SCIENCE 



FRIDAY, OCTOBER 5, i5 



Notwithstanding the emphatic warnings of all experi- 

 enced Arctic navigators, and the difficulties encountered on the 

 ' Alert ' expeditions, the projected .route from England through 

 Hudson Strait to Fort Churchill continues to be discussed in Eng- 

 land and Canada ; and quite recently the establishment of a line 

 of steamers on this route was advocated by no less an authority 

 than Commodore A. H. Markham, in a lecture delivered before the 

 Royal Geographical Society. As he failed, however, to disprove 

 any of the objections raised against the practicability of this route, 

 which are chiefly founded on the always imminent danger of Fox 

 Channel ice, his remarks fail to convince us. There is no doubt 

 that powerful but small steamers can accomplish the journey an- 

 nually with comparative safety, but this is far from being sufficient 

 to make Hudson Strait a practicable trade-route. The premium 

 on this route would have to be enormously high on account of 

 the great number of dangers to navigation, and at all seasons 

 the steamers would be liable to long delays. Sir Charles Tupper. 

 who was present at this discussion, did not take as favorable a view 

 as Markham, while Dr. Rae condemned the plan as wholly unten- 

 able. It seems somewhat surprising to see it again revived after 

 its impracticability appeared to have been thoroughly proved by the 

 results of the Canadian Hudson Bay expeditions. 



A LESSON IN COMMERCIAL GEOGRAPHY. 



Sir C. W. Wilson, in his presidential address to the geograph- 

 ical section of the British Association, dwelt upon the importance 

 of commercial geography and its bearings upon the economic wel- 

 fare of England. He gave a sketch of the history of the world's 

 trade, and thus outlined one of the most important branches of 

 commercial geography. His remarks on the value of this study, 

 although referring to England, are well worth being remembered. 

 " My object has been," he said, " to draw attention to the supreme 

 importance to this country of the science of commercial geography. 

 That science is not confined to a knowledge of the localities in 

 which those products of the earth which have a commercial value 

 are to be found, and of the markets in which they can be sold with 

 the greatest profit. Its higher aims are to divine, by a combina- 

 tion of historical retrospect and scientific foresight, the channels 

 through which commerce will flow in the future, and the pomts at 

 which new centres of trade must arrive in obedience to known 

 laws. A precise knowledge of the form, size, and geological struc- 

 ture of the globe; of its physical features; of the topographical 

 distribution of its mineral and vegetable products, and of the varied 

 forms of animal life, including man, that it sustains; of the influ- 

 ■ence of geographical environment on man and the lower animals ; 

 and of the climatic conditions of the various regions of the earth, 

 — is absolutely essential to a successful solution of the many prob- 

 lems before us. If England is to maintain her commanding posi- 

 tion in the world of commerce, she must approach these problems 

 in the spirit of Henry the Navigator, and by high scientific training 

 fit her sons to play their part like men in the coming struggle for 

 commercial supremacy. The struggle will be keen, and victory will 

 rest with those who have most fully realized the truth of the maxim 

 that ' knowledge is power.' " 



His lucid method of treating the questions of commercial geog- 

 raphy will be seen from his interesting remarks on the Suez Canal, 

 which are the more interesting, as they suggest a comparison to 

 the effects of a canal through the American Isthmus. 



" The opening of the Suez Canal, by diverting trade from the 



Cape route to the Mediterranean, has produced, and is still pro- 

 ducing, changes in the intercourse between the East and the West 

 which affect this country more nearly, perhaps, than any other Eu- 

 ropean state. The changes have been in three directions. 



" First, An increasing proportion of the raw material and products 

 of the East is carried direct to Mediterranean ports, by ships pass- 

 ing through the canal, instead of coming, as they once did, to Eng- 

 land for distribution. Thus Odessa, Trieste, Venice, and Mar- 

 seilles are becoming centres of distribution for Southern and Cen- 

 tral Europe, as Antwerp and Hamburg are for the North; and our 

 merchants are thus losing the profits they derived from transmit- 

 ting and forwarding Eastern goods to Europe. It is true that the 

 carrying-trade is still, to a very great extent, in English hands ; but 

 should this country be involved in a European war, the carrying- 

 trade, unless we can efficiently protect it, will pass to others, and it 

 will not readily return. Continental manufacturers have always 

 been heavily handicapped by the position England has held since 

 the commencement of the century, and the distributing trade would 

 doubtless have passed from us in process of time. The opening 

 of the canal has accelerated the change, to the detriment of English 

 manufactures, and consequently of the national wealth; and it 

 must tend to make England less and less each year the emporium 

 of the world. We are experiencing the results of a natural law 

 that a redistribution of the centres of trade must follow a re-ar- 

 rangement of the channels of commerce. 



" Second, The diversion of traffic from the Cape route has led to 

 the construction of steamers for special trade to India and the East 

 through the canal. On this line coaling stations are frequent, and 

 the seas, excepting in the Bay of Biscay, are more tranquil than on 

 most long voyages. The result is, that an inferior type of vessel, 

 both as regards coal-stowage, speed, endurance, and seaworthiness, 

 has been built. These ' canal wallahs,' as they are sometimes 

 called, are quite unfitted for the voyage round the Cape, and, 

 should the canal be blocked by war or accident, they would be 

 practically useless in carrying on our Eastern trade. Since the 

 canal has deepened, they have improved, for it has been found 

 cheaper to have more coal-stowage, but they are still far from 

 being available for the long voyage round the Cape. Had the 

 canal not been made, a large number of fine steamers would 

 gradually have been built for the Cape route, and. though the sail- 

 ing-ships which formeriy carried the India and China trade would 

 have held their own longer, we should by this time have had more 

 of the class of steamer that would be invaluable to us in war-time ; 

 and our trade would not have been liable, as it is now, to paralysis 

 by the closing of the canal. 



" Third, Sir William Hunter has pointed out, that, since the 

 opening of the canal, India has entered the market as a competitor 

 with the British workman ; and that the development of that part 

 of the empire as a manufacturing and food-exporting country will 

 involve changes in English production which must for a time be 

 attended by suffering and loss. Indian trade has advanced by rapid 

 strides, the exports of merchandise have risen from an average 

 of fifty-seven millions for the five years preceding 1874 to eighty- 

 eight millions in 1SS4, and there has been an immense expan- 

 sion in the export of bulky commodities. Wheat, which occupied 

 an insignificant place in the list of exports, is now a great staple of 

 Indian commerce, and the export has risen since 1873 from one 

 and three-quarters to twenty-one million hundredweights. It is al- 

 most impossible to estimate the ultimate dimensions of the wheat 

 trade, and it is only the forerunner of other trades in which India 

 is destined to compete keenly with the English and European pro- 

 ducers. 



"The position in which England has been placed by the opening 

 of the canal is in some respects similar to that of Venice after the 

 discovery of the Cape route ; but there is a wide difference in the 



