Mr. Cowham's Address 285 



is this : that the evils of geographical teaching in the 

 past consisted largely in the accumulation of masses 

 of unassociated, ill-digested, and unexplained facts. 

 My object in the school journey is not to teach a great 

 variety of geographical facts in a more or less agree- 

 able fashion, but rather to fix attention upon a few 

 well-known and easily -explained features, and to 

 bring these features into intimate connection with the 

 causes that have produced them, and then to connect 

 what is thus thoroughly learned with like features, 

 wherever these are to be found. In further illustra- 

 tion of this method, when the summits of the hills 

 around Caterham are seen to be preserved from 

 weathering by the caps of gravel upon them, atten- 

 tion is directed to other hills within easy reach of 

 London. Hampstead is mentioned. Yes, Hampstead 

 is the summit of a Clay mound capped with Bagshot 

 sand. Shooters Hill; yes, here again Clay is at the 

 base and a gravel protects the summit Sydenham 

 Hill; again a gravel outlier protects the top from 

 weathering. Muswell Hill, again, consists of a boulder- 

 clay resting upon the London Clay. The stony nature 

 of the boulder mass weathers more slowly than the 

 surrounding rock mass, and so a hilly structure is 

 produced. 



As the journey is especially planned for future 

 teachers, who should know more than it may be 

 necessary or wise to teach their scholars, an attempt 

 is made, before leaving the Chalk range, to realize the 

 condition of the wide area over which the Chalk ex- 

 tended at the time it was being deposited. The Chalk 

 is shown to be an organic deposit. This is done by 

 microscopic slides. Similar deposits are now forming 



