TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E, G71 



parts. In short they_ require all gaps filled up. They want to know 

 what the country contains in the way of forests, of open land suitable for 

 agriculture, of desert and swamp, of opportunities for roads and railways, for 

 telegraphs and irrigation, before deciding on the right position for the centre of 

 an arterial system of public works which shall pervade in natural and orderly 

 sequence, and in due time,_ every part of the body of the country of their 

 administration. Now this is scientific geography. It is not ordnance map- 

 making nor anything very much like it. It is a comparatively new demand on 

 the scientific resources of England, and those resources are by no means equal to 

 the demand. Before considering resources, however, we must look to the 

 scientific means to this geographical end. I have already referred briefly to the 

 subject of geodesy,_and I have told you that what is termed geodetic trianoula- 

 tion is a function of high scientific order, demanding not only minute and p'ains- 

 taking care on the part of an able staff of observers, but very considerable time 

 and very considerable expense to carry it to a satisfactory issue. I have also 

 pointed out that inasmuch as the exact distribution into parts of any large space 

 of the Avorld's area must ultimately depend on the exact measurements which are 

 a function of oi/ly the highest class of geodetic triangulation, we must look 

 tinaUy to geodesy to support the framework of our geography and to give it 

 its rightful place in the great total of the world's mapping. But the demand for 

 geographical mapping is not satisfied with the promise of an elaborate basis for 

 the work Avhich has first to be constructed with the expenditure of much time and 

 money before anything in the nature of a final map can be produced for purposes 

 of administration. The political world, too, cannot always sit patiently throuo-h 

 all the international disagreements, the losses, the unrest, and the positive national 

 danger to which an unsettled boundary gives rise, whilst the geodesist works 

 slowly through the country year after year, piling up sheaves of equations and 

 folios of observations, but never a square mile of practical topography. As for 

 the military department I hardly know what to say. There "is the' example 

 before us of Germans, Paissians, French, and Americans, all conductino- their 

 campaigns with maps in their hands, taking every special means at'' their 

 command in order to acquire such maps before they commence operations ; whilst 

 the Boers have fought us to the bitter end with a practical knowledo-e of the 

 country which is even better than maps, and which is exactly that" class of 

 knowledge which maps are supposed to replace or supplement. None of them 

 ■wait for geodesy. 



Certainly the attitude of the military department is not one of neutrality. 

 They would like the maps, they are even anxious to get them, but they are not 

 quite certain that they are worth paying for. However that may be, I can only 

 express my own conviction that geographical mapping will be found to be an 

 urgent necessity in every corner of the unmapped world subject to British influence. 

 We would like to wait for those accurate determinations of geodesy which would 

 at once furnish us with the best of all possible means for commencing a compre- 

 hensive geographical survey. But we cannot afford to wait, and the c^reat 

 geographical problem of the age is how to reverse the natural sequence of scientific 

 procedure and to obtain maps of the unmapped world which no subsequent o-eodetic 

 operations shall condemn as inaccurate. It is not a question of expediency • it 

 has been one of necessity for many years past ; and inasmuch as necessity is the 

 mother of invention, I think that it will finally be conceded that means have been 

 found for ensuring sufficient accuracy in geographical work to render it capable of 

 enduring the subsequent tests of completed geodetic measurement without dis- 

 location and without interference with the general utihty of the maps, even if that 

 accuracy be not scientifically perfect. 



_ It is not my intention to bore you with technical details. I only wish to 

 impress upon you that in the field of scientific geography, as in other fields ' the 

 old order changeth.' We must work on new principle's in order to meet new 

 demands. 



