KNOWLEDGE. 



[Januaby 1, 1896. 



I have already on several occasions cmloavoureii to k'vo 

 expresaion to my views of the content of geography as a 

 science/'' and need only quote here the opinion that the 

 ultimate aim of geoj,'raphy is " the elucidation of the earth 

 viewed as the present expression of a dolinite evolution, in 

 which every part is subordinated to the production of a 

 suitable homo and sphere of iullucncc for civilised man." 

 The way to attain this end is obviously to proceed toward 

 the completion of our l<nowledgo of all the phenomena the 

 inti>raftion of which is in question, aided by such prin- 

 ciples and relationships as can be deduced from what is 

 already known. 



'i'he astronomer, geologist, ocoanoLjraphor, meteorologist, 

 botanist, zoologist, anthropologist, and historian are all 

 laid under contribution in dilTerent and varying degree to 

 supply the building material for the geographer to combine, 

 according to his special view-point, into a generalised 

 science, capable of endless application to the sciences 

 which helped to form it, and to the affairs of daily life. A 

 large part may be taken in advancing a science without the 

 individual specialists realising the full import of their 

 contributions, and comparatively few great travellers and 

 explorers were consciously geographers. In considering 

 the position of scientific geography it is convenient to 

 distinguish between detailed exploration and research 

 recorded for convenience by various adaptations of carto- 

 graphic art, and the discussion and co-ordination of the 

 relations which exist between the various special elements; 

 to distinguish, in fact, between the collection and the 

 interpretation of fi'cts. 



It would be absurd in these days of international con- 

 gresses to speak of any science as being the province of 

 any nation or class, yet there is an intlueuce of race and 

 language upon thought which, however imperfectly it may 

 be understood, is not to be ignored in any science. People 

 of different race work by different methods and pursue 

 different ideals ; and it will probably be found that the nation 

 in which any science has developed most rapidly in its 

 adolescent period strongly impresses its particular indi- 

 viduality upon the science, although the impress may 

 subsequently be obscured as contributions accumulate 

 from other sources. 



In some languages — German, for instance — it is easier 

 to make and use new terms for new ideas than it is in 

 English. And in its present period of rapid growth 

 geography as a science seems likely to be very largely, if 

 not mainly, advanced by German generalisers, just as 

 chemistry at a similar period in its history was advanced 

 by French specialists. Our chemical terminology was 

 originally a direct transference of the French words, modified 

 according to natural and simple rules. Our geographical 

 terminology may very likely show the German stamp, 

 although it is as yet in an unorganised and rudimentary 

 condition, needing much careful weeding and cultivation 

 to make it a lit medium for conveying the ideas of the 

 science. The terms of mathematical geography are for 

 the most part Latin or Greek in origin, but new terms for 

 descriptive purposes are spreading rapidly from the C! erman 

 into all modern languages. For example, the opposite idea 

 to watershed — itself a Teutonic form- — is only expressed by 

 Thiilii;,/, which denotes the line of the meeting of waters 

 from converging slopes. JJinterliiml has also been natural- 

 ized, directly to express concisely an idea for which the 

 only possible English expression involves several words. 

 Geography suffers from the want of terms, and in America 



* See •'The Realm of Nature" (London : John Murray) ; also " Tlie 

 Principles of Geography" in the Scottish Oeoijraphical Magazine ior 

 Ft'bruiiry, 1892 ; and " The Croogrjipliical ^\'ork of the Future " in tlio 

 same journal for February, 1895. 



many are being introduced from Greek, Latin, and inongi'sl 

 sources, some of which will survive. The language which 

 lends itself to self-explanatory terms which every speaker 

 of it understands at the first hearing, such as IliihUnlmnde 

 and Sirnkunilc, must always have an advantage as a vehicle 

 for rapid interchange of new thought over one which is 

 obliged to fall back on alien origins for SjiiliraliKii/ and 

 l.iiii)iiiliii/i/, which even specialists require to ponder over 

 before they realize that they mean t'ave-knowledge and 

 Lake-knowledge. 



It will probably be disputed by few that the greatest 

 explorers for the last two hundred years have been 

 British, while the greatest geographers, in the sense of 

 scientific generalisers, have been German. This can be 

 said without in any way detracting from the brilliant 

 explorations which from time to time have been carried 

 out, and the important generalisations that have been 

 arrived at by people of every civilised nation. But in 

 geography the aptitude of British workers has been 

 towards the collection, and not the discussion, of facts. 



One may search long for notices of theoretical geography 

 in such memoirs as Mr. Clements Markham's " Fifty 

 Years' Work of the Royal Geographical Society," or 

 the " Review of British Geographical Work during the 

 Last Hundred ^'ears (1789-lHHl)j," prepared by him and 

 Mr. Scott Keltie for the Paris Exhibition of 1889 ; or in 

 Mr. Silva White's '• Achievements of Scotsmen during 

 the Nineteenth Century in the Fields of Geographical 

 Exploration and Research," prepared for the same 

 occasion. But these compendia record the accumulation 

 of geographical data from every part of the earth as 

 yet accessible to man, a mass of solid work it does one 

 good to think of. No maps rival those of the Ordnance 

 Survey of the United Kingdom either for accuracy of 

 survey or beauty of execution ; no charts show so fully 

 the configuration of the sea-bed round every coast in the 

 world as those of the British Admiralty ; the Great Trigo- 

 nometrical Survey of India is a work of unparalleled 

 grandeur. It would be endless to dwell upon the doings of 

 British travellers in every continent and o\er every sea 

 which have resulted in thousands of conscientious observa- 

 tions of astronomically fixed positions, and information 

 of every sort which a traveller can possibly accumulate. 

 The frozen seas of the North and the South have been 

 penetrated farther and more frequently by British keels 

 than by those of any other nation. The circumnaviga- 

 tions of Cook and of his followers in British surveying 

 ships, the epoch-making voyage of the Bcinjlc, and the 

 culminating glory of the ChalUiujer expedition are all just 

 sources of national pride, and each was the occasion of 

 garnering vast harvests of geographical facts. So far as the 

 utilisation and interpretation of these facts are concerned, 

 foreign nations have come before us. We have supplied 

 them with the raw material ; they return us the elaborated 

 article stamped with the mark of Continental thought. 



The English language is rich in the records of voyages ; 

 and the collections of early travels prepared by Hakluyt 

 and Purchas show that bent toward the treatment 

 of geography as exploration which has come to be 

 distinctive of our modern work, contrasting with the 

 typically French conception of geography as history and 

 polities, and the German academic treatment of the theme. 

 In the eighteenth century the Royal Society was fre- 

 quently concerned with geographical questions, and its 

 great president. Sir Joseph Banks, the companion of 

 Captain James Cook, might, but for the multifarious 

 interests of his active mind, have rivalled Humboldt 

 as an interpreter as well as an investigator of geogra- 

 phical phenomena. His contemporary, Rennell, whom 



