428 



NATURE 



[September i, 1904 



two periods. Consider the way in which our lectures and 

 literature are now illustrated by the aid of photography, 

 new processes, and the lantern. Petermann's Mitteil- 

 ungcn was for long the one first-rate geographical 

 magazine in Europe. We have now, as we ought to have 

 had long before, a journal that rivals it. 



Take a wider survey. Look at maps, beginning with 

 the Ordnance Survey. Compare the last issues of the one- 

 inch maps, with all the advantages of colour-printing, over 

 their doubtless (except as to roads) accurate, but far less 

 intelligible predecessors. Consider the maps private firms, 

 Messrs. Bartholomew and Messrs. Stanford, have provided 

 us with; note the new editions of " Murray's Guides." 



The correction and completion of maps by new explor- 

 ations is always desirable. But it is even more important 

 that a sound system for the delineation of natural features 

 should be adopted both for Government surveys and general 

 maps. I begin to look forward to a time when glaciers 

 will no longer be represented, as they were on the early 

 Indian and Caucasian surveys, without their heads or tails 

 — that is, without either their n^v^s or their moraine-cloaked 

 lower portions or with rivers rising above them and flowing 

 through them. In time, perhaps, every closet cartographer 

 will recognise that glaciers do not lie along the tops of 

 lofty ridges, but descend into valleys. In these matters I 

 have had many an arduous struggle. It is cruel that a 

 poor man should be set to delineate snow mountains who 

 has never seen one, and when " a week at lovely Lucerne " 

 can be had for 5Z. 5s. it is inexcusable. 



In my schooldays there was an exercise of memory known 

 to us by the contemptuous appellation of "Jog," which 

 boys and masters united to depreciate and despise. This 

 sentiment is now confined to a few elderly generals and 

 headmasters. Geography flourishes as a branch of science 

 under the august shadow of the elder Universities. At 

 Oxford we have produced Mr. Mackinder and Dr. Herbert- 

 son, Mr. Grundy, Mr. Hogarth, Mr. Beazley. We have 

 started a school of Geography and a school of Geographers. 

 At Cambridge a Board of Geographical Studies has been 

 established. I may quote what Sir C. Markham said three 

 months ago : — 



" The staff of the new geographical school at Cambridge 

 will consist, instead of one reader, of several lecturers and 

 teachers, who will cover the various departments of the 

 science. A diploma in geography will be granted as at 

 Oxford. But Cambridge goes a step further than Oxford, 

 by introducing geography into the examination for the B.A. 

 degree. The importance of according geography such a 

 position in the studies of the LTniversities must be evident 

 to all, and must be specially gratifying to those who, for 

 more than thirty years, have fought hard, amid much dis- 

 couragement, to have geography recognised as a University 

 subject. It will be interesting to see how the Board of 

 Geographical Studies at Cambridge will draw up the detailed 

 regulations for the degree and the diploma, what steps will 

 be taken to secure a competent staff to cover the whole field 

 of our science, and especially to train young University men 

 for practical work in the field. We have every reason to 

 expect that the results will prove satisfactory. 



" The Geographical Association of Teachers, of which 

 Mr. Mackinder and Dr. Herbertson are active members, is 

 doing much to enlighten teachers with regard to the 

 capabilities of the subject, to raise its standard, and to 

 introduce improved methods of teaching. An interesting 

 and useful conference was held last winter at the Chelsea 

 Polytechnic, under its auspices, and in connection with the 

 conference there was an excellent exhibition of appliances 

 used in teaching geography, the usefulness of which was 

 increased by sending it to various provincial centres." 



In primary schools many teachers are furnishing excellent 

 instruction, and are instructing themselves in the handbooks 

 provided by our friends Dr. Mill and Mr. Chisholm and 

 others. In the higher branches of education the problems 

 of scientific geography are studied, and teachers are 

 encouraged to develop the geographical aspects of other 

 subjects, such as archaeology, history, commerce, colonisa- 

 tion on the one hand, botany and natural history on the 

 other. We have moved forwards and upwards, but do not 

 let us flatter ourselves that we have as yet reached any 

 considerable eminence. Probably many more of our country- 

 men can read a map in this generation than could in the 



NO. 18 18, VOL. 70] 



last. A small percentage, I am glad to notice, are not 

 hopelessly bewildered even by contour lines. 



We are learning our geographical alphabet. In time we 

 may, as a nation, be able to read and to understand what 

 we read. We shall recognise that ability to use a map and 

 judge ground is a considerable safeguard against waste of 

 life and disasters in war, and that an acquaintance with 

 the features of the earth's surface and geographical dis- 

 tribution is an invaluable help to a nation in the commercial 

 rivalries and struggles of peace. 



When the question of establishing Geography at Oxford 

 was being discussed, Dr. Jowett (who had himself some- 

 where in the 'fifties suggested the erection of a geographical 

 chair) asked me if I believed Geography could be taught 

 so " as to make men think." We should, I believe, " think 

 imperially " to more purpose if we also took pains " to 

 think geographically." But I will not detain you and use 

 up my time by going in any detail into the progress of 

 Geography. I might find myself only repeating what others 

 have said better. And as to one important branch, perhaps 

 the most importajit branch, geographical education, on 

 which I addressed this Section at Birmingham some fifteen 

 years ago, I feel myself debarred by the fact that the Associ- 

 ation has now a Section specially devoted to Education. 



I have determined on the whole, therefore, to run the 

 risk of wearying some of my listeners by inviting your 

 attention to the place in Geography of the natural objects 

 which have had for me through life the greatest and most 

 enduring attraction. I propose to talk about mountains, 

 their place in Nature, and their influence, both spiritual 

 and material, on mankind. 



We have all of us seen hills, or %vhat we call hills, from 

 the monstrous protuberances of the Andes and the Himalaya 

 to such puny pimples as lie about the edges of your fens. 

 Next to a waterfall, the first natural object (according to 

 my own experience) to impress itself on a child's mind is 

 a hill, some spot from which he can enlarge his horizon. 

 Hills, and still more mountains, attract the human imagin- 

 ation and curiosity. The child soon asks, " Tell me, how 

 were mountains made? " a question easier to ask than to 

 answer, which occupied the lifetime of the father of moun- 

 tain science, De Saussure. But there are mountains and 

 mountains. Of all natural objects the most impressive is 

 a vast snowy peak rising as a white island above the waves 

 of green hills — a fragment of the arctic world left behind 

 to commemorate its past predominance — and bearing on its 

 broad shoulders a garland of the Alpine flora that has been 

 destroyed on the lower ground by the rising tide of heat 

 and drought that succeeded the last Glacial epoch. Mid- 

 summer snows, whether seen from the slopes of the Jura 

 or the plains of Lombardy, above the waves of the Euxine 

 or through the glades of the tropical forests of Sikkim, 

 stir men's imaginations and rouse their curiosity. Before, 

 however, we turn to consider some of the physical aspects 

 of mountains, I shall venture, speaking as I am here to a 

 literary audience, and in a University town, to dwell for 

 a few minutes on their place in literature — in the mirror 

 that reflects in turn the mind of the passing ages. For 

 Geography is concerned with the interaction between man 

 and Nature in its widest sense. There has been recently a 

 good deal of writing on this subject — I cannot say of dis- 

 cussion, for of late years writers have generally taken the 

 same view. That view is that the love of mountains is an 

 Invention of the nineteenth century, and that in previous 

 ages they had been generally looked on either with in- 

 difference or positive dislike, rising in some instances to 

 abhorrence. Extreme examples have been repeatedly 

 quoted. We have all heard of the bishop who thought the 

 devil was allowed to put in mountains after the fall of 

 man ; of the English scribe in the tenth century who invoked 

 " the bitter blasts of glaciers and the Pennine host of 

 demons " on the violaters of the charters he was employed 

 to draft. The examples on the other side have been com- 

 paratively neglected. It seems time they were insisted on. 



The view I hold firmly, and which I wish to place before 

 you to-day, is that this popular belief that the love of moun- 

 tains is a taste, or, as some would say, a mania, of advanced 

 civilisation, is erroneous. On the contrary, I allege it to 

 be a healthy, primitive, and almost universal human 

 instinct. I thinic I can indicate how and why the opposite 

 belief has been fostered by eminent writers. They have 



