344 



NATURE 



\A7lg. 2 2, 1872 



rafion. There is no reason to fear that the most interesting 

 occupation of gmrjraiihers will he gone, when the main features 

 of all the world are known. On the contrary, it is to he desired, 

 in the interests of the living pursuit of our science, that the 

 primary facts should be well ascertained, in O'der that geographers 

 may have adequate materials, and more leisure to devote them- 

 selves to principles and relations. I look forward with eagerness 

 to the growth of Geography as a science, in the usually accepted 

 sense of that word ; for its problems are as numerous, as interest- 

 ing, and as intricate as those of any other. The configuration of 

 every land, its soil, its vegetable covering, its rivers, its climate, 

 its animal and human inhabitants, act and re-act upon one 

 another. It is the highes* problem of Geography to analyse their 

 correlations, and to sift the casual from the essential. The more 

 accurately the crude facts are known, th^- more surely will induc- 

 tion proceed, the further will it go, ami. as the analogy of other 

 sciences assures us, the interest of its results will in no way 

 diminish. 



As a comparatively simple instance of this, I wouid mention 

 the mutual effects of climate and vegefaiion, on which we are at 

 present very imperfectly informed, though 1 hope we shall learn 

 much that is new and valuable during this meetintr. Certain 

 general facts are familiar to us : namely, that rain falling upon a 

 iiarren country drains awav immediately. It ravages the hill- 

 slopes, rushes in torrents over the plains, and rapidly finds its 

 way to the sea, either bv rivers or by subterranean water-courses, 

 leaving the land unrefreshed and unproductive. On the other 

 hand, if a mantle of forest be nursed into existence, the effects 

 of each rainfall are far less ■sudden and transient. The water 

 has to soak through much vegeration and humus before it is free 

 to run over the surfice ; and, when it does so, the rapidity of its 

 course is checked by the stems of the vegetation. Consequently, 

 the rain-supplies are held back and stored by the action of the 

 forest, and tlie climate among the trees becomes more equable 

 and humid. We also are familiar with the large differences be- 

 tween the heat-radiatiniT power ot the forest and of the desert, 

 also between the amount of their evaporation ; but we have no 

 accurate knowledge of any of these data. Still less do we know 

 about the influences of lorest and desert on the rate of passage, 

 or upon the horizontality, of the water-laden winds from the 

 sea over the surface of the land : indeed, I am not aware that 

 this subject has ever been considered, although it is an essential 

 element in our problem. If we were thoroughly well informed 

 on the matters about which I have been speaking, we might at- 

 t<»mpt to calculate the precise difference of climate under such 

 and such conditions of desert and of forest, and the class of 

 experiences whence our data were derived would themselves 

 furnish tests of the correctness of our computations. This will 

 serve as an example of what I consider to be the geographical 

 problems of the future ; it is also an instance of the power of 

 man over the phenomena of nature. He is not always a mere 

 looker-on, and a passive recipient ot her favours and slights ; 

 but he has power, in some degree, to control her processes, even 

 when they are working on the largest scale. The effects of 

 human agency on the aspect of the earth would be noticeable to 

 an observer far removed from it. Even were he as distant as 

 the moon is, he could see them ; for the colour of the surface of 

 the land would have greatly varied during historic times, and in 

 some places the quantity and the drift of cloud would have per- 

 ceptibly changed. It is no tritiing fact in the physical geography 

 of the globe, that vast regions to the east of the Mediterranean, 

 ami broad tracts to the south of it, should have been changed 

 from a state of verdure to one of aridity, and that immense 

 European forests should have been felled. 



We are beginning to look on our heritage of the earth much 

 as a youth might look upon a large ancestral possession, long 

 allowed to run waste, visited recently by him for the first time, 

 whose boundaries he was learning, and whose capabilities he 

 was beginning to appreciate. There are tracts in Africa, Aus- 

 tralia, and at the Poles, not yet accessible to geographers, and 

 wonders may be contained in them ; but the region of the abso- 

 lutely unknown is narrowing, and the career of the explorer, 

 though still brilliant, is inevitably coming to an end. The geo- 

 grapLiical work of the future is to obtain a truer knowledge of 

 tne world. I do not mean by accumulating masses of petty 

 details, which subserve no common end, liut oy just and clear 

 generalisations. We want to know all that constitutes the in- 

 dividuality, so to speak, of every ge igrapliical district, and to 

 define and illustrate it m a way easily to be understood ; and we 

 have to use that knowledge to show how the efforts of our human 



race may best confirm to the geographical conditions of the 

 stage on which we live and labour, 



I trust it will not be thought unprofitable, on an occasion like 

 this, to have paused for a while, looking earnestly towards the 

 future of our science, in order to refresh our eyes with a sight of 

 the distant land to which we are bound, and to satisfy ourselves 

 that our present efforts lead in a right direction. 



The work immediately before us is full of details, and now 

 claims your atten'ion. There is much to be done and discussed 

 in this room, and I am chary of wasting time by an address on 

 general topics. It will be more profitable that I should lay 

 before you two projects of my own about certain maps, which it 

 is desirable that others than pure geographers should consider, 

 and on which I shall hope to hear the opinions of my colleagues 

 in the Committee-room of this Section. 



They bo^h refer to the Ordnance Maps of this country, and 

 the first of them to the complete series well known to geographers, 

 that are published on the scale of one inch to a mile. It is on 

 these alone that I am about to speak ; for, though many of my 

 remarks will be applicable more or less to the other Govern- 

 ment map publications, I think it better not to allude to them in 

 direct terms, to avoid distracting attention by qualifications and 

 exceptions. 



English geographers are justly proud of these Ordnance Maps 

 of their country, whose accuracy and hill-shading are unsur- 

 passed elsewhere, though the maps do not fulfil, in all particulars, 

 our legitimate desires. I shall not speak here of the absence 

 from ttie coast-maps of the sea data^ such as the depth and 

 character of the bed of the sea, its currents and its tides (although 

 these are determined and published by another Department of 

 the Government — namely, the Admiralty), neither shall I speak 

 of the want of a more frequent revision of the sheets, but 

 shall confine my-^elf to what appear to be serious, though 

 easily remediable, defects in the form and manner of their publi- 

 cation. It is much to be regretted that these beautiful and cheap 

 maps are not more accessible. They are rarely to be found even in 

 the principal bookseller's shops of important country towns, and 

 I have never observed one on the bookstall ot a railway station. 

 Many educated persons seldom, if ever, see them ; they are almost 

 unknown to the middle and lower classes ; and thus an important 

 work, made at the expense of the public, is practically unavail- 

 able to a large majority of those interested in it, who, when they 

 want a local map, are driven to use a common and inferior one 

 out of those which have the command of the market. I am 

 bound to add that this evil is not peculiar to our country, but is 

 felt almost as stri>ngly abroad, especially in respect to the 

 Government of France. I account for it by two principal 

 reasons. The first is, that the maps are always printed on stiff 

 paper, which makes them cumbrous and unfit for immediate use ; 

 it requires large portfolios or drawers to keep them smooth, clean, 

 and in separate sets, and an unusually large table to lay them out 

 side by side, to examine them comfortably, and to select what is 

 wanted. These conditions do not exist on the crowded counter 

 of an ordinary bookseller's shop, where it is impossible to 

 handle them without risk of injury, and without the certainty of 

 incommoding otlier customers. Moreover, their stillness and 

 size, even when published in quarter-sheets, make them most in- 

 convenient to the purchaser. Either he has to send them to be 

 mounted in a substantial and therefore costly manner, or he must 

 carry a roll home with him, and cut off the broad ornamental 

 borders, and divide the sheet into compartments suitable for the 

 pocket, which, to say the leasi, is a troublesome operation to 

 perform with neatness. The other of the two reasons why the 

 maps are rarely offered for sale, is that the agents for their publi- 

 cation are themselves map-makers, and therefore competitors, 

 and it is not to be expected of human nature that they should 

 push the sale of maps adversely, in however small a degree, to 

 their own interests. 



The remedy I sh.all propose for the consideration of the Com- 

 mittee of this .Section is, to memorialise Government to cause an 

 issue of the maps to be made in quarter-sheets on thin paper, 

 and to be sold, folded in a pocket-size, like the county imps seen 

 at every railway sta'ion, each having a portion of an index-map 

 impressed on its outside, to show its contents and those ot the 

 neighbouring sheets, as well as their distinguishing numbers. 

 Also, I would ask that they should be sold at every " Head Post- 

 office" in the United Ivingdom. There are afiout seven hundred 

 of these othces, and each might keep nine adjacent quarter-sheets 

 in stock, the one in which it was situated being the centre of the 

 nine. An index-raap of the whole survey might be procurable 



