ave been wanting in its most
important particular.

These illustrations will, I hope, make clear what I mean when I urge
that Beauty may be the most valuable characteristic of the Earth's
features, and that the scope of Geography should certainly be
extended to include a knowledge of it.

And there should be less hesitation in accepting the latter half of this
conclusion when we note that Natural Beauty affects the movements
of man, and that man is having an increasing effect upon Natural
Beauty--spoiling it in too many cases, improving it in many others,
but certainly having an effect upon it. There is thus a quite definite
relation between man and Natural Beauty, and it should therefore be
within the scope of Geography to take note of this relationship. To
an increasing degree man now moves about in search of new Natural
Beauty or to enjoy it where it has been already found. From all over
the world men flock to Switzerland, drawn there by its beauty. Here
at home they go to the Thames Valley, or Dartmoor, or the coast of
Cornwall, or North Wales, or the Highlands, simply to enjoy the
Natural Beauty. And railway companies and the Governments of
Canada, Australia, and New Zealand think it worth while to spend
large sums of money in publishing pictures of the beauty of the
countries in which they are interested in order to attract
holiday-makers or home-seekers to them.

And here, as in other cases, man now is not content to be an
impassive spectator and to be entirely controlled by his surroundings.
He does not allow the "crustal relief" to have the upper hand in the
matter. He will not admit that all he has to do is to adapt himself to
his surroundings. That servile view of our position in the Universe is
fast departing. We are determined to have the ascendancy. And
much as we admire the Beauty of the Earth we set about improving
it. We fail disastrously at times, I allow. But sometimes
unconsciously, and sometimes deliberately, we succeed. We have in
places made the Earth more beautiful than it was before we came,
and we have certainly shown the possibility of this being done.
From what I have seen in uninhabited countries I can realise what
the river-valleys of England must have been like before the arrival
of man--beautiful, certainly; but not _so_ beautiful as now. They
must have been an unrelieved mass of forest and marsh. Now the
marshes are drained and turned into golden meadows. The woods
are cleared in pa