The Triumphs of Geography. 207 
ing worthless land on prophesied possibilities, which a cursory 
knowledge of economics or even physical geography would au- 
thoritatively disprove. 
A word relative to what many have thought to be the prac- 
tical if not the whole of geographic work, explorations and their 
direct or indirect result. Chancellor’s voyage to the White sea 
reaped millions from the Muscovy trade for England. Hudson, 
Cook, Bering and others made voyages and discoveries that re- 
sulted in equally important additions to the wealth of the civil- 
ized world. Explorers by the score have affected the course of 
trade and influenced the onward march of human progress. I 
have already alluded to the astounding results flowing from 
Stanley’s African work, which, from the nature of circumstances, 
ean never be paralleled. There will be results of no small value 
from geographic field explorations in the near*future, but it may 
be admitted, as a whole, that the days of great results from geo- 
graphic discoveries are practically past. 
- We must turn, then, to the higher field of geographic research, 
in which comparison and analysis play the most important part. 
Recall that from a handful of dried plants the botanist Hooker 
outlined the extent and general physical conditions of an un- 
known land; that the geologist Heer in a few score fossil plants 
read the riddle of wondrous climatic changes that the arctic re- 
gions have experienced, and that a geographer forecast the great 
plateau of interior Africa years before its existence was demon- 
strated to the satisfaction of the world. 
Even higher studies, those of economic geography, await the 
magic influence of scientific treatment to yield fruition of tre- 
mendous import to the future, by forecasting the tendencies of 
industrial progress as affected by the development and _ transi- 
tion of the centers of production of the raw materials, and their 
interrelations with the great centers of population. 
Such fields offer most promising results to investigating sci- 
entists, and among those who will reap reputation therefrom let 
us hope there will be many from the ranks of the members of the 
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY. 
