THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 
277 
you and I, Mr. Bell, were boys ; when 
the map of Central Africa was one large 
empty space, with a little line of emi- 
nences, called the Mountains of the 
Moon, drawn across it ; when the inte- 
rior of Asia was almost unknown ; when 
the Arctic regions had been so imper- 
fectly explored that it was not known 
that Greenland was an island, or that 
there existed a Northwest passage, and 
even when among the regions better 
known there were practically many tracts 
unsurveyed. 
More work has been done within the 
last sixty years than I suppose was done 
in the one hundred and fifty years pre- 
ceding, and it is true there does not 
now remain very much of the earth's 
surface with which we have not some 
acquaintance. Africa has been entirely 
opened up, especially by the journeys of 
Prejevalsky, Younghusband, and Sven 
Hedin, and years- of study have given 
us a pretty complete knowledge of Cen- 
tral Asia. 
OPPORTUNITIES FOR GEOGRAPHICAIv 
SOCIKTIES 
While traveling in South America a 
year and a half ago it occurred to me 
that there is another branch of descrip- 
tive geographical science the importance 
of which is only beginning to dawn upon 
us, and which may occupy us for a long 
time to come, even after we have come 
to know the surface of the earth in the 
sense in which the surveyor knows it. 
What I refer to is the discovery of the 
possibilities of each part of the earth for 
supporting the life of man and for sub- 
serving human industries. 
It is extraordinary how much has. 
been aQComplished of late years in that 
direction. Take your own country: 
There were large tracts of your western 
regions which were supposed to be un- 
profitable. You have succeeded in utiliz- 
ing those waste tracts in three ways, one 
of them an old way, but two of them 
new. The old way was that of irriga- 
tion, which 3'ou have conducted in your 
West upon a grand scale, both in results 
and in example. The results have very 
much benefited a large population by 
enabling them to use what were once 
useless deserts. The example is stimu- 
lating Australia and South Africa. 
The process of dry farming has made 
available tracts which were previously 
considered useless, and now we all trust 
that by the application of those methods 
a happy and prosperous population may 
grow up in parts of your territories and 
in ours where formerly the want of rain 
forbade tillage. Speaking as a Briton, 
I desire to tender to you and those of 
your scientific men who have worked in 
that field our thanks for your discover 
ies, which promise to be of the utmost 
service to arid tracts of the British Em- 
pire dominions in India, as well as large 
parts of Australia and South Africa. 
The third method, not so fully de- 
veloped, but which I believe has a great 
promise for the future, is that of dis- 
covering the plants which are fit for 
growing in dry regions and for support- 
ing live stock there. I believe the 
botanical surveys going on under the 
auspices of your Agricultural Depart- 
ment open up a prospect of making 
available for the support of live stock 
large tracts now unprofitable, simply by 
finding plants that can live in dry re- 
gions and furnishing" food for animals in 
deserts previously barren. That is an 
illustration of what is being done in this 
country. The same thing is true of 
Canada, where we have discovered that 
grass can be grown and large cereal 
crops raised on regions that were hith- 
erto considered incapable of producing 
any growth. 
What I wanted to mention to you 
particularly was a very interesting and 
scientific study which presents prac- 
tically the opposite problem, the prob- 
lem of a country where there is not too 
cold a climate, but too hot a climate ;" 
where there is not too dry a sky, but too 
wet a sky, and where the question is 
whether man will be able to resist the 
tremendous forces of nature, and so to 
turn to account the appliances of mod- 
ern science that by their help we may 
render useful to man a vast region, 
which a torrid sun and torrential rainfall 
have hitherto rendered unavailable. 
The region which I speak of is almost 
the last part of the surface of this globe 
