478 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION E. 



SECTION E.— GEOGEAPHY. 

 Peesident of the Section: — Major H. G. Lyons, D.Sc. , F.R.S. 



WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 8. 

 The President's Address was read in his absence, as follows : — 



The Importance of Geographical Fesearch. 



This year, when the British Association is holding its meeting in times of 

 the utmost gravity, the changed conditions which have been brought about by 

 this War must occupy the attention of all the Sections to a greater or less 

 extent, and our attention is being called to many fields in which our activities 

 have been less marked or more restricted than they might have been, and 

 where more serious study is to be desired. The same introspection may be 

 usefully exercised in geography, for although that branch of knowledge has 

 undoubtedly advanced in a remarkable degree during the last few decades, we 

 have certainly allowed some parts of the subject to receive inadequate attention 

 as compared with others, and the necessity for more serious study of many of 

 its problems is abundantly evident. 



Nor is the present occasion ill adapted to such an examination of our posi- 

 tion, for when the British Association last met in this city, now twenty-eight 

 years ago, the President of this Section, General Sir Charles Warren, urged in 

 his address the importance of a full recognition of geography in education on 

 the grounds that a thorough knowledge of it is required in every branch of life, 

 and is nowhere more important than in diplomacy, politics, and administration. 



Matters have certainly advanced greatly since that time, and a much fuller 

 appreciation of geogi'aphy nov; exists than that which formerly prevailed. At 

 the time of the address to which I have referred the serious study of geography 

 in this country was on the eve of important developments. The Council of 

 the Royal Geographical Society had for some time been urging the importance of 

 geography being studied at the Universities so that there should be an oppor- 

 tunity for advanced students to qualify themselves as scientific geographers by 

 study and original research in the subject. The time had arrived for this 

 ideal to become an accomplished fact, and in the following year, 1888, a Reader 

 in Geography was appointed at Oxford University, and a Lectureship in the 

 same subject was established at Cambridge. Since then the advance has been 

 steady and continuous not only in the increased attention given to the subject, 

 but also in the way in which it is treated. The earlier bald and unattractive 

 statistical presentation of the subject has now been almost everywhere replaced 

 by a more intelligent treatment of it, in which the influences of the various 

 environments upon the life which inhabits a region are appreciated, and the 

 responses to such influences are followed up. Instruction in the subject is given 

 by those who have seriously studied it, who realise its importance, and who 

 are in a position to train up new scientific workers in the field of geography. 

 Though much remains to be done there should be now a steady output of 

 geographical investigators capable of providing an ever-increasing supply of 



