648 REPORT— 1903. 



each feature from point to point for his own purposes. He must traverse every 

 inch of his ground, he must know where he can climb each mountain and ford 

 every brook, where there are quarries or roads, springs or flats ; what can be seen 

 from every point of view, how the habitability or habitations vary from point to 

 point ; in short, he must become a veritable walking map of his own district. 

 Why not scatter such men in every quarter of the globe, particularly where any 

 trouble is likely to arise? They are cheap enough, they will waste no time, and 

 they will be so glad of the chance for research that they will not be hard to satisfy 

 in the matter of pay and equipment. Thus you will acquire a corps of guides, 

 ready wherever and whenever they are wanted ; and when trouble arises they 

 may do a great deal by means of their minute knowledge of topography to save 

 millions of money and thousands of lives, and to prevent the irritating recurrence 

 of the kind of disaster with which we have become sadly familiar within the last 

 five years. 



Geography. 



In dealing with the relationship of Geology to Geography geologists are 

 frequently charged with claiming too much. On this point at least, however, 

 there can be no difference of opinion, that the majority of geological surveyors and 

 unofficial investigators have kept their eyes open to this relationship, and have 

 often contributed new explanations of old problems, They have been compelled to 

 observe, and often to explain, surface-features before making use of them in their 

 own mapping, and in doing so have often hit upon new principles. It is hardly 

 needful to mention such examples as Ramsay's great conception of plains of marine 

 denudation, Whitaker's convincing memoir on sub-aerial denudation, Jukes's explana- 

 tion of the laws of river adjustment, Gilbert's scientific essay on erosion, Heim's 

 demonstration of the share taken by earth-movement in the modelling of landscape 

 features, and the exceedingly valuable proofs of the relation of human settlement 

 and movement to underground structure, worked out with such skill and diligence 

 by Topley in his masterly memoir on the Weald — the jumping-ofi" place, if I may 

 so term it, of the new geography. 



No one is more pleased than geologists that geographers have ceased to draw 

 their knowledge of causation solely from history, and that they have turned their 

 attention to the dependence and reaction of mankind on nature as well. But 

 while hoping that geographers will continue to study, so far as they logically can, 

 the relationship of plants, animals, and mankind to the solid framework of the 

 globe on which they live, we must draw the line at the invention of new geological 

 hypotheses to explain geographic difficulties on no better evidence than that 

 furnished by the difficulties themselves ; on the other hand, we must; insist that 

 each new geological principle must take its place among geographic explanations 

 as soon as it is freely admitted to be based on a sound substratum of fact. 



I must confine myself to a few instances of what I mean. Mr. Marr's geological 

 work on the origin of lake-basins has led to some remarkable and unexpected con- 

 clusions with regard to the history and origin of the drainage of the Lake district. 

 Some of the very difficult questions raised by the physical geography of the North 

 Riding of Yorkshire have received a new explanation from the researches of 

 Professor Kendall and Mr. Dwerryhouse, an explanation which is the outcome of 

 purely geological methods of observation of geological materials. Again, the simple 

 geological interpretation of a well-known unconformity between Archa2an and 

 Triassic rocks has made it extremely probable that many of the present landscapes, 

 not only in the Midlands but elsewhere, may be really fossil landscapes, of great 

 antiquity and due to causes quite different from those in operation there 

 at the present day. In mountain regions, too, it can only be by geological obser- 

 vation that we shall ever determine what has been the precise direct share of 

 earth-movement in the production of surface relief. Such examples seem to indi- 

 cate that many of the principles must be of geological origin but of geographic 

 application. 



