410 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.—E. 
is good pastoral country ; about 3 per cent. (in Queensland) is well suited for tropical 
agriculture ; finally, some 21 per cent. (including much rugged country) has a climate 
suitable for close white settlement. Indeed, no region in the world in the writer’s 
opinion offers such a field for 10 million settlers as the inadequately utilised agricultural 
part of Australia. My studies have shown that no arid or tropical lands resembling 
Australia’s empty spaces have been settled by any noteworthy-white population. My 
counsel to Australian statesmen has always been: ‘ Break up the large alienated 
holdings, but leave the empty spaces to the pastoralist for whom nature meant them. 
Tackle the tropical north and the arid lands later—much later—and leave the desert 
to its loneliness.’ Had this advice been followed more closely it would have 
eliminated a number of hopeless projects, and would have gone some way to preventing 
the present deplorable crisis in Australia. 
Prof. W. WERENSKIOLD.—Variations of Glaciers and Climate in Norway. 
(Slides.) 
The Norwegian geologists, P. A. Oyen and J. B. Rekstad, organised a systematic 
survey of glacier oscillations from the ’nineties of last century. The distance was 
measured between the front of the glacier and some fixed point, and much material 
has been collected in this way. 
Prof. H. W. Ahlmann of Stockholm has made some good surveys and investigations 
of glaciers in the Horung group. 
Since 1928 Mr. Adolf Hoel and the lecturer have surveyed the glaciers near Galdho 
tind with the help of the Nansen fund for scientific research. The mapping is made 
with stereophotogrammetric and simple photogrammetric methods ; a base line has 
been measured, and a trigonometrical net has been established, connected with the 
trigonometrical points of the official survey. 
As yet no measurements of velocity, melting, &c., have been made. 
In this region, among the highest summits of Norway, the glaciers lie in separate 
troughs, divided by sharp ridges, and each glacier is an economic unit. The status 
depends on the balance between income (snowfall) and expenditure (melting), and 
a closer study of the behaviour of the glaciers will certainly lead to interesting results. 
Till the beginning of the eighteenth century the Norwegian glaciers were even 
smaller than now, but during the years 1720 to 1740 they burst forth with great 
violence, damaging or destroying several farms. This advance has left very distinct 
moraines. In the years 1740-42 the barley did not ripen, and a general famine 
resulted, a token of extraordinary climatic conditions. The glaciers maintained 
their great size for almost a century, but later on they have, on the whole, retreated, 
with short periods of advance after years of heavy snowfall (1906-1909). 
Our work does not cover a period long enough to ascertain whether the glaciers 
are growing or not. 
Monday, September 28. 
Symposium on Geographical Problems of the Earth's Crust. (Prof. J. W. 
Grecory, F.R.S.; Mr. A. R. Hinks, C.B.E., F.R.S.; Prof. A. 
Houmes ; Dr. H. Jerrreys, F.R.S.; Dr. G. C. Simpson, C.B., C.B.E., 
F.R.S.; Dr. pe GraaF Hunter; Dr. J. H. J. Poor.) 
Mr. A. R. Hinxs, C.B.E., F.R.S. 
The problems lie in the boundary territory between Geography and the other 
sciences whose names begin with Geo-. One hears complaints that contending 
parties do not always play the game, especially in neglecting mathematical argu- 
ments. How should geographers confront mathematics they cannot refute, but 
against whose conclusions they can produce evidence ? 
Mathematical processes are sometimes misapplied, as in Hayford’s determination 
of the ‘depth of compensation’ and Wegener’s argument from the frequencies of 
heights. They are sometimes based on insufficient premises, as Kelvin’s determination 
of the Earth’s age. Mathematical theory enables us to arrange facts in an orderly — 
ee 
oy 
CaP: 
way to confront it, which is a principal duty of geographers. But mathematicians — 
