TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. — PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. Gil 



Section E.— GEOGRAPHY. 



President op the Section — Right Hon. Sir Georcje Taubman 

 GoLDiE, K.C.M.G., D.C.L., F.R.S. 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 2. 



The President delivered the following Address : — 



It is just a quarter of a century since the British Association held its last meetin" 

 in this ancient city of York and celebrated the Jubilee of its foundation, so that 

 from the moment of accepting the invitation to preside over this Section it was 

 clear to my mind that the most appropriate subject for my Address would be the 

 progress of geography between that Jubilee and what I believe would be called in 

 other spheres our Diamond Jubilee. For although the immediate concern of 

 geographers is with the earth's surface, yet we cannot avoid sharing with the rest 

 of our race the religious observance of astronomical periods and the tendency to 

 regard certain numbers of such periods as having a peculiar value. Geographers, 

 indeed, might be excused some tendency to this human weakness, as they are 

 entirely dependent on astronomical methods and on an elaborate use of numbers 

 for the primary necessity of ascertaining where they are on that surface which it 

 is their business to examine and describe. 



I do not propose in this Address to deal only, or even chiefly, with the progress 

 of exploration since our Jubilee Meeting in York, for although that progress has 

 been remarkable, its effects are probably less far-reaching than the growth durino- 

 the same period of the scientific treatment of geography ; while both of these 



advances, taken together, are, to my mind, of less importance to our country 



and we are, after all, a " British " Association — than the spread of the geographical 

 spirit amongst our people, on the main cause of which I shall say a few words. 

 Let me deal, then, with these matters in turn, bearing in mind, however, that the 

 two latter subjects — the growth of scientific method and what I may term the 

 democratisation of geography — are so interwoven as to make it impossible to 

 separate them altogether. 



First, then, as to the advance of exploration since 1881. In that section of 

 the Arctic regions in which the Nares and the Greely expeditions had done their 

 work considerable progress has been made, mainly "by Lieutenant Peary, who 

 carried the investigation of the coast of Greenland further north and east than had 

 been the case before, while his contributions to our knowledge of the inland ice 

 are of much value. The explorations of Captain Sverdrup among the lands lying 

 north of America, and the not less important expeditions of Nordenskioid and 

 Nansen across the centre of Greenland, have added much to our knowledge, not 

 only of the physical geography, but also of the geology, biology, and ice con- 

 ditions of a land which, though lying to a large extent outside the Arctic circle, is 

 essentially Arctic in character. Another expedition, under Captain Amundsen, is 

 now completing its work, which has extended over about three years, around the 

 North Magnetic Pole. Both English and Swedish expeditions have greatly 

 improved our knowledge of the islands of Spitzbergen, while Jackson, Nansen, 



BB2 



