid of 1 : 100,000, showing correct relief of countries 

 surveyed, and approximate relief of the rest of the surface ; 

 and protect the spheroid by a covering giving the true 

 external appearance of our planet, and furnish it with 

 fittings to facilitate study and general use. 



Signor Cesare Pomba proposed that the construction of 

 terrestrial globes in relief shall be discontinued : that all 

 globes shall be constructed on a scale of an even number 

 of milUonths of natural size, the numerator of which is 

 divisible by two, five, or ten, and that all globes shall, like 

 maps in sheets, show the scale with the corresponding 

 diameter and circumference. 



Herr Fritzsche described the method of cartography 

 employed in executing the Siegfreid-Lochman map, which 

 has been called the map of the future, and which combines 

 artistic ■nith geometric methods of representing land foi'ms. 



The forthcoming new ethnographical map of Europe 

 was described by its author, Herr V. von Haardt. It will 

 be on the scale of 1 : 3,000,000, and measure six feet eight 

 inches bv five feet ten inches. 



SPELJEOLOGY AND MORPHOLOGY OF THE EARTH. 



" Spelseology, the Science of Caverns," was the title of a 

 paper by Mons. E. A. Martel. The scientific investigation 

 of caves dates only from the end of the eighteenth century, 

 when it was first undertaken for pahBontological purposes. 

 Although much good work has been done in the British 

 Islands, Moravia, Hungary, the Karst, and in France, 

 there is still much room for improvement in the methods 

 of investigation before speleology can lay claim to rank as 

 a science. Ahbnes, or swallow-holes, were described, and 

 it was shown that spelasological investigation would be 

 of value to many branches of natural science, and even in 

 England and Ireland much remains to be done by British 

 speleologists. 



Prof. Penck read a paper on " The Morphology of the 

 Earth's Surface." The morphology of the earth's surface, 

 like that of living beings, has to do with forms which are 

 subject to constant changes. The problems dealt with 

 are, therefore, not stereometric but essentially genetic. 

 Changes in the form of the earth's surface result (1) from 

 removal of material, " erosion," which is "true erosion " 

 when at the points of the greatest application of force, and 

 " denudation " when at the points of least resistance ; {'!) 

 from addition of material, "accumulation"; (3) from 

 movements of the earth's crust, " dislocation," through 

 faulting or folding. From this change are ( 1) the formation 

 of new portions of surface, or the deposit of material on 

 existing surfaces ; (2) the destruction of existing surfaces 

 by removal, or covering with new matter ; (3 1 the alteration 

 of existing surfaces so that they acquire a new character, 

 as in the transformation of a plain into a mountain slope 

 by folding. 



Papers and reports were also presented to the Congress 

 on the following subjects : — Bosnia and Herzegovina ; the 

 limits of Continents ; exploration in New Guinea, 

 Australia, and Madagascar ; climatology of Portuguese 

 and Spanish Colonies of West Africa ; the sea route to 

 Siberia : life and works of Cassini de Thury ; the geo- 

 graphical element in evolution ; fundamental lines of 

 Anatolia and Central Asia ; the most northern Eskimos ; 

 ancient charts ; mediseval manuscript maps ; study of the 

 Basques; an international cartographic association ; laterite 

 and red-earth in India and Africa ; the Pyrenees and the 

 new methods of surveying ; the Spanish Sierra Xevada ; 

 the definition of geography as a science ; geography and 

 the economic and agricultural crisis ; an international 

 bibliography of geography. 



Eesolutioiis were approved by the Congress respecting 

 the retention of office by officers of the Congress, geo- 

 graphical publications, method of writing foreign names, 

 the majjping of Africa, Prof. Penck's proposed map of the 

 world on the scale of 1 : 1,000,000, cartographic catalogues, 

 survey of the Baltic, North Sea, and the North Atlantic ; 

 an international observation of earthquakes, geographical 

 education, registration of literature, dating of maps, and 

 the decimal system. 



The next meeting of the Congress was fixed to be held 

 in 1899 at Berlin. It was announced that there would be, 

 in 1897, a colonial exhibition in Portugal, in commemora- 

 tion of the five hundredth anniversary of Vasco da 

 Gama. 



The Congress was concluded on Saturday, August 3rd, 

 by a report on its proceedings by the Chairman of Com- 

 mittees, Major Darwin, and a valedictory address from the 

 President, Mr. Clements Markham, congratulating the 

 members on the success of the meeting, and expressing 

 the hope that their deliberations would be of great value 

 to geographical science. 



