Januaey 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



125 



ceptable members of an expert geogi-aph- 

 ical society would be found in this class. 



The second class of geographical asso- 

 ciates includes the observers of the na- 

 tional and state weather services, who have 

 chiefly to do with that important branch 

 of geography comprehended under clima- 

 tology; these observers are gathering a 

 great crop of facts, not always very accu- 

 rately determined or very widely applied as 

 far as the observers in the state services are 

 concerned; yet from among the thoiisands 

 of persons thus employed there will now 

 and then come forth the original worker 

 whose contribution will fully entitle him to 

 expert rank; when his published studies 

 are seen to be of a thoroughly geographical 

 character and of a mature grade, they 

 woiild warrant his admission to a society 

 of geographical experts. 



Third comes the class made up from the 

 members of various governmental bureaiis, 

 state and national, whose work is of a more 

 or less geographical character; for exam- 

 ple, topographers and hydrographers, geol- 

 ogists and biologists, ethnologists and stat- 

 isticians; this class being as a whole of 

 much higher scientific standing than the 

 two classes already mentioned. It may 

 happen that many persons thus classified 

 have a first interest in the strictly geo- 

 graphical side of their studies, although 

 faithful work in the organization to which 

 they belong associates them with other sci- 

 ences. I should expect the greatest part 

 of the membership in a society of geo- 

 graphical experts to be drawn from this 

 class. 



It may be noted that the absence of 

 a body of mature geographers, as well or- 

 ganized and as scientifically productive as 

 are the workers in various other sciences, 

 is explained by some as an inherent char- 

 acteristic of geography, necessitated by the 

 great diversity of its methods and its in- 

 terests. The diversity is already an embar- 



rassment, it is claimed, even in school 

 years; and it afterwards compels the sepa- 

 ration of the branches of this liighly com- 

 posite subject, at best but loosely coherent, 

 into a number of specialities, each of which 

 is so much more closely allied to other 

 sciences than to the other branches of geog- 

 raphy, that those workers whose union 

 would constitute a body of mature geo- 

 graphical experts are found scattered 

 among other unions, geological, botanical, 

 zoological, ethnological, economical and 

 historical. The claim that the disunion of 

 geographical experts is necessary does not 

 seem to me well founded. May we not, 

 indeed, prove that there is no such dis- 

 union by pointing to the fourth class of 

 geographical associates, concerning whom 

 my silence thus far may perhaps have 

 awakened your curiosity, namely, the 

 members of our various geographical so- 

 cities? 



There are at the present time between 

 five and seven thousand such persons in 

 the United States, but in the absence of 

 any standard of geographical knowledge 

 from the requirements for membership, 

 these societies can not, I regret to say, be 

 taken as evidence that there is a common 

 bond by which experts in all branches of 

 geography are held together. None of our 

 geographical societies is composed solely 

 of experts, and none of them is held 

 together by purely geographical bonds. 

 While we must not overlook the excellent 

 work that our geographical societies have 

 done, neither must we overlook the fact 

 that in making no sufficient attempt to 

 require geographical expertness as a condi- 

 tion for membership, there is a very im- 

 portant work that the societies have left 

 undone. They have truly enough culti- 

 vated a general interest in subjects of a 

 more or less geographical nature, but they 

 have failed to develop geography as a ma- 

 ture science. Indeed, it may be cogently 



