ADDRESS. 1 1 



Geography. 



The Ordnance Survey appears to have had its origin in a proposal of 

 the French Government to make a joint-measurement of an arc of the 

 meridian. This proposal fell through at the outbreak of the Revolution ; 

 but the measurement of the base for that object was taken as a founda- 

 tion for a national survey. In 1831, however, the Ordnance Survey had 

 only published the 1-inch map for the southern portion of England, and 

 the great triangulation of the kingdom was still incomplete. 



In 1834 the British Association urged upon the Government that the 

 advancement of various branches of science was greatly retarded by tlie 

 want of an accurate map of the whole of the British Isles ; and that, 

 consequently, the engineer and the meteorologist, the agriculturist and the 

 geologist, were each fettered in their scientific investigations by the 

 absence of those accurate data which now lie ready to his hand for the 

 measurement of length, of surface, and of altitude. 



Yet the first decade of the British Association was coincident with a 

 considerable development of geographical research. The Association was 

 persistent in pressing on the Government the scientific importance of 

 sending the expedition of Ross to the Antarctic and of Franklin to the 

 Arctic regions. We may trust that we are approaching a solution of tlie 

 geography of the North Pole ; but the Antarctic regions still present a 

 field for the researches of the meteorologist, the geologist, the biologist, 

 and the magnetic observer, which the recent voyage of M. Borchgrevink 

 leads us to hope may not long remain unexplored. 



In the same decade the question of an alternative route to India by 

 means of a communication between the Mediterranean and the Persian 

 Gulf was also receiving attention, and in 1835 the Government employed 

 Colonel Chesney to make a survey of the Euphrates valley in order to 

 ascertain whether that river would enable a practicable route to be formed 

 from Iskanderoon, or Tripoli, opposite Cyprus, to the Persian Gulf. 

 His valuable surveys are not, however, on a sufiiciently extensive scale to 

 enable an opinion to be formed as to whether a navigable waterway 

 through Asia Minor is physically practicable, or whether the cost of 

 establishing it might not be prohibitive. 



The advances of Russia in Central Asia have made it imperative to 

 provide an easy, rapid, and alternative line of communication with our 

 Eastern possessions, so as not to be dependent upon the Suez Canal in 

 time of war. If a navigation cannot be established, a railway between 

 the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf has been shown by the recent 

 investigations of Messrs. Hawkshaw and Ilayter, following on those of 

 others, to be perfectly practicable and easy of accomplishment ; such an 

 undertaking would not only be of strategical value, but it is believed 

 it would be commercially remunerative. 



Speke and Grant brought before the Association, at its meeting at 

 Newcastle in 1863, their solution of the mystery of the Nile basin, which 



