Royal Geographical Society

“ Perhaps the only scientific society that has received great monetary help is the Royal Geographical Society, and when Arctic or Antarctic expeditions are launched the public has always responded magnificently. ”

“ Amidst the ardour with which geographical research has been patronized and prosecuted in almost every other portion of the globe, it is a subject of surprise and regret that so little anxiety should have been shown by geographers, and even by men of science in general, to increase our knowledge of the interior of the Australian continent. ”

“ Yet, as this extensive territory will, in all probability, in process of time, support a numerous population, the progeny of Britons, and may be the means of spreading the English language, laws, and institutions, over a great part of the Eastern Archipelago, it is presumed that every accession to our knowledge of its geographical features, however limited, will be acceptable to the Society. ”

“ A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend. ”

“ The irregularity of the topographic features of the more western portion of the Strait, combined with its confused assemblage and immense number of islands and rocks—the regularity of the strata,—the coinciding parallelism of all the bays, channels, and sounds,—and the total absence of islands in the central portion or slate formation, together with the remarkable similarity of the direction of the hills and coast line, and the stratification of the north-eastern tract, which is very different from that of the centre,—are very striking acts, and, geologically considered, are of great interest. ”

“ We notice these few facts, furnished by Captain Beechey's voyage, not to prove that the respective position of any place on the globe has any exact and positive relation with its aquatic or terrestrial productions. But although these do not atop at such or such an arch of the sphere, and we cannot perhaps quote a single animal or vegetable which first makes its appearance at such or such a degree of latitude or longitude; yet all natural productions have their zones more or less large and sinuous ”

“ Adjoining this district of light, sandy soil, is a considerable breadth of red !and, extending to the base of the Darling mountains, the soil of which varies from red sandy loam to the richest red marl and clay, apparently fit for all agricultural purposes. The fourth variety of country is the uneven surface of the mountainous range, which is of granite and trap formation. The valleys of this range are exceedingly rich and verdant, and the hills themselves, although occasionally rugged by the protrusion of the rocks, afford magnificent timber, and very excellent sheep lands. ”

“ As we advanced, the hills inclined considerably to the eastward, gradually becoming less elevated, until in latitude 29 20' S. they ceased altogether, and we found ourselves in a very low and level country, consisting of large stony plains, varied occasionally by sand; and the whole having evidently been subject to recent and extensive inundation. These plains are destitute of water, grass, and timber, and have only a few salsolaceous plants growing upon them; whilst their surface, whether stony or sandy, is quite smooth and even, as if washed so by the action of the water. ”

“ We met, however, with neither the wandering Indian nor any description of animal, for the parched state of vegetation and the distressed condition of the country generally, had evidently driven both to other parts of the interior, where the means of sustaining life were less precarious, or, at least, where a permanent supply of water, although it might be in a stagnant state, was to be obtained. ”

“ In the wide ocean, however, where the marine productions were few, and those sometimes not well characterized, it was necessary to have recourse to the geographical distribution of the birds and animals that frequented its waters and coasts, as the vegetation of mediterranean shores lent its evidence in tracing affinity or dissimilarity between seas separated by slight geographical distances. In the narrative of Captain Beechey's voyage we find many facts of interest in a study of this kind, the most remarkable of which we shall briefly enumerate. ”

“ Thus we continued our journey to the north through a barren, but densely-timbered country, of frequently brushy character, and altogether very indifferently watered. Each day as we advanced, our barometer showed us that these poor forest-grounds, which, to add to the difficulty of penetration, were occasionally traversed by low arid ridges of argillaceous ironstone and clayslate, rose in elevation from the low level of the northern margin of Liverpool Plains, which I found to be only eight hundred and forty feet above the level of the sea. ”

“ A second long and interesting journey might be undertaken, from any one of my points in the Moreton Bay-country, on the western side of the dividing range, to penetrate to the tropic, by pursuing a course as much to the westward of north-west, as the internal country, by furnishing the requisites, grass and water for the animals employed, would permit. ”

“ Holds Swedish and Norwegian Orders, and is an hon. member of the geographical societies in several European capitals. For several years sub-editor of Nature, and joint editor of the Geographical Journal, 1915-17. President of the Geographical Section of the British Association in 1897; awarded the Cullum Gold Medal of the American Geographical Society, and the gold medals of the Paris and Royal Scottish Geographical Societies. ”

“ It will be evident, from the inspection of this sketch, and still more so from the journal out of which this notice is extracted, that, although in the immediate neighbourhood of King George's Sound the surface is sandy and wears an unpromising appearance, yet in the interior there is no want of good grassy plains, large forest-trees, rivers, lakes, and ponds of good fresh water, in a!most every part of the country traversed by Dr. ”

“ The local knowledge of which we are now in possession, induces us to view it as extremely probable that, with the exception of any narrow belts of alluvial land which may extend along the immediate banks of the three rivers discovered by these travellers, a great extent of low steril region exists to the westward of the last-mentioned line of limitation, being, probably, a continuation of that arid desert which is shown on Mr. ”

“ It may seem wonderful, that the Author of these Letters makes mention in his former, of a kind of War between the Oriental Tartars and the Muscovites, notwithstanding the extream distance these People appear to be from one another in our Geographical Charts; but those who know how much the Muscovites have extended the Bounds of the Empire along the Tartarian Sea, will judge the thing less difficult, besides those who have seen these Countries, have made Discoveries much differing from those which our Geographers have informed us of hitherto. ”

“ Manners, Education, Occupation, &c.—The upper classes in the Isthmus are of the common stock, but by no means so far advanced in civilization as their neighbours. The white people, and particularly the women, are noted for a tinge of European complexion, which can hardly be reconciled with their geographical position. ”

“ Of these eighteen words have found five, in two different Berēber vocabularies, to the the same as in the Shellūh dialect. During our visit to the Atlas, we wrote down from the mouth of a native Shellūh, who had passed all his life there, some hundred words of that idiom. On our return home, finding that the British and Foreign Bible Society had lately acquired a translation of part of the Scriptures into one of the dialects of northern Africa, I applied to them, who most liberally showed me their vocabulary, which proved to be compiled from a manuscript in Berēber language ”

“ When we think of the river valley as the regional unit of geographical science, we have to remember that it is like the ovum of biology—a developing unit containing the potency of a great realisation. What to the geographer in his humanist mood is the city but the effort of this regional unit to realise its own potency for evolution. City development is thus for the geographer no isolated phenomenon, but a normal stage—the culminating one—in a long sequence of events and processes. It is the ceaselessly renewed attempt to make for each region, here and now, its own Eden—its own Utopia. ”

“ It always happens that many of such adventurers are men unsettled in their views, inordinate in their expectations, and wholly unfitted to encounter the difficulties which are inevitable in the infancy of a colony; and that such persons should be disappointed, discontented, and their ruin completed, is quite in the nature of things. Accordingly, among the numerous settlers who have flocked to Swan River were not a few whose minds and bodies were but ill-suited to encounter the struggles and distresses which are the unavoidable concomitants of a new settlement. ”

“ His studies in geography were always in those fields which form the border-land between geology and geography. The history of the development of scenery and of earth-forms in general, and the relation between geological structure and geographical configuration, were favourite subjects for his pen. In this he was a true follower of Playfair. He delighted [Pg 191] also to prepare short notices for the Society’s magazine, describing the results of recent work on prehistoric man, on changes of climate in recent geological periods, and the action of ice in the production of surface features. ”

“ It is a matter of notoriety to travellers in Khoten, that a large city there is buried under a drift of sand; and my informant speaks positively of this fact, although unacquainted with its name, or with the period or manner in which the event took place. This indifference in an individual, extremely inquisitive and intelligent, is produced in a great measure by the policy of the Chinese government, which punishes severely any person who ventures to dig on the site of the city in search of treasures, and even inquiries are not unattended with risk. ”

“ At the island of Madjie, where we were obliged to stop for canoe-men, we found trees of hungry growth and stunted shrubs, whose foliage seemed for the most part dull and withering: they shoot out of the hollows and interstices of rocks, and hang over immense precipices, whose jagged summits they partly conceal; they are only accessible to wild beasts and birds of prey. ”

“ Where the continental land-masses converge is found similarity or even identity of race, easy gradations from one type to another; where they diverge most widely in the peninsular extremities of South America, South Africa and Australia, they show the greatest dissimilarity in their native races, and a corresponding diversity in their animal life.300 Geographical proximity combined with accessibility results in similarity of human and animal occupants, while a corresponding dissimilarity is the attendant of remoteness or of segregation. ”

“ And it is equally impossible to grant to all these animalcules one common impulse, or, as Captain Flinders has it, an instinctive foresight to shelter their habitations from the impetuosity of the winds, by forming constantly high walls and reefs to the windward: a circumstance, the explanation of which we think might easily be sought in physical causes alone. For if the lateral movements of the polypi, or their natural tendency to horizontal construction, happens to be impeded in any one direction, they will gain vertically what they lose horizontally ”

“ The altitudes obtained by barometrical or trigonometrical observations attach themselves peculiarly to physical geography, as illustrating the height of continents, of mountain chains, and of culminating points, which, however, are more often objects of curiosity than of scientific interest. ”

“ The great Baie Geographe, whose shape and position, with regard to the points of the compass, is precisely that of the Table Bay of the Cape of Good Hope, has safe anchorage only when the winds are to the eastward, southward, and southwest. But on the southern coast of Australia, about one hundred and fifty miles to the eastward of Cape Leuwin, is the safe and excellent roadstead of King George's Sound, with which are connected two harbours, sheltered from all winds, and completely land-locked—Princess Royal Harbour to the north-east, and Oyster Harbour to the north-west ”

“ Their persons are rather meagre, but nervous, and finely formed, without any appearance of weakness; and they are more active and robust than the inhabitants of the west coast. The colour of the skin of the women and children is quite as clear and pure as that of Europeans, and they have often brown hair, which is never seen on the other inhabitants of Greenland. Some of their men allow their mustachios to grow, others tattoo their arms, and all the women have their arms, hands, and chin tattooed—an operation which they execute themselves. ”

“ For when the Chinese governors of places, far removed from the seat of supreme government, have abused their power, and received such an intimation as convinces them that the tribunal to which they are responsible have proof of their delinquency, they, if their crime be of a capital nature, generally prefer the poisoned cup, which preserves their persons from public disgrace, and their property from confiscation, to the risk of losing life, honour, and estates, by the hand of the executioner. ”