158 REPORT — 1887. 



A. Botli the openings of the well of Birtle and Binscarth were found 

 by this method, and a number of others.' 



This evidence that Rhabdomancy has sincere believers in the Cauadian 

 prairies is not without curiosity. 



No expense has been incurred. The Committee recommend that they 

 be reappointed. 



Report of the Committee, consisting of the Eev. Canon Carver, the 

 Eev. H. B. George, Sir Douglas Galton, Professor Bonnet, Mr. 

 A. Gr. Vernon Harcourt, Professor T. McKenny Hughes, the Eev. 

 H. W. Watson, the Eev. E. F. M. McCarthy, the Eev. A. E. 

 Vardy, Professor Alfred Newton, the Eev. Canon Tristram, Pro- 

 fessor MosELEY, and ]\Ir. E. Gr. Eavenstein {Secretary), appointed 

 for the purpose of co-operating with the Royal Geographical 

 Society in endeavouring to bring before the authorities of the 

 Universities of Oxford and Cambridge the advisability of pro- 

 moting the study of Geography by establishing special Chairs for 

 the purpose. 



The Committee beg leave to report that, at a meeting held on January 

 12, 1887, at the ofl&ce of the Association, the following resolutions were 

 adopted: — 



1. That the Committee fully recognise the educational value of the 

 scientific study of geography, and are agreed in thinking that geography 

 should occupy a place among the subjects of study at the Universities of 

 Oxford and Cambridge. 



2. That the Council of the British Association be requested to give 

 their support to the representations and offers made to the Vice-Chan- 

 cellors of the two Universities by the Council of the Society in letters 

 dated July 9 and December 9, 1886, of .which copies are enclosed. 



London : July 9, 1886. 



Mt dear Vice-Chancellor, — The Council of the Royal Geographical 

 Society have on two previous occasions (in 1871 and 1874) addressed 

 memorials, of which copies are enclosed, to your predecessors, urging 

 the claims of geography to further recognition by the Universities. 



They have recently undertaken an inquiiy into the position of geo- 

 graphy in English and Continental education. The result has been 

 unfavourable to England ; and there has been a general concurrence of 

 testimony, according with their own strong conviction, that the most 

 effectual step towards the removal of our inferiority would be the estab- 

 lishment in our Universities of Chairs or Readerships similar to those 

 held in Germany — viz., by Karl Ritter at Berlin, and Professors Peschel 

 and Richthofen at Leipzig. 



So much of human knowledge and human interests is bound up with 

 the relations and interaction of the physical conditions of the earth, the 

 study of which is practically embraced in geography, that there are few 



' This is scarcely an answer to the question. As both these wells were deep (84 

 and 200 feet) ponsibly water might have been found at these depths without the 

 ' willow method ' being used to discover the spring. — [J. Kae.] 



