742 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXII. No. 830 



To stay at home in the environment of 

 familiar ideas is no doubt a safe course, 

 but it does not make for advancement. 

 Morphology, I believe, has as great a fu- 

 ture before it as it has a past behind it, 

 but it can only realize that future by leav- 

 ing its old home, with all its comfortable 

 furniture of well-worn rules and methods, 

 and embarking on a journey, the first 

 stages of which will certainly be uncom- 

 fortable and the end is far to seek. 



G. C. Bourne 



GEOGRAPHY AWD SOME OF ITS MORE 

 PRESSING NEEDS'- 



At the close of a reign which has prac- 

 tically coincided with the first decade of a 

 new century, it is natural to look back and 

 summarize the progress of geography dur- 

 ing the decade. At the beginning of a 

 new reign it is equally natural to consider 

 the future. Our new sovereign is one of 

 the most traveled of men. No monarch 

 knows the world as he knows it; no mon- 

 arch has ruled over a larger empire or seen 

 more of his dominions. His advice has been 

 to wake up, to consider and to act. It will 

 be in consonance with this advice if I pay 

 more attention to the geography of the 

 future than to that of the past, and say 

 more about its applications than about its 

 origins. 



Yet I do so with some reluctance, for the 

 last decade has been one of the most active 

 and interesting in the history of our 

 science. The measurement of new and the 

 remeasurement of old arcs will give us bet- 

 ter data for determining the size and shape 

 of the earth. Surveys of all kinds, from 

 the simple route sketches of the traveler 

 to the elaborate cadastral surveys of some 

 of the more populous and settled regions 



^ Address to the Geographical Section of the 

 British Association for the Advancement of Sci- 

 ence, Sheffield, 1910. 



have so extended our knowledge of the 

 surface features of the earth that a map 

 on the scale of 1,000,000 is not merely 

 planned, but actually partly executed. 

 Such surveys and such maps are the indis- 

 pensable basis of our science, and I might 

 say much about the need for accurate topo- 

 graphical surveys. This, however, has been 

 done very fully by some of my predecessors 

 in this chair in recent years. 



The progress of oceanography has also 

 been great. The soundings of our own and 

 other admiralties, of scientific oceanograph- 

 ical expeditions, and those made for the 

 purpose of laying cables, have given us 

 much more detailed knowledge of the ir- 

 regularities of the ocean floor. An inter- 

 national map of oceanic contours due to 

 the inspiration and munificence of the 

 prince of oceanographers and of Monaco 

 has been issued during the decade, and so 

 much new material has accumulated that 

 it. is now being revised. A comparison of 

 the old and new editions of Kriimmel's 

 " Ozeanographie " shows us the immense 

 advances in this subject. 



Great progress has been made on the 

 geographical side of meteorology and 

 climate. The importance of this knowl- 

 edge for tropical agriculture and hygiene 

 has led to an increase of meteorological 

 stations all over the hot belt — the results of 

 which will be of immense value to the 

 geographer. Mr. Bartholomew's "Atlas of 

 Meteorology" appeared at the beginning, 

 and Sir John Eliot's "Meteorological Atlas 

 of India" at the end of the decade. Dr. 

 Hann's "Lehrbuch" and the new edition 

 of his "Climatology," Messrs. Hilde- 

 brandsson and Teisserenc de Bort's great 

 work, "The Study of the Upper Atmo- 

 sphere," are among the landmarks of 

 progress. The record is marred only by 

 the closing of Ben Nevis Observatory. A 

 comparison of the present number and dis- 



