September 26, 1901] 



NA TURE 



553 



disgrace to our country if this splendid generosity does not result 

 in the establishment of one or more fully endowed and com- 

 pletely equipped chairs of geography. 



There may still be some people who view geography as the 

 concern only of soldiers and sailors, adventurous travellers, and 

 perhaps of elementary teachers. Exploration is undoubtedly 

 the first duty of geographers, but it is a duty which has been 

 well done, the nineteenth century having left us only one 

 problem of the first magnitude. This is the exploration of the 

 polar regions, and even here the twentieth century clamours for 

 new methods. 



The Antarctic Expeditions. 



This year has seen the long-hoped-for Antarctic expeditions 

 set out on their great quest, a quest not only of new lands in the 

 southern ice-world but of scientific information regarding all the 

 conditions of the vast unknown region. Two expeditions have 

 been planned in Great Britain and Germany with a complete 

 interchange of information regarding equipment and methods of 

 work. Provision has been made for simultaneous magnetic and 

 meteorological observations, and in some instances for the use 

 of instruments of identical construction, and all possibility of 

 any unseemly rivalry in striving for the childish distinction of 

 getting farthest south has been obviated by the friendly under- 

 standing that the British ship shall explore the already fairly 

 known Ross quadrant, where it is pretty sure that extensive and 

 accessible land will favour exploration by sledges, while the 

 Germans have chosen the entirely unknown area of the Enderby 

 quadrant which no ice-prolected steamer has yet attempted to 

 penetrate, and where they enter a region of potential discovery 

 before they cross the Antarctic circle. 



The British expedition is equipped on the good old plan that 

 produced such fine results in the days of Cook and Ross ; it is 

 manned by sailors of the Royal Navy and is under the command 

 of a gallant naval oflicer, though, unlike the earlier vessel.s, the 

 Discovery is not herself a naval ship. As in the days of 

 Cook the naval officers are assisted in their non-professional 

 work by several young and promising scientific men, two of 

 whom have already had experience of work in the polar regions. 

 These have the great advantage of the counsel and help of Mr. 

 George Murray, of the British Museum, who goes as far as Mel- 

 bourne in the position of Director of the Sc'entific staff. 



No one who has seen the zeal and unflagging enthusiasm with 

 which Sir Clements Markham has organised the expedition can 

 hesitate to accord to him in fullest measure the credit for its 

 successful inauguration. And no one who has seen the quiet 

 and good-humoured determination of the commander. Captain 

 R. F. Scott, in overcoming many irritating preliminary diffi- 

 culties, can doubt his fitness to undertake the heavy responsi- 

 bilities of the voyage. I at least am sure that he will be a 

 worthy successor to Cook, Ross, Franklin, Nares, and all the 

 other officers who have made their names and the name of the 

 British Navy farcous in polar service. The second in command. 

 Lieutenant Armitage, R.N.R., has had several years of Arctic 

 experience, and amongst the crew there are some old whalers 

 whose knowledge of the ways of sea-ice should prove of value. 

 The ship and her equipment are unique ; it is no exaggeration 

 to say that she is the best-found and most comfortable vessel 

 which has ever left our shores on a voyage of discovery. 



The German expedition has been more boldly planned than 

 ours. It is new and experimental all through, as befits a young 

 nation in its first exuberant efforts in a new field. If some 

 people suppose that it may have made mistakes that our expedi- 

 tion has avoided, these, at least, are new mistakes from which 

 new lessons are to be learned. If risks must be run — and we of 

 the twentieth century are, I trust, no more timid of incurring 

 risks than our predecessors of the nineteenth, or the eighteenth, 

 or even the seventeenth — it is good that they should be new 

 risks. To scientific men in Germany it appears natural and 

 reasonable that a man of science should be the head of a scien- 

 tific expedition ; and that a geographer should lead a geographical 

 expedition. Many British men of science sympathise in this 

 view. Dr. Erich von Drygalski, one of the professors of Geo- 

 graphy in the University of Berlin, has been entrusted with the 

 command to which he was appointed before the ship was 

 designed, and for five years he has given all his time and thought 

 to the expedition. He is supported by a band of highly 

 trained specialists, who have spared neither time nor travel in 

 mastering the subjects with which they may deal, and each has also 

 received a general training in the subjects of all his colleagues — 

 an admirable precaution. The captain of the Ganss, who belongs 



NO. 1665, VOL. 64] 



to the Merchant Service, has taken a course of training fron» 

 the Norwegian whalers off Spitsbergen. He will, of course, be 

 absolute master of the ship and crew in all that concerns order and 

 safety, but he will be under the direction of the leader in all that 

 concerns the plan of the voyage and the execution of scientific work. 

 This arrangement is one which has always seemed to me to be 

 desirable, that the captain of a ship on scientific service should' 

 occupy a position in relation to the scientific chief similar to that 

 of the captain of a yacht in relation to the owner ; but it is- 

 subject to the drawback that a naval officer could not well be 

 asked to accept such a divided command. 



But whatever our views as to ideal organisation may be, we 

 are all certain that both expeditions will do the utmost that they- 

 can to justify the confidence that is placed in them and to bring 

 honour to their flags. We know that the officers and staff of 

 the Discovery belong to a race which, whether trained in the 

 University or in the Navy, has acquired the habit of bringing, 

 back splendid results from any quest that is undertaken. 



A Definition of Geography. 



The bright prospects of Antarctic Exploration must not, how- 

 ever, blind us to the fact that exploration is not geography, nor 

 is the reading or even the writing of text-books, nor is the making 

 of maps, despite the recognition of leading cartographers as- 

 " Geographers to the King." These are among.st the depart- 

 ments of geography, but the whole is greater than its parts. 



The view of the scope and content of Geography which I 

 have arrived at as the result of much work and some little 

 reading during twenty years is substantially that held by most 

 modern geographers. But it is right to point out that the mode 

 of expressing it may not be accepted without amendment by any 

 of the recognised leaders of the science, and for my own part 

 I believe that discussion rather than acceptance is the best fate 

 that can befall any attempt at stating scientific truth. 



Put in the fewest words, my opinion is that 



Geography is the science which deals with the forms of relief of 

 the Earth's crust, and with the influence which these forms- 

 e-xercise on the distribution of all other phenomena. 



This definition looks to the form and composition of the 

 Earth's crust itself, and to the successive coverings, partial and 

 complete, in which the stony globe is wrapped. We sometimes 

 hear of the New Geography, but I think it is more profitable to 

 consider the present position of Geography as the outcome of 

 the thought and labours of an unbroken chain of workers, con- 

 tinuously modified by the growth of knowledge, yet old in aim^ 

 old even in the expression of many of the ideas that we are apt 

 to consider the most modern. 



Sofne Historical Landmarks. 



Claudius Ptolemceus, about 150 A. D. , gathered into his great 

 "Geography" the whole outcome of the Greek study of the 

 habitable world. He laid stress on the threefold nature of 

 descriptions of the Earth's surface, the general sketch of the 

 great features of the world alone receiving the name of Geo- 

 graphy, the more special description of an area he termed 

 Chorography, and the detailed account of a particular place 

 Topography. 



Aristotle, who first adduced real proofs of the sphericity o, 

 the Earth, had not failed to note the relationships which exist 

 between plants and animals, and the places in which they are 

 found, and he argued that the character of peoples was influenced- 

 by the land in which they lived ; but Ptolemy cared liltle for 

 theories, comparisons, or relationships, confining himself rather 

 to the record of actual facts. He made errors, the results of 

 which were more important, as it happened, in advancing know- 

 ledge than were the truths which he recorded ; for after the 

 troubled mediieval sleep, when even the spherical form of the 

 Earth was blotted out of the knowledge of Christendom, the 

 scientific deductions made by Toscanelli from the false premises- 

 of Ptolemy heartened Columbus for his westward voyage to the 

 Indies, on the very outset of which he stumbled all unknowing 

 on the New World. When Magellan succeeded in the enter- 

 prise which Columbus had commenced, the fourteen centuries' 

 reign of Ptolemy in geography came to an end ; his work was 

 done. 



The rapid unveiling of the Earth in the sixteenth and seven- 

 teenth centuries cast a glamour over feats of exploration which 

 has not yet been wholly dissipated, and it mav not be easy, ever* 

 now, to obtain wide credence for the fact that the explorer is- 

 usually but the collector of raw material for the geographer. 



