138 
a. system; oe 
COMPARING GEOGRAPHICAL DISTANCES. 
BY 
CAPTAIN F. J. S. CLEEVE, R.A, 
(A Lecture delivered at the Boyal Artillery Institution, Woolwich, Thursday, 14th Oct., 1897) 
Major-General J. F. Maurice, G.B., in the Chair. 
CAPTAIN CLEEVE—General Maurice, ladies and gentlemen. As 
the Royal Geographical Society did me the honour in the Geographical 
Journal of September, 1897, to insert a letter bearing on the subject 
of my proposed discourse, namely, “A System of Comparing Geo¬ 
graphical Distances,” I must ask the indulgence of any members of 
the audience to whom it may not represent fresh ground. 
In taking as my theme that it is more important to avoid ignorance 
than to acquire knowledge, I desire to distinguish between a superficial 
knowledge—which may be extremely accurate or absolutely wide of 
the mark—and a fundamental knowledge of a permanent though 
approximate nature, which, it is hoped, may serve as the basis for more 
detailed investigation of any portions of the subject which may be of 
interest historically or otherwise. 
One is accustomed to see maps of continents on small scales and of 
islands on large scales, and thus one’s ideas of distance are apt to vary 
according to the size of the country under consideration. A tailor can, 
from a few salient measurements, realise the exact dimensions involved 
in the construction of a coat, and thus by remembering the shape of 
a particular country, and the distance between certain known places or 
features, an approximate idea may be formed of the distance between 
any two places whose locality is known, or the extent of any known 
region therein. By taking a fixed unit of distance and marking mere¬ 
ly places to which this unit corresponds, the effort of memory is con¬ 
siderably simplified. I happened to select as the unit, the length of 
the British Islands, namely, from Land’s End to the Shetlands, which 
is 750 miles, and have been extremely surprised at the remarkable 
3 . YOL. XXT. ] 0 
