5:,6 



NA TURE 



[September 26, 1901 



of settled territories by homeless hordes. Here Anthropo- 

 geography buds off the subdivision of Political Geography, which 

 takes account of the artificial boundaries separating or sub- 

 <li%'iding countries, and of the innumerable artificial restrictions 

 and ameliorations which are superimposed on the natural barriers 

 and channels of intercommunication. Even in political geography 

 only a humble place is held by a statement of boundaries and 

 capitals, to lists of which the great name of Geography has 

 actually been confined by people who ought to have known 

 better. 



Anthropo-geography views the world from the standpoint of 

 the race, political geography from the standpoint of the nation ; 

 but room has to be found for a yet more restricted outlook, that 

 of the individual, whose view of the world as it profits himself 

 is known as commercial geography. This department deals 

 with natural commodities and their interchange, and perhaps 

 because here rather than in the other departments a successful 

 comprehension of the inter-relation of cause and effect may be, 

 in the language of the schoolroom, " reduced to pounds, shillings 

 and pence," the name of Applied Geography has been pro- 

 posed. It filly terminates our survey of the science, for the 

 flickering disturbances of the equilibrium of supply and demand 

 tnown simultaneously over the whole world, and the slower 

 movements of transport to restore equilibrium, are still far from 

 Ihe power of scientific prevision, and all we can do at present 

 is to point out certain clear lines of least resistance, or greatest 

 advantage, due to the interactions of natural and human causes 

 and effects. 



To sum up in a .sentence the field and the function of 

 ■geography in the broad majesty of its completeness, we may say 

 ■that it is the description of the surface of the solid Earth as it 

 is in itself, as it acts upon the ocean, the air, and the living 

 ■things which inhabit it, and as it is affected in turn by their 

 actions. 



Geography and the State. 



Viewed thus, I believe that geography will be found to afford 

 an important clue to the solution of every problem affecting the 

 ■mutual relations of land and people, enlightening the course of 

 history, anticipating the trend of political movements, indicating 

 'the direction of sound industrial and commercial development. 



It would be possible, unfortunately it would be easy, to 

 enumerate misconceptions of history, blunders in boundary 

 settlements, errors in foreign policy, useless and wasteful wars, 

 •mistakes in legislation, failures in commercial enterprise, lost 

 opportunities in every sphere, which are due to the neglect of 

 such a theoretical geography. Surely it is to the laws defining 

 ■the interaction of Nature and Man that we should turn for 

 guidance in such affairs rather than to the dull old British 

 "doctrine of " muddling through." That vaunted process after 

 all means that we are driven by stress of facts to do without 

 intending it or knowing how, and at immense expense, the very 

 things that intelligent study beforehand would have shown to 

 be necessary, feasible and cheap. 



All this has been urged again and again, and it has fallen on 

 the ears of those in authority "like a tale of little meaning, 

 though the words are strong," I admit that all advocates of a 

 rational geography have not escaped the danger of the special 

 pleader — they have promised too much. If a Government 

 •official" were to say, " Ves, I confess there was a mistake here, 

 the affair was managed badly, much money and some prestige 

 •«'ere lost ; it must all he done over again ; please tell me how," 

 I am afraid that the chances are that the answer would be 

 -vague, general and unpractical. If the answer to this boldly 

 hypothetical question is ever to be clear and definite, geography 

 must be studied as it has never yet been studied in this 

 ■country. It must pass beyond the stage of a pastime for re- 

 tired officers, colonial officials and persons of leisure, and become 

 the object of intense whole-hearted and original study by men 

 ■of no less ability who are willing to devote, not their leisure, 

 but their whole time to the work. The object of geographical 

 research should be nothing less than the demonstration or 

 irefutation of what we claim to be the central principle of 

 geography — that the forms of terrestrial relief control all mobile 

 ■distributions. 



A Projected Geographical Description. 



In order to focus the question it may be convenient to con- 

 sider the geography — or chorography, as Ptolemy would have 

 termed it — of the British Islands, No author has ever attempted 

 to give such a description. Camden's " Britannia" was swamped 



NO. 1665, VOL. 64] 



by arch;-eoIogy ; the county histories, jwhich are certainly not 

 deficient in number, were wrecked outward bound on the 

 harbour-bar of genealogy. Sir John Sinclair's old "Statistical 

 Account of Scotland" in the intelligent utilisation of very in- 

 complete data was a great but solitary stride in the right direc- 

 tion. Bartholomew's great " Atlas of Scotland" supplies the 

 cartographical basis for a modern description of the northern 

 kingdom ; but the description itself has not been undertaken 

 on an equal scale. The work of producing a complete geo- 

 graphical description of the British Islands would be gigantic, 

 but not hopelessly difficult. 



The material has been collected at an enormous e.\penditure 

 of public money, and is stacked more or less accessibly, much 

 of it well-seasoned, some I fear spoilt by keeping ; but there it 

 lies in overwhelming abundance, heaps of building materials, 

 but requiring the labour of the builder before it can become a 

 building. 



There is first and chief the Ordnance Survey, one of the 

 grandest pieces of work in mathematical geography that has 

 ever been accomplished. The result is a series of maps almost 

 as perfect as one can expect any human work to be, showing 

 in a variety of scales from \ of an inch to 25 inches to a mile 

 every feature of the configuration of the land — except the lake- 

 beds. 



There is next the hydrographic survey by the Admiralty, 

 giving every detail of the subaqueous configuration in and 

 around our islands — except the lake-beds. 



These two great surveys supply the basis for a complete 

 description of the British Islands, and the geological survey, 

 which in a sense is more elaborate than either of the others, 

 completes the fundamental part. The geological map makes it 

 possible to explain many of the forms of the land by referring 

 to the structure of the rocks which compose them. Both the 

 geological and hydrogiaphic surveys are accompanied by 

 memoirs describing the features and discussing the various ques- 

 tions arising from the character of each sheet ; but there is 

 nothing of the kind for the maps of the ordnance survey. 



The ordnance maps .show at the date of their preparation the 

 extent and also the nature of the woodlands and moorlands, 

 and this information is supplemented by the Returns of the 

 Board of Agriculture, which each year contain the statistics of 

 farm crops, waste land, and livestock for every county. These 

 returns are excellently edited from the statistical point of view, 

 but they are not discussed geographically. It is easy to see in 

 any year how much wheat is raised in each county, but it is a 

 slow and laborious process to discover from the Returns what 

 are the chief wheat-growing areas of the country. The county 

 is too large a unit for geographical study, as it usually includes 

 many types of land form and of geological formation. Before 

 the distribution of crops can be understood or compared with 

 the features of the ground they must be broken up into parishes, 

 or even smaller units, and the results placed on maps and 

 generalised. The vast labour of collecting and printing the 

 data is undertaken by Government, and paid for by the people 

 without a nmrmur, but the geographer is left in ignorance for 

 the want of a comparatively cheap and simple cartographic 

 representation of the facts. 



The Inspector of Mines and the Board of Trade publish 

 statistics of the industry and the commerce of the country, 

 statistically excellent, no doubt, but in most cases lacking 

 the cartographic expression which makes it possible to take in 

 the general state of the country from year to year. The same 

 is true of the Registrar-General's Returns of births, marriages, 

 and deaths, in themselves an admirable epitome of the health 

 conditions of the country, and of the fluctuations in population, 

 but limited by a narrow specialism to the one purpose. 



Finally and chiefly we have the Census Reports, Once in ten 

 years the people are numbered and described by sex, age and 

 occupation. The inhabited houses are numbered, and the 

 smaller dwellings grouped according to size. The figures are 

 most elaborately classified and discussed, so as to bring out the 

 distribution of population, and its change from the previous 

 decade. But to the geographer the Census Reports are like a 

 cornfield to a seeker of bread. The grains must be gathered, 

 prepared, and elaborated before the desired result is obtained. 

 Nowhere is the cartographic method more useful than here. It 

 is a striking contrast to turn to the splendid volumes of the 

 United States Census Reports, many of them statistically inferior 

 to ours, but thickly illustrated with maps, showing at a glance 

 the distribution of every condition which is dealt with, and 



