503 



NATURE 



[October 21,1 909 



the additions made to geographical knowledge during the 

 year by the journeys of Dr. Sven Hedin, Dr. Aurel Stein, 

 and Lieut, .'^liackleton, Sir Duncan Johnston devoted the 

 bulk of his address to the subject of topographical maps, 

 considering specially the preliminary triangulation for such 

 maps, the methods of detail survey, the scale of the map, 

 the scaie of the field survey, the methods of representing 

 details on the map, and the methods of reproduction. The 

 address was printed in N'.ATfRE of September 9. 



The remainder of the first morning sitting of the section 

 was taken up with the reading of papers by Miss Luella 

 A. Owen, of St. Joseph, Mo., on floods in the great 

 interior valley of North .\merica ; by Mr. James \\'hite, 

 head of the Geographical Department of the Dominion of 

 Canada, on the nomenclature of the islands and lands of 

 .■Xrctic Canada : and Dr. Robert Bell, formerly head of the 

 Geological Survey of Canada, on the Hudson Bay route 

 in its present aspect. The first of these papers, written by 

 an eye-witness of the flood of 1903, when at the end of 

 May and the beginning of June the valley at Kansas City 

 ■■ was filled from bluff to bluff with the turbulent muddy 

 waters, which on June 1 completely submerged the 

 entrances to the main waiting-room of the Union station," 

 gave in a compact form an account of the conditions which 

 produce floods in the region in question and of the 

 diversified character of their consequences, and then con- 

 sidered the possibility of their future control as a subject 

 of vital interest to the United States, and one involving 

 a careful examination of the methods of control in order 

 to avoid the possibility of bringing about evils more 

 disastrous than the floods themselves. Mr. White's paper 

 necessarily consisted entirely of details, but as these are 

 of no little interest in the history of geography, geographers 

 will be glad to learn that they will be m.nde available in 

 the pages of the Geographical Journal. In the third of 

 the morning papers Dr. Bell reiterated the views he has 

 long held and urged as to the practical importance of the 

 Hudson Bay route for the development of the north-west 

 of Canada, emphasising on this occasion the urgency of 

 the problem in view of the rapidity with which that 

 development is taking place and the effect which it may 

 be expected to have in promoting more intimate com- 

 mercial relations between that region and the mother 

 country. 



No separate meetings of Section E were held in the 

 afternoons, but the afternoon of Thursdav, .\ugust 26, 

 was devoted to a joint meeting of that section with the 

 subsection on agriculture, at which a paper contributed 

 to Section E by Prof. A. P. Brigham, secretary of the 

 American .Association of Geographers, on the development 

 of wheat culture in North .America, was followed bv one 

 contributed to the subsection on agriculture bv Prof. 

 .Mavor, of Toronto, on the agricultural development of 

 Canada, 1904-q. The first of these papers will be pub- 

 lished in full in the annual report of the association, as 

 well as in the Geographical Journal. Here, therefore, it 

 ^■'" be enough to say that it laid stress on the enormous 

 possibilities still remaining for the expansion of wheat 

 production even in the United States, directing attention, 

 among other things, to the large production of wheat 

 relatively to population in some States not generallv 

 thought of as wheat States, such as Marvland, which this 

 year produced eleven bushels of wheat per head. Prof. 

 Mavor's paper was a continuation of his well-know^n report 

 to the Board of Trade on the same subject, coming down 

 to the year 1004. and, like it, protested against some of 

 the more sanguine estimates of the possibilities of wheat 

 production in Canada, although he admitted that his 

 estirnates of 1904 ought to be increased. .An animated dis- 

 cussion followed the reading of the two papers. The pre- 

 vailing note of that discussion was sanguine, both as to 

 the possibility of enormously extending the area under 

 wheat in North .America and increasing the production in 

 the area already pl.-iced under that crop. Major Craigie, 

 chairman of the subsection on agriculture, directed atten- 

 tion, however, to the dependence of that increase on the 

 distribution of population, and thus implicitly raised the 

 question of the future rate of increase of wheat production 

 in North America, and the possibility of maintaining that 

 increase without a concurrent advance in prices. 

 NO. 2086, VOL. Si] 



The first paper read in Section H on Friday, .August 27, 

 was also by Prof. Mavor — a summary sketch of the 

 economic geography of Canada. Mr. J. Stanley Gardiner, 

 F.R.S., then gave a semi-popular account, illustrated by 

 many beautiful lantern-slides, of the Seychelles, a subject 

 on which he sent a report to the association as secretary 

 of the committee for the investigation of the Indian Ocean 

 appointed by the association. Two papers relating to 

 physical geography followed. The first of these, by Prof. 

 \V. H. Hobbs, of the University of Michigan, .Ann .Arbor, 

 developed an interesting theory of the cycle of Alpine 

 glaciation, showing how many of the phenomena of glacial 

 erosion found their explanation in the alternation of the 

 conditions bringing about the advance and retreat of 

 glaciers. This paper will also appear in the pages of the 

 Geographical Journal. The other was by Prof. Dodge, of 

 Columbia University, on the formation of arroyos in 

 adobe-filled valleys in the south-western United States. 

 The origin of these arroyos, or wadis, as they would be 

 termed in arid regions frequented by Arabic-speaking 

 peoples, was attributed in this paper to the introduction 

 of sheep, the grazing of the herbage by which in gently 

 sloping valley floors first gave the water an opportunity • 

 to become concentrated in streams instead of running off ' 

 the surface in sheets, a theory w^hich confirms an observa- 

 tion of the Navajos, the native race of the region. The 

 last paper read that morning was by Mr. Lawrence J. 

 Burpee, of the Carnegie Library, Ottawa, on the water 

 route from Lake Superior to the westward. Of the three 

 routes, that of the Kaministikwia, that by Grand Portage, 

 and that by way of Lake Nipigon, the first-mentioned 

 was the first to be discovered, but was neglected and for- 

 gotten after the discovery of the Grand Portage route, and 

 remained forgotten until the Canadians ascertained that 

 Grand Portage lay in the territory of the Lnited States. 

 Search for another route led to the re-discovery of that 

 by the Kaministikwia, and rendered the nearly simul- 

 taneous discovery of the Nipigon route of no practical 

 importance. 



Two hours of the morning of Monday, .August 30, were 

 taken up with a discussion on the teaching of geography 

 in secondary schools at a joint meeting of Sections E and 

 L, held at the meeting place and under the chairmanship 

 of the president of the latter section. The discussion was 

 opened by an informatory and helpful paper by Prof. R. E. 

 Dodge, of Columbia University, New York, and followed 

 by one (read in the absence of the writer by the recorder 

 of Section E) by Dr. C. H. Leete, principal of the Sachs 

 School for Girls. New York, who has been engaged in 

 the secondary teaching of geography for upwards of a 

 quarter of a century. Several professors and teachers of 

 geography took part in the discussion that followed, and 

 almost all these coincided with the view expressed by 

 Prof. Dodge, that the teacher of geography should look 

 upon it as his business to let the relation of the earth 

 to man dominate his presentation of the subject. The 

 remainder of the morning was taken up with a lecture by 

 Mr. .A. O. Wheeler, president of the .Alpine Club of 

 Canada, on some characteristics of the Canadian Rockies, 

 which attracted a larger audience in Section E than 

 was assembled on any other occasion during the meet- 

 ing. 



The meeting on Tuesday', August 31, was opened by a 

 carefully prepared and instructive paoer on the influence of 

 mechanical transportation upon the framework of cities, bv 

 Mr. George E. Hooker, civic secretary to the City Club 

 of Chicago. It was, unfortunately, read to a very meagre 

 audience, but there is reason to hope that it will appear 

 somewhere in a permanent form. Prof. .A. P. Coleman, 

 of Toronto University, followed with a paper on the 

 Yellowhead Pass and Slount Robson. an adjacent peak, the 

 highest in the Canadian Rockies. Prof. J. W. Gregory, 

 of Glasgow, then gave a brief but verv illuminating account 

 of the remarkable success which has attended the replace- 

 ment of kanaka bv white labour on the sugar plantations 

 of Queensland. The last two papers read that morning 

 furnished two illustrations of the action of waves and 

 currents in bringing about changes in shore-lines. The 

 first was bv Prof. Douglas W. Johnson, of Harvard L'ni- 

 versity, and dealt with the physical history of Nantasket 



