426 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XL. No. 1030 



Taking the earth as it is, geographical 

 discovery has well-nigh reached its limit. 

 The truth, in the words of Addison's 

 hymn, is now "spread from Pole to Pole," 

 and recent exploration at the South Pole, 

 with its tale of heroism, will have specially 

 appealed to the citizens of this southern 

 land. Coasts are in most cases accurately 

 known. The age of Cook and Flinders is 

 past. Interiors are more or less known. 

 In Africa there is no more room for Liv- 

 ingstones, Spekes, Burtons and Stanleys. 

 In Australia Sir John Forrest is an hon- 

 ored survival of the exploring age — the age 

 of McDouall Stuart and other heroes of 

 Australian discovery. The old map-ma- 

 kers, in Swift's well-known lines, "o'er 

 unhabitable downs placed elephants for 

 want of towns." Towns have now taken 

 the place of elephants and of kangaroos. 

 Much, no doubt, still remains to be done. 

 The known will be made far better known ; 

 maps will be rectified; many great inland 

 tracts in Australia and elsewhere will be, 

 as they are now being, scientifically sur- 

 veyed ; corners of the earth only penetrated 

 now will be swept and garnished. But as 

 we stand to-day, broadly speaking, there 

 are few more lands and seas to conquer. 

 Discovery pure and simple is passing away. 



But meanwhile there is one side of geog- 

 raphy which is coming more and more to 

 the front, bringing it more than ever 

 within the scope of the British Association 

 for the Advancement of Science. "Man is 

 the ultimate term in the geographical 

 problem, ' ' said Dr. Scott Keltie some years 

 since at the meeting at Toronto. "Geog- 

 raphy is a description of the earth as it is, 

 in relation to man," said Sir Clements 

 Markham, long President of the Royal Geo- 

 graphical Society. Geography, I venture 

 to think, is becoming more and more a de- 

 scription of the earth as it is and as it will 

 be under the working hand of man. It is 



becoming intensive rather than extensive. 

 Geographers have to record, and wiU more 

 and more have to record, how far man has 

 changed and is changing the face of the 

 earth, to try and predict how far he will 

 change it in the coming centuries. The 

 face of the earth has been unveiled by 

 man. Will the earth save her face in the 

 years before us, and, if she saves her face, 

 will it be taken at face value? How far, 

 for instance, will lines of latitude and 

 longitude continue to have any practical 

 meaning ? 



Man includes the ordinary man, the 

 settler, the agriculturalist; man includes, 

 too, the extraordinary — the scientific man, 

 the inventor, the engineer. "Man," says 

 a writer on the subject, "is truly a geo- 

 graphical agency," and I ask you to take 

 account of this agency for a few minutes. 

 I do so more especially because one of the 

 chief features of the present day is the rise 

 of the south ; and the rise of the south — ^no- 

 tably of Australia — is the direct result of 

 human agency, on the one hand transform- 

 ing the surface of the land, on the other, 

 eliminating distance. The old name of 

 Australia, as we all know, was New Hol- 

 land. The name was well chosen in view 

 of later history, for while no two parts of 

 the world could be more imlike one another 

 than the little corner of Europe known as 

 Holland, or the Netherlands, and the great 

 Southern Continent, in the one and in the 

 other man has been preeminently a geo- 

 graphical agency. 



The writer who used this phrase, "Man 

 is a geographical agency," the American 

 writer, Mr. G. P. Marsh, published his 

 book, "Man and Nature," in 1864, and a 

 new edition, entitled, "The Earth as Modi- 

 fied by Human Action," in 1874. He was 

 mainly concerned with the destructiveness 

 of man in the geographical and climatic 

 changes which he has effected. "Every 



