98 REPORT — 1866. 



GEOGEAPHY AND ETHNOLOGY. 

 Address hy Sir Charles Nicholson, Bart., LL.D., President of the Section. 



In opeuiug the business of this Section the President passed in review the 

 recent acquisitions and speculations in the sciences of Geography and Ethnology. 

 Geography, he said, in the restricted sense in which it is now used, was chiefly 

 confined, in its scope, to inquiries as to the leading features of the earth's phy- 

 sioguoni}', without dealing with those special causes and remoter influences 

 to which all the gi-eat phenomena of the smface of the globe were referable. 

 This circumscription, and yet indefiniteness, of aim was not, however, peculiar to 

 the subject we had to deal with ; it belonged to every other department of himian 

 Imowledge, the bounds of which are more or less arbitrary, each being but a part 

 of one great whole, each separated from the other by faint and often invisible lines, 

 reciprocally melting into each other. The same remark applied to ethnology, the 

 indefiniteness of the name having become a source of difEciilty. A fastidious cri- 

 ticism might find equal objection to the employment of such terms as ethnography, 

 zoogTaphy, anthropology, tiology, and others. Many of these terms are sufficient^ 

 elastic not only to include man in all his objective relations (in which anatomy 

 and physiology^, human as well as comparative, could be embraced), but all the 

 ethical and moral qualities of his nature would become alike objects of contempla- 

 tion and research. Facts are, after all, the ultimate aim of all inquirj^, and it was 

 of little consequence with what special machinery or under what particular desig- 

 nation they might be gathered together. lu reviewing the recent progress of geo- 

 graphical research, he alluded to the discovery of the Lake Albert Nyanza by Sir 

 Samuel Baker, and described the nature of the problem which now remained to be 

 solved in the geography of this part of Africa. This was the connexion or separa- 

 tion of the two great inland seas, the Tanganyika and the Albert Nyanza. The 

 difference of level between them (800 feet) militated against the supposition of their 

 rmion ; but a doubt existed as to the correctness of the levels given in the case of 

 the Tangan3dka, the measurement having been made by Burton and Speke with a 

 single and very imperfect instrument. It was hoped that this point might be 

 settled by Livingstone, the last news from whom informed us of his arrival at the 

 moutli of the Rovuma river on the east coast, whence he was about to travel by 

 land into the interior. Tlie road to the great southern lake, Nyassa, was reported 

 to be open, and towards it this distinguished and intrepid traveller was, in all proba- 

 bility, now on his march. In other parts of Africa, the expeditions of the Baron 

 ■\'ou der Decken and M. Du Chaillu were mentioned, and he announced to the meet- 

 ing that the latter traveller would commimicate a paper to the Section embodying 

 his principal observations on the physical geography and tribes of the new region 

 he had traversed in his last joiu'ney. In Asia several very important geographical 

 expeditions had recently been undertaken. Two of these were in connexion with 

 the great trigonometrical survey of India now in course of execution. To Capt. 

 Montgomerie, who had been charged with the survey of Cashmere and tlie North- 

 western Himalayas, we were indebted for one of these Central Asian explorations ; 

 the other was undertaken by Mr. W. II. Johnson, a ci^'il assistant in the survey. 

 This gentleman, ha'\ing carried the survey to the summit of the Karakorimi 

 Pass, the extreme limit of the territory under British influence, had been there 

 invited by the chief of Khotan, in Chinese Tartary, to visit his dominions. Mr. 

 Johnson had boldly undertaken the journey over the as yet vmknown plateau 

 stretching between the Himalayan and Kueu Lun ranges, and reached Bchi, the 

 capital of Khosan. The plateau was surveyed, and the position of Ilchi accurately 

 determined. The vast plains of Central and Western Asia still presented, however, 

 innumerable features deser\-ing of minute investigation. Amongst these was the 

 problem of the alleged ancient course of the Oxus into the Caspian Sea, instead of 

 the Aral, as at present. In South-eastern Asia, a young man, Mr. J. Thomson, 

 had recently returned from a successful enterprise in Cambodia. Mr. Thomson 

 had been excited by the account which the late Mr. Mouhot had given of the 

 splendour of the ruins of ancient temples buried in the tropical forests of that 

 country, and had resolved, alone and imaided, to visit them, and bring away pho- 

 tographs and plans of these structures. He had returned, and brought with him a 



