158 REPORT— 1869. 



Geographers are aware that from the earliest days of the Electi-ic Telegi-aph Com- 

 pany, the Indian records have contained a vast amount of important g-eographical 

 information. No one knows better than our Member, Sir Andrew Waug-h, who 

 was for so many years at the head of the Grand Trigonometrical Survey of India, 

 how valuable and accurate, how varied and extensive were the stores of informa- 

 tion, bearing on every portion of Indian geography, which had been accumulated 

 during the last two centuries of our connexion with India and China. But mo,st 

 of this information was very difficult of access to geographers, and they will be 

 glad to know that, since the last Meeting of the Association, a separate geogra- 

 phical department has been formed at the India Office, under the general direction 

 of Mr. Clements Markham, the able Hon. Secretary of the Roj^al Geographical 

 Society, and that an excellent map-room has been arranged and placed under the 

 special charge of Mr. Trelawney Saunders, so well and favourably known to all 

 practical geographers, while arrangements have been made for the more rapid 

 printing and publication in India, under the care of Cols. Thuillier and Walker, of 

 the Royal Engineers, of those series of maps for which, during so many years, we 

 have been indebted to the conscientious accuracy of Mr. Walker, who may, I 

 believe, now be called almost the Nestor of our English map compilers. 



As connected with this subject may be mentioned arrangements for compiling a 

 complete and trustworthy Gazeteer for India, and for sy.stematic ethnological in- 

 quiry, which has now such important bearing on political and historical geography 

 in India as well as in other parts of the world. I may be excused for here 

 dilating on a reform which is not only in itself important to geographers, but 

 which originated with youi- member, Sir Stafl'ord Northcote, while Secretary of 

 State for India. 



Colonel Strange will, I hope, be able to give you some account of another reform, 

 which I have the authority of Sir Edward Sabine for saying is likely to have very 

 important bearing on the accuracy of all instrumental observations connected with 

 our Eastern Empire. 



Here in Devon, where so many of our great English discoverers are claimed as 

 among the numbers of our western wortliies, I may be excused for alluding to tlie 

 prizes which (at the suggestion, I believe, of Mr. Francis Galton) were oli'ered by 

 the Royal Geographical Society for proficiency in geography among the scholars 

 still in statu pwpillari. I believe the conditions of the prizes are as \et but im- 

 perfectly known, and we may hope that in future our great public schools will 

 send us more competitors in what surely ought to be considered a necessary branch 

 of a liberal education. 



Every practical geographer knows how trying it is to come across some un- 

 educated seaman, who has voyaged in regions almost unknown to civilized man, 

 and who, for lack of educated powers of observation, has been able to make no use 

 of his rare advantages. But the disappointment is a thousand times greater when 

 he who has missed such opportunities is a man of fortune, and, in the ordinary 

 sense of the word, of high education aud accomplishments. I have knovni two 

 instances of such men who, in pursuit of game, traversed regions of Africa abso- 

 lutely unknown to modern geogi-aphers ; in one case the knowledge thus acquired 

 was not absolutely lost, for the sportsman fortunately communicated his observa- 

 tions to a scientific friend, who at once recognized their value. In the other case 

 the sportsman could only satisfy the man of science that an imparalleled oppor- 

 tunity had been irretrievably lost. 



I hope, from time to time, as they come forward to address you, to have the 

 opportunity of introducing to you some of the eminent foreigners who have come 

 to England for the special purpose of being present at this Meeting of the Associa- 

 tion. M. Khanikof has on previous occasions attended Meetings of the British] 

 Association, and is already personalh^ known to many Members, and he will, 1 1 

 trust, fixvour his old friends with some notes on those remote regions, with the ex- 

 ploration of which his name is inseparably connected. But there are two names j 

 on the list of our visitors which will have been recognized with special interest by j 

 geographers of every nation, and ensure to the gentlemen who bear them a special] 

 welcome. 



M. Pierre de Tchihatchef has been so lately eulogized by his friend and ad- I 



