NOVEMBEB 25, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



751 



tliem might grow other maps prophetic of 

 economic possibilities. Prophecy in the 

 scientific sense is an important outcome of 

 geographical as well as of other scientific 

 research. The test of geographical laws as 

 of others is the pragmatic one. Prophecy 

 is commonlj'' but unduly derided. Men- 

 delyeff's period law involved prophecies 

 which have been splendidly verified. We 

 no longer sneer at the weather prophet. 

 Efficient action is based on knowledge of 

 cause and consequence, and proves that a 

 true forecast of the various factors has been 

 made. Is it too much to look forward to 

 the time when the geographical prospector, 

 the geographer who can estimate potential 

 geographical values, will be as common as 

 and more reliable than the mining pros- 

 pector? 



The day will undoubtedly come when 

 eveiy government will have its geograph- 

 ical-statistical department dealing with its 

 own and other countries — an information 

 bureau for the administration correspond- 

 ing to the department of special inquiries 

 at the board of education. There is no 

 geographical staff to deal geographically 

 with economic matters or with administra- 

 tive matters. Yet the recognition of and 

 proper estimation of the geographical fac- 

 tor is going to be more and more important 

 as the uttermost ends of the earth are 

 bound together by visible steel lines and 

 steel vessels or invisible impulses which 

 require no artificial path or vessel as their 

 vehicle. 



The development of geograpliical re-. 

 search along these lines in our own country 

 could give us an intelligence department of 

 the kind, wliich is much needed. If this 

 were also done by other states within the 

 empire, an imperial intelligence depart- 

 ment would gradually develop. Thinking 

 in continents, to borrow an apt phrase 

 from one of my predecessors, might then 



become part of the necessary equipment 

 of a statesman instead of merely an after- 

 dinner aspiration. The country which first 

 gives this training to its statesmen will 

 have an immeasurable advantage in the 

 struggle for existence. 



Our universities wiU naturally be the 

 places where the men fit to constitute such 

 an intelligence department will be trained. 

 It is encouraging, therefore, to see that 

 they are taking up a new attitude towards 

 geography, and that the civil service com- 

 missioners, by making it a subject for the 

 highest civil service examinations, are 

 doing much to strengthen the hands of the 

 universities. When the British Association 

 last met in Sheffield geography was the 

 most despised of school subjects, and it 

 was quite unknown in the universities. It 

 owed its first recognition as a subject of 

 university status to the generous financial 

 support of the Royal Geographical Society 

 and the brilliant teaching of Mr. Mackinder 

 at Oxford. Ten years ago schools of 

 geography were struggling into existence 

 at Oxford and Cambridge, under the 

 auspices of the Royal Geographical Society. 

 A single decade has seen the example of 

 Oxford and Cambridge followed by nearly 

 every university in Great Britain, the Uni- 

 versity of Sheffield among them. In Dr. 

 Rudmore Brown it has secured a traveler 

 and explorer of exceptionally wide experi- 

 ence, who will doubtless build up a depart- 

 ment of geography worthy of this great 

 industrial capital. The difficulty, however, 

 in all universities is to find the funds nec- 

 essary for the endowment, equipment and 

 working expenses of a geographical depart- 

 ment of the first rank. Such a department 

 requires expensive instruments and appa- 

 ratus, and, since the geographer has to take 

 the whole world as his subject, it must 

 spend largely on collecting, storing and 

 utilizing raw material of the kind I have 



