Vol. XVI, No. u WASHINGTON November, 1905 



Or 



THE 



ATHONAL 

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GEOGRAPHY 



T * 



By Rear-Admiral Sir W. J. L. Wharton, K. C. B., F. R. S. 



IT is sometimes denied to geography 

 that she has any right to consider 

 herself as a science, the objection 

 being apparently founded on the view 

 that it is a subject that can be learned by 

 heart, but not studied on any systematic 

 line or reduced to principles which enable 

 advance to be made, as in the more ex- 

 act sciences, by continual investigation 

 by means of laws discovered in the course 

 of such investigation. This, it appears 

 to me, is a misapprehension due to an 

 incomplete recognition of what science 

 is and of what geography is. 



Science is, in the simplest interpreta- 

 tion, " knowledge," such knowledge as 

 comes from an intimate acquaintance 

 with and study of any subject duly coor- 

 dinated and arranged. The subjects 

 which the advancing education and civ- 

 ilization of the world have caused to be 

 minutely studied are very many, and as 

 knowledge has increased specialization 

 has become a necessity, until the list of 

 sciences is very long. 



Science may be broadly divided into 

 several categories : pure or exact science, 



such as mathematics ; natural or phys- 

 ical science, which rests on observations 

 of nature ; moral science, which treats 

 of all mental phenomena. 



Some sciences are of ancient founda- 

 tion, some have arisen from new inquiries 

 and needs of man or from fissure in sub- 

 jects too wide for convenient treatment 

 as one. Many of them are capable of 

 exact definition, and their boundaries 

 and limits can be well marked. To 

 others no very distinct limitations can 

 be assigned. From their nature they 

 overlap and are overlapped by other sub- 

 jects, and it is impracticable to confine 

 them by a strict line. Geography is one 

 of the latter. 



Geography is one of the most ancient 

 subjects studied with the view of coor- 

 dinating facts. A desire for exact knowl- 

 edge of, first, the bearings and distances 

 of one place from another for the pur- 

 poses of intercommunication must have 

 arisen as soon as men became collected 

 into groups whose growing civilization 

 and needs required travel to obtain what 

 could not be obtained in the community. 



* An address to the British. Association for the Advancement of Science, Johannesburg, South 

 Africa, August 30, 1905. Sir William Wharton was unfortunately taken sick only a few days 

 after the address was delivered and died at Capetown, September 29, from enteric fever and 

 pneumonia. He was 62 years of age, and for a number of years had been Hydrographer of the 

 Admiralty. 



