SECTION E—GEOGRAPHY. 
CO-OPERATIVE RESEARCH IN 
GEOGRAPHY; WITH AN AFRICAN 
EXAMPLE 
ADDRESS BY 
PROF. ALAN G. OGILVIE, O.B.E., 
PRESIDENT OF THE SECTION. 
Ever since our subject was re-established as an organised discipline, the 
essence of which is the study of terrestrial distributions and their inter- 
relations, geographers have been sifting and collating data of extremely 
varied character. ‘The facts which have thus been incorporated in the 
body of geographical literature have themselves usually been established 
by workers in other fields, while geographers have drawn deductions 
from them, in many cases without having the opportunity to test their 
validity on the ground. As a result generalisation and causation in 
regard to very large sections of the continents must necessarily rest on a 
rather insecure foundation. ‘The question therefore arises—how can this 
be remedied ? The world is large and complex, while the number of 
geographers is still small, and they are very unevenly distributed over 
the globe. In Europe, where they are numerous, the position is quite 
different. ‘The vast geographical literature of this continent is mostly 
due to individual workers who knew their country and had at their 
disposal copious facts and abundant statistical data of all sorts, and above 
all excellent topographical maps. But consider the basis of our knowledge 
of large parts of the southern continents and of Asia. We derive much 
of our information from the accounts of primary exploration, some of the 
best of it contributed by the great pioneers, the naturalist travellers of 
the nineteenth century. Since their day the mesh of the net has become 
closer; expeditions have been better equipped; scientific aims have 
become more definite; route surveys have improved. Yet the fact 
remains that comparatively few expeditions engaged in primary explora- 
tion have yielded well-balanced explanatory accounts of all the elements 
which might be the subject of observation in the regions traversed. This 
defect doubtless will be attended to more often in the future. But the 
records of exploration having the character of traverses must nearly 
always be limited, since observations are usually confined to one season 
of the year. 
I do not, however, propose to develop this aspect of the question ; 
for the suggestion which I have to offer applies rather to regions where 
