130 REPORT — 1864. 



GEOGEAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY. 



Address of the President, Sir Eoderick I. Mubchisoij, K.O.B., D.C.L., 

 LL.D., F.R.S., V.P.G.S., Director- General of the Geological Survey, and 

 President of the Royal Geographical Society. 



Intimately bound up as I have been with the British Association since it was 

 founded, in 1831, let me first assure you that I am proud to have been the person 

 who, at our last meeting at Newcastle, had the honour of moving the resolution that 

 we should this year assemble in Bath, a city with which I have long been con- 

 nected by many dear ties. Twenty-eight years have elapsed since we were gathered 

 together at the neighbouring city of Bristol ; and now we return, to make this 

 attractive place the scientific centre of the south-western districts of England, 

 under the general Presidency of my eminent Geological colleague Sir Charles 

 Lyell. 



Our Section of Geography and Ethnology had no existence when we last met m 

 this pai-t of England ; but ever since its formation thirteen years ago, as proposed 

 by myself, it has been very popular. I may, indeed, assume with confidence that 

 it will remain so, as long as England continues to be distinguished in sending out 

 to distant lands so many entei-prising travellers and explorers. From the days of 

 Edward the Sixth, when an expedition sailed, under the eyes of that young king, 

 to discover a north-eastern passage to the mighty empire of China, then called 

 Cathay, and downwards, through the voyages of the illustrious Raleigh, and 

 others of the reign of Elizabeth, to our own times, the same spirit has animated 

 the adventurers of this nation. 



Having already in this summer taken a view of the last year's progress of geo- 

 graphy, in an Address to the Royal Geographical Society, I will on this occasion 

 chiefly direct your attention to some points of general interest, which have marked 

 the advancement of our science during the last forty years. 



To begin with one of the great glories of this century, let us call to mind how 

 little was known of the Arctic regions when Parry made his first explorations, 

 and how, after being followed by many a gallant voyager, the culminatmg Arctic 

 honour devolved upon a single English woman, who, devoting her fortune to the 

 search after her noble-minded husband, engaged the services of that successful 

 navigator, M'Clintock, and determined the cheering fact that, in perishing, Fi-ank- 

 lin was the first to make the long-sought north-west passage. 



The delineation of all the Arctic discoveries upon the map of the world, with 

 the memorable exception of the American voyage of Kane, as sent forth by Grin- 

 nell of New York, is, indeed, exclusively due to British energy, and is a trophy 

 well worthy of the country which accomplished so much in its earlier career of 

 enterprise in the little vessels of a Drake, a Frobisher, and a Hudson. 



To pass to the vast region of our antipodes, or the furthest from our homes, let 

 us remember how small was the portion of Australia known a quarter of a century 

 ago, in comparison with that which our countrymen now occupy. The great in- 

 terior was then almost a terra incoynita, the larger part having been pronounced to 

 be an useless desert. Recently, however, it has been successfully traversed by 

 Stuart, M'Kinlay, Burke, Wills, and Landsborough, and is known to contain so 

 much fertile land, that sheep are foimd to thrive well in tracts which were con- 

 sidered to be mere saline wastes. The discovery of a vast abundance of gold has 

 doubtless been one great cause of the rapid strides latterly made in Australia, par- 

 ticularly in raising the rich auriferous colony of Victoria to a degree of commercial 

 prosperity which, for its rapid gTowth, is iineqnalled in our history. But even in 

 the colony of South Australia, where the precious metal has not been found, 

 though it is rich in copper-mines, we have seen the spirit of adventure, in search 

 of new pasture-lands, lead to vast geographical discoveries, in making which 

 M'Douall Stuart traversed the continent, and planted the British ensign on its 

 northern shores. Again, if we look at the promising and fertile new colony of 

 Queensland, on the north-eastern coast, we see an importunt question of climate 

 all but decided, in a direction contrary to the opinion of most men a few years 

 back. For we now know that broad tracts of intertropical land of a certain alti- 



