424 The National Geographic Magazine 



and were there entertained by the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Chicago. In the 

 morning, sessions were held in Kent 

 Theater of the University of Chicago, 

 according to the following program : 



Address of welcome by President 

 W. R. Harper, University of Chicago. 



Response by Commander R. E. Peary, 

 President of the Congress. 



' ' The Last Uplift of the Alps, ' ' by 

 Dr Albrecht Penck, of Vienna. 



" Madagascar," by M. Guillaume 

 Grandidier, of Paris. 



"Geographic Elements, ' ' by Dr Hugh 

 Robert Mill, of London. 



"Physical Geography of Chicago," 

 by Dr Rollin D. Salisbury, of the Uni- 

 versity of Chicago. 



' ' Economic Geography of Chicago, ' ' 

 by Dr J. Paul Goode, of the University 

 of Chicago. 



A buffet luncheon was served at 

 Hutchinson Commons, at 1 o'clock, 

 complimentary to members of the Con- 

 gress. 



In the afternoon, the members of the 

 Congresswere given a coach ride through 

 Jackson and Washington Parks, stopping 

 for a brief visit to the Field Columbian 

 Museum, and down Grand and Michi- 

 gan Boulevards, back to their head- 

 quarters at Hotel Stratford. 



In the evening a reception was given 

 i;he Congress at the building of the 

 •Chicago Historical Society at 8 o'clock. 

 Mr Franklin H. Head, President of the 

 Chicago Historical Society, gave a brief 

 address on Salient Points in the History 

 of Chicago. 



The Congress left Chicago by their 

 special train Sunday morning en route 

 for St Louis. A stop for two hours was 

 made at Vernon, so that the party might 

 inspect the coal mine of the Madison 

 Coal Company. Several sessions were 

 held in St Louis in conjunction with the 

 Congress of Arts and Science. The 

 concluding event was a lecture by Presi- 

 dent Peary in Festival Hall, Thursday 

 evening, September 22, where, before an 

 audience of 4,000 people, he described 



some of his Arctic experiences and the 

 plans of his next expedition. 



Comparisons of the Eighth with pre- 

 ceding Congresses are not necessary, 

 but it can be said with appropriateness 

 that in the number, importance, and 

 character of the papers presented, the 

 Eighth holds a record. As had been 

 expected, the membership of the Con- 

 gress was not as large as that of the 

 preceding Congresses in Europe, where 

 geographical study is more distinct from 

 other sciences than it is in America ; 

 but of the 800 registered members about 

 500 were in attendance. About 1 r 5 had 

 come thousands of miles, from nearly 

 every country of Europe, South Amer- 

 ica, and Asia. 



The very meeting places of the Eighth 

 were one succession of object lessons in 

 geography. Washington, the greatest 

 laboratory of geographic work in the 

 Western Hemisphere, if not in the entire 

 world ; Philadelphia, the birthplace of 

 the American nation ; New York, the 

 greatest port on the Atlantic seaboard ; 

 West Point and the Highlands, far 

 famed for their natural beauty; Niagara 

 Falls, one of the natural wonders of the 

 earth ; Chicago, the marvelous inland 

 seaport and railroad center, and finally 

 St. Louis, the center of a system of 

 rivers which have a navigable length of 

 16,000 miles and drain a territory of 

 1,200,000 square miles of unsurpassed 

 richness. 



M any pro j ects were discussed . S ome 

 of them in another age might be deemed 

 fantastic, as, for instance, Mr Lobel's 

 plan of a Siberian-Alaskan railroad 

 tunneling the Bering Strait ; but not 

 many years ago if some one had pro- 

 posed to send a message round the world 

 as Admiral Chester sent the greetings 

 of the Congress September 9, he would 

 have been called demented. And yet 

 the world greeting of the Congress was 

 despatched so simply, and the replies 

 came so instantaneously, that probably 

 few of the large gathering at the Naval 

 Observatory realized what a remarkable 



