﻿Unmapped Areas on Eartlis Surface. 431 



Zealand had not even been annexed. Need I remind you 

 of the great progress which has been made during the 

 period both in tlie North and South Polar areas, 

 culminating in the magnificent achievement of Dr. 

 Nansen ? It was just sixty years ago that the great 

 Antartic expedition under Sir James Eoss was being 

 organized ; since that, alas ! little or nothing has been 

 done to follow up his work. Sixty years ago the science 

 of oceanography, even the term, did not exist. It is the 

 creation of the Victorian era, and may be said almost 

 to have had its origin in the voyage of the " Challenger," 

 which added a new domain to our science and opened up 

 inexhaustible fields of research. 



* * * * * * 



I have thought, then, that the most useful and most 

 manageable thing to do on the present occasion will be to 

 indicate briefly what, in my estimation, are some of 

 the problems which geography has to attack in the future, 

 only taking such glances at the past as will enable us 

 to do this intelligibly. 



ASIA. 



Turning to the continent of Asia, we find that immense 

 progress has been made during the past sixty years. In 

 the presidential address given sixty years ago Mr. 

 Hamilton says of Asia : " We have only a general know- 

 ledge of the geographical character of the Burman, 

 Chinese and Japan empires ; the innumerable islands 

 of the latter are still, except occasionally, inaccessible to 

 European navigators. Geographers hardly venture on the 

 most loose description of Tibet, Mongolia, or Chinese 

 Tartary, Siam and Cochin China." Since then the survey 

 of India, one of the greatest enterprises undertaken by 

 any State, has been completed, and is being rapidly 

 extended over Burma. But I need not remind you in 

 detail of the vast changes that have taken place in Asia 



