NA TURE 



57; 



THURSDAY, OCTC BER 20, 1881 



GEOGRAPHY, 



NATIONAL AND INTER- 

 NA TIONAL 



IT seems impossible to get any full and authentic account 

 of tlie doings of the recent International Geographi- 

 cal Congress held at Venice, so that at present it is diffi- 

 cult to say how much it did for the promotion of the subject 

 with which it is connected. Congratulatory addresses 

 seem to have been a prominent feature, and much time 

 was devoted to the subject of interoceanic canrils, with 

 special reference to those across the isthmuses of Panama 

 and Corinth. If the Congress itself was disappointing, 

 the Exhibition in connection therewith appears to have 

 been a great success. It was a striking illu-tralion of 

 the dimensions which geographical science has now at- 

 tained. Maps and charts and globes ancient and modern 

 we should of course expect to find ; sextants and com- 

 passes also, as well as tents and hammocks, and other 

 paraphernalia of the explorer. But besides the exhibits 

 to which geography can lay special claim, nearly every 

 other science was laid under contribution in one way or 

 another. Geology and meteorology, botany and zoology, 

 and ethnology, and even chemistry and physics, have 

 been placed ur.der levy to help in forming the multi- 

 farious departments to which geography now lays claim. 

 This wide extension of a subject, which at one time had 

 little claim to be considered scientific, has its advantages 

 and disadvantages. It has reached its widest limits on 

 the Continent, in Germany, where there are chairs of 

 geography, whose professors, to judge from their pro- 

 grammes and their text-books, would require to be almost 

 omniscient. If a student faithfully follows the course 

 thus chalked out, he ought to end by having a fair know- 

 ledge of all the sciences. And it comes to be a question 

 whether the same object might not be attained by 

 beginning at the other end. Why, it may be asked, 

 might not the student begin by acquiring a know- 

 ledge of the principles and facts of the sciences con- 

 cerned, and apply them afterwards to the special subject 

 of geography ? At the same time, it must be confessed, 

 to have a complete knowledge of the geography of the 

 world, a little of everything is necessary ; and the Con- 

 tinental conception of the subject is certainly preferable 

 to the bald and dry idea entertained of it in this country, 

 as exhibited in most of our text-books. Happily better 

 things may be looked for in the future with the use of 

 such text-books as Green's " Geography of the British 

 Isles," and the late Keith Johnston's Geographical Hand- 

 book. While geography thus levies tribute on all the 

 sciences, it must be admitted that in return she largely 

 pays back her debt in the multitude of new data brought 

 home by the best of her pioneers. Unfortunately all ex- 

 plorers do not start with that knowledge of the sciences 

 which would greatly increase their observing capacity. 

 Every explorer is not a Livingstone or a Holub, a Preje- 

 valsky or a Maclay ; and for such especially, as also for 

 missionaries, a course of geography similar to that which 

 prevails at the German Universities would be a decided 

 advantage. For practical, and especially for school pur- 

 poses, it is well that some limit_ should be defined as to 

 Vol. XXIV. — No. 625 



the sphere of geography ; the happy medium has, we 

 think, been well struck by M. Elisde Re'clus in his mag- 

 nificent " Geographic Universel'e," which, when com- 

 plete, will no doubt form a mine for compilers of text- 

 books. 



Cne of the most valuable recent developments of geo- 

 graphy is seen in the scheme conceived by the late f.ieut. 

 Weyprecht, for the establishment of a ring of Polar obser- 

 vatories. This is now close upon being an accomplished 

 fact, as will be seen from the account we gave of the 

 recent meeting of the International Polar Congress at St. 

 Petersburg. .As our readers are no doubt aware, many 

 Arctic authorities are of opinion that the days of great and 

 expensive national Polar expeditions are past, and that the 

 money thus spent would be put to much better use by being 

 devoted to the carrying on of a continuous series of obser- 

 vations. At various points around the Arctic area obser- 

 vatories will be established as near as practicable to the 

 Pole, where a continuous series of observations will be 

 taken, according to a common pre arranged plan. These 

 observations will be connected with meteorology in all 

 its departments, with terrestrial magnetism, the aurora 

 borealis, atmospheric electricity, the movements of the ice, 

 biology, combined with geographical exploration where 

 practicable. After a year or two of such observations we 

 may then be able to compare and co-ordinate Polar con- 

 ditions with those which prevail in regions further south. 

 A vast array of data must necessarily be accumulated 

 that cannot but be turned to valuable account by science. 

 Our knowledge of the meteorology of the temptrate zone 

 can never be complete until we are well acquainted with 

 Arctic conditions, and thus the work to be done at these 

 observatories will have an important practical bearing. 

 Not only so, but it is maintained that it is only when we 

 have the knowledge which will be collected at these sta- 

 tions that we shall be in a condition to send out an expe- 

 dition for the Pole itself « ith anything like scientific assur- 

 ance of success. We cannot but regret, then, that England 

 has no share in the scheme. The countries forming the 

 International Association are Russia, Germany, Norway 

 and Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the United States, and 

 we believe Canada ; France and Switzerland lend it 

 their countenance, and Lieut. Bove's Italian .Antarctic 

 expedition is to some extent affiliated to the Association. 

 Stations are to be established on the north coast of 

 Siberia, Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen, Jan Mayen Island, 

 the west coast of Greenland, Lady Franklin Bay, and the 

 neighbourhood of Behring Straits. The colnny for Lady 

 Franklin Bay, sent out by the United States, has already, 

 we believe, reached its destination, and the others will 

 probably be all at work next year. 



While speaking of .Arctic matters we must express our 

 surprise at a journal like the Pall Mall Gazette talking of 

 Polar exploration as a barren work. This of cour>e de- 

 pends on what one looks for in the way of results ; if an 

 immediate return in £ s. d. is looked for, the work is 

 barren enough certainly, as barren as all purely scientific 

 research seems at its first undertaking ; though even the 

 Pall Mall Gazelle must admit that all the diflerence 

 between the present and the past, materially and intel- 

 lectually, is due to the ultimate results of this same barren 

 work. And we are glad to see that Capt. Adams, the well- 

 known Dundee whaler, again found time to take part in the 



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