606 PROCEEDINGS OF BOSTON MEETING. 



be closely woven into their geographical training. While the effect on the high 

 schools might therefore be almost immediate, the effect on the grammar schools 

 can hardly be expected until a decade shall have passed. 



A geographical report ready for successful use as a reference book by a high- 

 school teacher of physical geography must not be too technical ; it must not pre- 

 sume too much on antecedent knowledge of the modern aspects of physical 

 geography ; it must dwell deliberately on a simple series of related considerations ; 

 it must illustrate them verbally and graphijcally ; it must detain the reader's inter- 

 ested attention by a selected sequence of comparisons and contrasts ; it must bring 

 out clearly the marked relation between physical features on the one hand and 

 seats of population, styles of occupation and paths of communication on the other 

 hand ; it must touch close to matters of historical and economic interest. ' 



Let no geologist, far removed by his difficult investigations from the simpler 

 studies of the high school, imagine that such reports as are indicated above are 

 trivial matters. Let him rather feel assured that they open a field for originality of 

 treatment that will place their successful authors prominently before the educa- 

 tional public. It is quite true that the order of considerations that they involve is 

 relatively elementary ; but it is, on the other hand, nothing less than astonishing to 

 discover how many facts of the highest geographical interest are both elementary 

 and unknown. They may, indeed, be known to a few persons who live upon them, 

 or to a few investigators who have encouutered them in the field, but they are 

 nowhere properly presented in accessible books, ready at hand for use in our 

 schools. As a result, our high-school graduates — that is, the great body of our 

 more intelligent population — live in a world whose expressive features they do not 

 in the least understand. 



Let me illustrate briefly, by a few specific examples, the general quality of the 

 subjects for geographical reports of the kind w^hich I have in mind. 



Consider, for example, the more or less distinct inland-facing escarpments that 

 run in a rough w^ay i^arallel to the. seashore in our great coastal plain. On their 

 inland side lies a valley-lowdand, developed by the denudation of the weaker strata 

 that have been exposed by the removal of the harder members of the retreating 

 escarpment. According to the strength of the escarpment and to certain other 

 features, the drainage of this interior longitudinal valley-lowland will be effected 

 by a less or greater number of transverse streams which maintain open waterways 

 through the escarpment. While the face of the escarpment looks upon a valley- 

 lowland opened on older strata, the back of the escarpment descends to a lowdand- 

 plain, or to another valley-lowland enclosed by another escarpment. According 

 to the constitution of the strata and to the conditions of relief, climate, etcetera, 

 the inner lowland, the outer lowland and the intermediate escarpment wdll vary 

 in products, population, occupations and so on. According to the attitude of the 

 strata, the escarpment may be ragged, faint and ill-defined, or straight, strong and 

 sharp. Although the drainage sj^stems of regions of this kind usually present 

 interesting examples of mature adjustment between consequent and subsequent 

 streams, the processes involved in the adjustments are sufficiently simple for presen- 

 tation to high school teachers, and for use by them in the better illustration of 

 the texts that their scholars follows Innumerable examples of escarpments in 

 other countries might be introduced in illustration of various styles and stages of 

 development. There is the double escarpment of the oolite and the chalk, by 

 which England is divided into a formerly wealthier agricultural community on the 



