TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 787 



Section E.— GEOGRAPHY. 



President oy the Section — General Sir J. H. Lefrot. C.B., K.C.M.G., L.L.D. 

 F.R.S., F.S.A., Vice-Pres. R.G.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 28. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



Connected as I was in early life with this country, and for several years associated 

 with one of its scientific institutions and one of its scientific societies, I cannot hut feel 

 proud and gratified to he honoured at this late day, and on so meniorahle an occasion, 

 with the Presidency of this Section. I will not ask your indulgence for any weakness 

 you may ohserve in my discharge of its obligations, nor will I plead what, however, 

 I feel very strongly, that the lapse of thirty years since I last had the honour to 

 address an audience in Canada, has not been wholly advantageous to my position. 

 I may, however, make one observation. It is that, whereas the short interval 

 elapsed since the delivery of an exhaustive summary of Geographical Progress by 

 the President of the Royal Geographical Society makes it at all times difficult for 

 the President of this Section to find fresh topics, I have been made more than 

 usually conscious of that disadvantage by having to close tbe present address some 

 weeks earlier than would be necessary at a meeting held in Great Britain. 



2. Man's acquaintance with the planet he inhabits, with the earth which he is 

 to replenish and to subdue, has been a thing of growth so slow, and is yet so 

 imperfect, that we may look to a far distant day for an approach to a full 

 knowledge of the marvels it offers, and the provision it contains for his well- 

 being. He has seen, as we now generally believe, in silent operation, the balanced 

 forces which have replaced the glacier by the forest and the field ; which have 

 carved out our present delights of hill and dale in many lands, and clothed tliem with 

 beauty ; and it may be that changes as great will pass over the face of the earth 

 before the last page of its history is written in the books of eternity. But it is no 

 longer before unobservant eyes that the procession of ages passes. Geography re- 

 cords the onward march of human families, often by names which survive them ; it 

 rears enduring monuments to great discoverers, leaders, and sufferers ; it is an indis- 

 pensable minister to our every-day wants and inquiries ; but beyond this it satisfies 

 one of the most widely diffused and instinctive cravings of the human intelligence, 

 one which from childhood to maturity, from maturity to old age, invests books of 

 1 ravels with an interest belonging to no other class of literature. If 'the proper 

 study of mankind is man,' where else can we learn so much about him, or be 

 presented with such perplexing problems, such diversity in unity, such almost 

 incredible contrasts in the uses of that noble reason, that Godlike apprehension, 

 which our great poet attributes to him; or see the 'beauty of the world, the 

 paragon of animals,' J in conditions so unlike his birthright. Geography, then, is 

 far from being justly regarded as a dry record of details which we scarcely care to 

 know, and of statistics which are often out of date. 



3. It is scarcely necessary to do more than allude here to the intimate relations 

 between geography and geology. The changes on the earth's surface effected 

 within historical times by the operation of geological causes, and enumerated in 

 geological books, are far more numerous and generally distributed than most 

 persons are aware of ; and they are by no means confined to sea coasts, although 

 the presence of a natural datum in the level of the sea makes them more observed 



1 Hamlet, Act ii. sc. 2. 



