592 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XV. No. 380. 



with surrounding circumstances so as to sug- 

 gest the direction. 



While the cases in which Mr. Scott was 

 not critical enough in his work may be distin- 

 guished and passed over by the scientist, they 

 may do a great deal of harm in another way 

 — they offer a bad example to amateur ob- 

 servers. And the very excellence of part of 

 Mr. Scott's work may become deleterious by 

 increasing the influence of these bad exam- 

 ples. In reading the interesting nature books 

 which are so numerous nowadays, it is a bitter 

 disappointment to find, in one author after 

 another, statements which are made without a 

 secure foundation, and which therefore throw 

 a shadow of doubt on all the assertions of that 

 author. It will be truly deplorable if this 

 sort of thing is to be encouraged by a special- 

 ist in ornithology in one of our universities. 

 We expect that such a man will do much to- 

 ward correcting the popular error, and will 

 never contribute to it. 



Wallace Craig. 



Hull Zoological Laboratory, 

 March 4, 1902. 



A GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA. 



Professor Eussell's plan of a general geo- 

 graphic society (Science, January 31, 1901) 

 is timely and deserves the careful attention 

 of all the friends of geography in America. 

 It is the very thing that is needed to unify 

 the widespread interest which is daily waxing 

 stronger in this country. A multitude of 

 schools ask for a better presentation of geog- 

 raphy, and urgent demands are made for 

 teachers in the special fields of physiography 

 and commercial geography. The universities 

 have been slow in providing the training, and 

 earnest teachers, making every effort to widen 

 their margins and to increase their efficiency, 

 have had great difficulty in finding the pub- 

 lished material which will keep them in touch 

 with what progress the specialists are making. 

 Even the specialists have been slow to enroll 

 themselves as geographers; their primary al- 

 legiance has been with the geologists, econ- 

 omists, botanists and the like. The field of 

 general geography has never had adequate 

 recognition by the very masters who have done 



most of the constructive work giving the gen- 

 eral science body and impulse in this country. 



It will mean much therefore if all this great 

 headless body of earnest workers in the com- 

 mon field be given a head and a local habita- 

 tion and a name. And if then all those per- 

 sons of superior training and abilities be 

 organized into a society having at heart the 

 welfare of geography in the New World, its 

 status and dignity; a warm interest in the 

 furtherance of exploration, survey and chart- 

 ing of lesser known regions; the making of 

 adequate monographs of restricted areas or 

 topics and the publication of this high class 

 work under conditions calculated to insure 

 scientific and literary value; and if then with 

 a right association of interests consequent 

 wide distribution of published records be as- 

 sured, we shall indeed have taken a long stride 

 in advance toward a healthy establishment of 

 geography, as a coherent body of interests, on 

 the high plane it occupies in some of the coun- 

 tries abroad. 



Such an organization as Professor Russell 

 suggests will make all this growth possible. It 

 is a far-sighted plan, too, to make the associa- 

 tion wide enough to include both Americas. 

 For if we include Mexico and the rest of Mid- 

 dle America we conld have no good reason for 

 barring the remoter parts of Latin America. 

 There is a growing bond of interest between 

 the various parts of the New World, a bond 

 which every added year will strengthen more 

 and more. It will be a wise plan to help this 

 movement in every way; and here is an oppor- 

 tunity to create a common interest in a great 

 subject in the whole of the western world. 



To insure the high quality and standing of 

 the Society, there is no doubt the qualification 

 suggested by Professor Davis (Science, Feb- 

 ruary 21, 1902) is essential. Let us have the 

 first move made with care, and standards set 

 so high that the dignity and authority of the 

 Society will be at once established, and mem- 

 bership an honor and a privilege to be worked 

 for. To this end the suggestion of Mr. J. 

 Stanford Brown (Science, March 14, 1902) is 

 pertinent, that is, let us have two classes of 

 membership, one the active, voting members, 

 who, by the way, may be called 'fellows,' and 



