President of the Royal Geographical
Society, and am therefore supposed to know something about
Geography, and because a love of Natural Beauty is one of the great
passions of my life.

I believe the two are inseparably connected with one another, and,
briefly, the view I want to put before you is this--.that a description
of the Natural Beauty of the Earth should be included in Geography.
By Geography we mean a _description_ of the Earth. And we
cannot adequately describe the Earth until we have observed it in all
its aspects and really know and understand it. And we cannot really
understand the Earth until we have entered into her spirit and feel
ourselves in harmony with it. But _when_ our spirit is in harmony
with the spirit of the Earth we, in that instant, see the Beauty of the
Earth. When we are seeing Beauty in the Earth we are understanding
the Earth. In describing the Beauty of the Earth we shall be
describing something that we really know about it--something of the
real nature of the Earth.

For this reason I maintain that Geography should be taken to include
a description of the Natural Beauty of the Earth's features. The
description of the Earth is not full and complete, and is lacking in its
most important particular, when it excludes a description of Natural
Beauty, and only includes scientific details about the size and shape
of the earth; its configuration; the composition of the crust; the depth,
area, and volume of the ocean; the temperature, degree of moisture
and pressure of the atmosphere; the height of the mountains; the
length, breadth, volume, course, and catchment area of its rivers; the
mineral and vegetable products of various regions; the political areas
into which it is divided; the relation of the political and commercial
activities of the population to the physical character of the features
and to the climate. I, of course, acknowledge the importance of all
this geographical knowledge. To the historian and the statesman it is
essential that he should know the part which a certain mountain
range or river or desert has played in human history. A soldier must
know with extreme accuracy the configuration of the country over
which his army is operating. An engineer must know the exact level
and contour of a region over which he has to lay a railway or
construct a canal. A merchant must know whether a country
produces cotton, tea, and sugar; or wheat, wool, and meat. For all
these and others,