94G REPORT— 1898. 



an outline geography and history of the English-speaking world, the United States 

 having a room on the same level as the British Empire. On the third storey is 

 preparing a corresponding survey of Scotland, viewed at once as an historic and 

 social entity and as an element of greater nationality ; while the fourth storey, 

 naturally as yet in the most advanced state of preparation, is a museum of Edin- 

 burgh, though again not without comparison with Scottish and other cities. The 

 flat roof of Prospect bears a turret of culminating outlook with a Camera Ohscura, 

 an old-fashioned instrument, but of great educational future, geographic and 

 artistic alike. 



Descending from the roof to the uppermost storey, this succession and unity of 

 the physical, organic, and social conditions is better understood. Thus the relief 

 model of the site of Edinburgh brings indispensable light on the interpretation of 

 the antique and the modern city, its military history or its industrial present, its 

 medical eminence or its picturesque interest. 



Similarly for the storeys of Empire and Language, Europe, or World. On 

 each level the view of Nature as determining man is complemented by that of 

 man as more or less re-determining Nature. 



The educational uses, whether to passing tourist or professed teacher, of such a 

 Geographical School and Exhibition have already been proved in the Regional 

 Studies which have for many years characterised the Edinburgh Summer Meeting. 

 To the Great Globe projected by M. Elis6e Reclus, wherever erected, such a 

 Regional Tower is the necessary complement, its regional relief maps on greater 

 scale, &c., furnishing, as it were, the corresponding regional microscope, bringing 

 ont the portions of the globe most interesting at that particular centre with 

 clearer light and fuller detail. 



II. Finally, the Tower has not only a scientific but a practical aspect ; it is not 

 only a Geographic Exhibition, but a Geotechnic Laboratory. On the level of the 

 City are thus to be found not only the photographic survey of Edinburgh, but the 

 plans and business detail of that repair or renewal of large portions of the historic 

 city which has now been for many years in progress. The interests alike of 

 archaeology and public health, of sesthetics and finance, of the housing of the 

 people, and of the collegiate beginnings for the academic community are here, so 

 far as may be, reconciled in actual practice. 



Similarly on the level of Scotland, the practical interests and requirements of 

 forestry or fisheries, of agriculture or manufactures, are being set forth, and 

 notably, for instance, the rival projects of the great Forth and Clyde Ship Canal, 

 which so many circumstances, alike commercial and naval, are again combining to 

 bring forward. 



The practical economics of the Empire and Europe, even some outline of the 

 Geotechnic possibilities of the world, are similarly being sketched. For the illustra- 

 tion of associated practical and experimental beginnings analogous to those of 

 Edinburgh have been selected some aspects of the practical economics of Cyprus 

 — chosen as a geographical and historic, racial and social microcosm ; and as a 

 unique region which, while practically a portion of the Colonial Empire, at once 

 unites many of the most characteristic developments and problems of the Old 

 World, since still, as of old, linking Europe with Asia, and both, through Egypt, 

 even with Africa. 



In such ways the methods of the Outlook Tower come to unite scientific and 

 educational aims with practical and public interest. It seeks not only to draft 

 and outline, but even graphically visualise, a synthesis, an encyclopaedia of ordered 

 Imowledge, and .similarly to outline a correspondingly detailed Synergy of orderly 

 actions. Regional Survey thus passes into Regional Activity, Regional Develop- 

 ment. Hence the geographer, whose maps have so long recorded and prepared 

 the (Segio/ial) game of war, may here increasingly look forward to no less 

 concrete and detailed regional organisation of the productive energit^s and possi- 

 bilities of peace. And it is only in some such conci-ete way as that here proposed 

 that the present widely discussed aspirations towards checking the spread of 

 militarism can be eflectively realised, or even concretely discussed. 



