October 23, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



607 



on account of the changed plans of authors 

 and the return of so many Arctic expeditions 

 within the month prior to the meeting of 

 the Association. The following brief 

 resum6 will serve to indicate the variety 

 and richness of the fare offered in Section 

 E; the papers themselves willin most cases 

 be published in one or other of the British 

 geographical journals. 



The President was Major Darwin, one of 

 the Honorary Secretaries of the Eoyal Geo- 

 graphical Society and son of the great 

 naturalist. Amongst the Vice-Presidents 

 were Sir Erasmus Ommaney, Sir Lambert 

 Play fair, Dr. P. L. Sclater, Mr. John Coles 

 and Mr. E. G. Eavenstein ; while Colonel 

 Bailey, Commander Phillips, Mr. H. M. 

 Dickson and Dr. H. R. Mill acted as Sec- 

 retaries. 



Major Darwin's address opened the meet- 

 ing of the Section, on Thursday, 19th Sep- 

 tember. He dwelt mainly on the geograph- 

 ical problems involved in the opening up of 

 the interior of tropical Africa to external 

 trade. He was led to consider that parts 

 of tropical Africa in which the average 

 density of population was less than 8 per 

 square mile were unlikely to be of com- 

 mercial value, and therefore he limited the 

 problem to the study of the best means of 

 communication between regions of higher 

 density of population and the sea. This is 

 practically a question of conjoint systems 

 of waterway and railway, and special at- 

 tention was given to the various short lines 

 already at work in tropical Africa, and to 

 the larger schemes for longer railways which 

 are now being discussed and commenced. 

 Major Darwin concluded : " All I have at- 

 tempted to do is briefly to sketch out some of 

 the main geographical problems connected 

 with the opening of central Africa in the 

 immediate future. Such a review is neces- 

 sarily imperfect, but its very imperfections 

 illustrate the need of more accurate geo- 

 graphical information as to many of the 



districts in question. Many blunders may 

 have been made by me in consequence of 

 our inaccurate knowledge, and, from the 

 same cause, many blunders will certainly be 

 made in future by those who have to lay 

 out these routes into the interior. In fact 

 my desire has been to prove that, notwith- 

 standing the vast strides that geography has 

 made in past years in Africa, there is yet an 

 immense amount of valuable work ready for 

 anyone who will undertake it. 



" Possibly, in considering this subject, I 

 have been tempted to deviate from the 

 strictly geographical aspect of the case. 

 Where geography begins and where it ends 

 is a question which has been the subject of 

 much dispute. Whether geography should 

 be classed as a separate science or not has 

 been much debated. No doubt it is right to 

 classify scientific work as far as possible ; 

 but it is a fatal mistake to attach too much 

 importance to any such classification. Ge- 

 ography is now going through a somewhat 

 critical period in its development, in conse- 

 quence of the solution of nearly all the great 

 geographical problems that used to stir the 

 imagination of nations ; and for this reason 

 such discussions are now specially to the 

 fore. My own humble advice to geographers 

 would be to spend less time in considering 

 what geography is and what it is not ; to 

 attack every useful and interesting problem 

 that presents itself for solution ; to take 

 every help we can get from every quarter 

 in arriving at our conclusions ; and to let the 

 name that our work goes by take care of 

 itself." 



Mr. H. S. Cowper followed with a short 

 account of a journey made by him in north- 

 ern Tripoli, in March 1896, in the course of 

 which he had photographed a number of 

 remarkable megalithic structures, some of 

 them never previously described. The Rev. 

 J. C. Robinson gave an illustrated lecture 

 on the Housa people of the Niger district. 



In the afternoon Mr. John Coles exhib- 



