100 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
pioneer exploration is regarded as finished, and especially to the colonies 
and dependencies of the more advanced nations. I submit that these 
regions offer the most fruitful field for geographical research in the nearer 
future. As the chief reason for this belief I would mention the justifiable 
hope of the rapid extension of systematic surveys in such countries ; 
and we are agreed, I think, that the basis of all sound geographical 
research is a reliable topographic map, supplemented if possible by the, 
results of geological surveys. 
Brigadier Jack, as President of this Section in South Africa, devoted 
his address to the need for extensive regular surveys and to the many 
practical advantages accruing from them ; and the Sectional Committee 
last year asked the Council of the Association to point out to our Govern- 
ment that the lack of reliable surveys and maps in the British Colonies 
and Dependencies greatly delays scientific and material progress. I am 
therefore only reiterating the firm conviction of geographers when I say 
that scientific knowledge of the continents can scarcely begin to make 
rapid progress until they have been adequately mapped. In the regions 
where this aim has already been achieved, as in India and in parts of 
Indonesia as well as in some of the African Colonies, I feel that geo- 
graphers, given at least one year in well-chosen ‘ key ’ districts, could do 
a great deal to promote a real understanding of larger regions, especially 
in the field of human geography. We should, I think, use every means 
to make such investigation possible. But I have repeatedly asked myself 
whether there is no other way in which wé can accelerate the process 
of gathering the type of information needed for the composition of 
geographical syntheses which may be at least fuller and better than those 
we now possess. And it has been borne in upon me that the right way 
lies in the direction of co-operative effort. 
The idea of extensive collaboration in geographical research is by no 
means new. An obvious method which has been employed consists in 
the concentration upon a given region of work by specialists in each of 
the earth sciences, resulting in a series of individual monographs. But 
unless there be a concluding volume in which all the results are causally 
linked, the work is not geography. An outstanding example of this 
kind is the great investigation of Lake Balaton and vicinity undertaken 
by the Hungarian Geographical Society in 1891, and involving nearly 
a hundred contributors. Most of the voluminous work was published, 
but unfortunately the geographical synthesis is still awaited. The same 
Society in 1905 organised a similar work upon the Alféld, but the war 
seriously interfered with this. The International Geographical Union, 
since its formation, has promoted co-operative research on various 
subjects the majority of which are of a physical character. Thus the 
creation of commissions to deal with these investigations marks the 
extension of an older and similar type of organisation well represented 
by the International Glacier Commission or by various national research 
bodies such as the late Sir John Murray’s Bathymetrical Survey of 
Scottish Lochs or the Royal Geographical Society’s Committee on 
1 Resultate dey Waissenschafilichen Evforschung des Balatonsees, Budapest, 
1897 onwards. 
