258 WORK OF THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY 
ance at the popular meetings commonly ranges frojn 500 to 1,500, 
and comprises working geograi)hers and teachers, as well as in- 
telligent lav[)eople, and includes a considerable s])rinkling of 
youth, mainly students in universities and schools. In choosing 
popular speakers on current topics, {U’eference is given either to 
actual explorers or original investigators who are known to treat 
geography as a branch of science, and such sj)eakers arrange and 
l)resent their matter freel}% save that the excessive use of j)icture 
and anecdote is discouraged — the object is to instruct as well as 
entertain. Still greater care is given to the selection of lecturers 
for the organized courses. The first requisite is that each speaker 
shall be a recognized authority ; the second is that the treatment 
shall be scientific — tliat superficial description and pictorial illus- 
tration shall be subordinate to the exposition of relations and 
principles. The lecture courses of the last two years exemplify 
the methods of the Society. Nominalh’, they were descriptions 
and illustrations of tran.scontinental tours ; the descriptions were 
])resented b\' careful students of the several areas described, and 
the illustrations were the finest lantern slides obtainable, show- 
ing noted scenic features; yet the e.ssential characteristic of the 
lectures was the interpretation of the geograj)hic features in 
terms of agency and history in such manner that each gave a 
picture of geographic develoi)ment, while the course }’ielded a 
living panorama of world-making. When Niagara was depicted 
in sun and word picture it was not simply as one of the world’s 
wonders, but as a potent geographic agency and eloquent record 
of continent growth. To this character the success of the lecture 
courses must be ascribed. Other lecturers describe mountains 
and canyons and picturesque coasts as scenic features with in- 
different success as measured bv the interest developed ; the 
Society’s lecturers descril>ed mountain, glacier, plain, river, coast, 
and city as marking stages in a grand procession of events, and 
opened vistas through the ages with gratifying succe.ss as meas- 
ured b\' the display of interest. Thus the popular addresses 
are not designed primarily for entertainment, for the display of 
eloquence or the revelation of pictorial art, or for minute accounts 
of geogra|)hic features; they are designed for diffusing interest 
and definite knowledge concerning geographic science. 
The X.\ti()Xal Geogk.\phic ]\I.\g.\zixe is a medium of com- 
munication between geographers within and without the Society, 
and its aim is to convey new information and at the same time 
to reflect current opinion on geographic matters. In the selec- 
