Section E.— GEOGRAPHY. 



President op the Section — Professor Sir C. Wyville Thomson, LL,D„ D.Sc, 



F.R.S., F.R.S.E., F.G.S., F.L.S. 



THURSDAY, AUG VST 15, 1878. 



Professor Sir C. Wyville Thomson gave the following Address : — 



In doing me the honour to select rne to preside over this Section on the present 

 occasion, the Council of the British Association have doubtless had in view the part 

 which it has been my privilege to take in contributing to the physical description 

 of the earth, as director of the civilian scientific staff on board Pier Majesty's ship 

 Challenger. I will not, therefore, apologise for following the example of several of 

 my more immediate predecessors in leaving to others the subject of topographical 

 geography, of which I have never made a special study, and directing your atten- 

 tion for the short time at my disposal to advances which have been made of late 

 years in certain directions in the application of the physical and natural sciences 

 to the illustration of the general condition of the earth. 



Before doing so, however, I must refer to the great geographical event of the 

 year which has passed since the geographical section of the British Association last 

 met — the return of the African explorer, Henry Moreland Stanley. As the graphic 

 account which Mr. Stanley has given of his journey " through the dark continent " 

 is in all our hands, and as we may hope to have an opportunity during this meeting 

 of hearing something further of his adventures from the great traveller himself, it 

 will not be necessary for me at present to enter into any details either with regard 

 to the course taken by his expedition or to the brilliant results which it has 

 achieved. It is, however, incumbent upon us in this place to acknowledge once 

 more the flood of light which Stanley has thrown upon the geography of Central 

 Africa, and to express our wondering admiration of the iron will and the daring 

 intrepidity which carried him through these long years of labour and difficulty and 

 danger. Although, in reading Stanley's narrative, we may be forced to regret some 

 of the dark scenes by which his terrible march was chequered, still no one who has 

 not himself had some dealings with savages can fully understand how entirely the 

 action of a leader, solely responsible for the lives of his party, must be guided in 

 every emergency by considerations which he alone is in a position to weigh. 



During the last few years, a factor, so altered in its proportions that it has 

 appeared almost new, has entered into the calculations of the naval executive 

 departments of all the maritime powers ; and in harmony with the rapid advance 

 of natural knowledge and the widening recognition of its practical value, many 

 opportunities, hitherto too often lost, have been taken advantage of. Latterly 

 almost all special expeditions, whether despatched avowedly with the object of 

 extending the boundaries of science, or for hydrographic purposes, or for training 

 naval cadets, or for drilling the inmates of a penitentiary, or pioneering commercial 

 enterprise, as in the case of Captain Wiggins's late excursions to the mouth of the 

 Yenisei, have been supplied more or less fully with the means of scientific obser- 



