A YEAR OF GEOGRAPHICAL WORK. 735 



criticism, it by no means follows thence that every one of its members 

 has the gift of infallibility. Far from that; it is like that aristo- 

 cratic democracy of Athens, in which each citizen had his personal 

 vote only, and could prevail only on condition of convincing. As 

 in the domain of the good there is but one authority — conscience, so 

 there is but one authority in the domain of the beautiful — taste. 

 Only, conscience speaks the same language to all the men of one 

 community ; while taste, on the contrary, even acquired and formed 

 taste, is as manifold as temperaments, ideas, and passions are. It va- 

 ries from country to country in every age, and from age to age in 

 every country. Still further, it varies between man and man, and in 

 each man, at different periods of life. The bear in the fable very sen- 

 sibly says : 



11 "Who tells you this shape's awkward, that one fine ? 

 Has yours the right to judge or censure mine ? " 



Therefore it is in vain, as if in strict pursuance of a duty, to read 

 all books, listen to all counsels, ask advice from people supposed to be 

 cleverer than one's self, and prop up one's judgment by more sure and 

 authoritative judgments. In the criticism of art, where positive canons 

 are wanting, no one is suffered to deem himself an authority ; no one 

 is any thing more than an opinion. — Gazette des Beaux Arts. 



■♦•» 



A YEAE OF GEOGEAPHICAL WOEK. 



AT the annual meeting of the American Geographical Society, held 

 on the 13th of January, 1874, the address was delivered by the 

 President of the Society, Chief- Justice Daly, who gave to a large and 

 intelligent audience an admirable digest of geographical work and 

 progress during the past year. In his elaborate and most instructive 

 remarks, after dilating on the object and use of geographical societies, 

 and making special allusion to the great results of what might be 

 called the geographical society formed by Prince Henry and his asso- 

 ciates upon the promontory of Sagres, in Southern Portugal, viz., the 

 discovery of the passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, 

 the president went on to state that there is yet one-seventeenth part 

 of the globe of which we know nothing, except by conjecture, espe- 

 cially in the north and south polar regions, in Central Africa, in the 

 interior or northern parts of Australia, and some of the great East Indian 

 islands, e. g., Borneo and New Guinea. Many regions in South America, 

 in Asia, and even a considerable portion of our own Western country, 

 are not yet fully explored. These may yet be outlets for the surplus 

 population of longer-settled and overstocked countries. Geographical 

 research aids the progress of physical geography, especially our knowl- 



