76 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



both. These trends in human and social geography are to be welcomed, 

 but at the same time there is a tendency to forget that our geography 

 must be founded on a knowledge of the surface features of the earth. 

 The physical factors must be thoroughly understood if the superstructure 

 of human and social geography is to have a sure foundation. This 

 foundation can be best laid in personal experience of earth, air and water. 

 In other words, travel is an essential part of the training of the geographer 

 if his work is to have any reality. The complexity of geographical values 

 can never be gauged by any mere statistical presentment of the facts. 

 The experience of the world that is necessary to the equipment of the 

 geographer must be gained not merely by travel in densely populated 

 lands, where the modern applications of science do so much to protect 

 man from actual contact with the factors of climate, the influence of 

 land forms and the effect of biological distributions, but of travel by sea 

 and in empty lands and of practical experience in exploring the natural 

 phenomena and occurrences, of real contact with the raw materials of 

 geography, in order to learn the elements of the science at first hand. The 

 scientific no less than the humanistic aspects of geography must be learnt 

 by personal observation. The geographer who depends solely on maps 

 will never understand his subject or be a source of inspiration to others. 

 The best map is a poor substitute for reality. A year of personal 

 -experience of nature is worth the whole of a university course as a 

 foundation of geographical study. 



In selecting for the subject of my address some of the problems of polar 

 geography I have been moved by a twofold reason. First, these problems 

 come near to my interests by personal experiences, and I think that in 

 a comparative lull in polar exploration in this country it is well to take 

 stock of the problems that still await solution, and secondly, I feel that 

 modern geographical thought, with its stress on the humanistic side, is 

 tending to overlook the polar regions in spite of their wide geographical 

 interest. They offer an incomparable field of observation for all sides of 

 pure geography. From the many problems I can select only a few of 

 importance. 



The Tasks of Exploration. 



To turn first to the Antarctic, there are certain fundamental problems 

 in physical geography — problems of the nature of those which in other 

 continents were solved several centuries ago. The broad features of the 

 map of Antarctica are not built on ascertained fact so much as on intelligent 

 guesswork. 



The existence of an Antarctic continent is still based on circumstantial 

 evidence, and until more than some 5000 miles of its coastline, or only 

 about 35 per cent, of the total length, are known, direct evidence of 

 Antarctica will be lacking. It is not a little remarkable that all the 

 exploration of the twentieth century has merely modified the probable 

 outline of that continent as it was predicted by Sir John Murray in 1886. 

 He had little but the reports of Boss, d'Urville, Wilkes, a few sealers 

 and the Challenger to go on, and, mainly on circumstantial evidence, he 

 built his Antarctic continent. The one considerable change in that map 

 has been the curtailment of the Weddell Sea and the removal of its 



