90 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 
to me now and then to be too much criticism of Columbus. If he 
thought America was India he had none the less found America. 
I have claimed for the geographer’s proper field the study of the 
causation of Distribution. I am aware that this claim has been, and 
is, denied to Geography by some students of the sciences which he 
necessarily calls to his help. But if a Science is to be denied access to the 
fields of other sciences except it take service under them, what science 
shall be saved? I admit, however, that some disputes can hardly be 
avoided, where respective boundaries are not yet well delimited. Better 
delimitation is called for in the interest of Geography, because lack of 
definition, causing doubts and questions about her scope, confuses the 
distinction between the Science and its Application. The doubts are not 
really symptoms of anything wrong with Geography, but, since they 
may suggest to the popular mind that in fact something is wrong, they 
can be causes of disease. Their constant genesis is to be found in the 
history of a Science, whose scope has not always been the same, but has 
contracted during the course of ages in certain directions while expand- 
ing in others. If, in the third century B.c., Eratosthenes had been asked 
what he meant by Geography, he would have replied, the science of 
all the physica! environment of Man whether above, upon, or below the 
surface of the Earth, as well as of Man himself as a physical entity. 
He would have claimed for its field what lies between the farthest star 
and the heart of our globe, and the nature and relation of everything 
composing the universe. Geography, in fact, was then not only the 
whole of Natural Science, as we understand the term, but also every- 
thing to which another term, Ethnology, might now be stretched at 
its very widest. 
Look forward now across two thousand years to the end of the 
eighteenth century 4.p. Geography has long become a Mother. She 
has conceived and borne Astronomy, Chemistry, Botany, Zoology, 
and many more children, of whom about the youngest is Geology. 
They have all existences separate from hers and stand on their own 
feet, but they preserve a filial connection with her and depend still on 
their Mother Science for a certain common service, while taking off 
her hands other services she once performed. Restricting the scope 
of her activities, they have set her free to develop new ones. In doing 
this she will conceive again and again and bear yet other children 
during the century to follow—Meteorology, Climatology, Oceano- 
graphy, Ethnology, Anthropology, and more. Again, and _ still 
more narrowly, this new brood will limit the Mother’s scope; but ever 
and ever fecund, she will find fresh activities in the vast field of Earth 
knowledge, and once and again conceive anew. The latest child that 
she has borne and seen stand erect is, as I have said, Geodesy; and 
she has not done with conceiving. 
Ever losing sections of her original field and functions, ever add- 
ing new sections to them, Geography can hardly help suggesting 
doubts to others and even to herself. There must always be a cer- 
tain indefiniteness about a field on whose edges fresh specialisms are 
for ever developing towards a point at which they will break away to 
grow alone into new sciences. The Mother holds on awhile to the 
