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from the real subject of geography, termed Physical or Natural, in opposition to Political. We are not advocating the exclusion of Political Geography from books which profess to describe a country. When we read of a country, we wish to know of its towns, public buildings, institutions, and roads, as much as we do of its mountains and rivers, and often much more. Still we think that treatises on geography would be improved by making the physical character of each country a distinct and prominent part of the subject. Political Geography is a distinct, though necessarily a connected subject; and its facts should be reduced as much as possible to a tabular form. Indeed a large part of physical facts also may be classed in tables, as they become known, for instance, extent of sea-coast, heights of mountains, lengths of rivers, &c.; and we should prefer, instead of giving numbers as certain when they are only approximations, to have a double column, each containing a value between which we might be sure that the true value would be found. This would perhaps destroy a great deal of what is termed knowledge, by substituting for it doubt and uncertainty; but in the end knowledge would gain; it would be less in amount, but of better quality.

The question, we think, may fairly be raised, whether, in teaching geography, we ought to comprehend all the subjects already mentioned as comprised in physical and political geography, or whether we ought to strike out some of them from the list. This question cannot be answered without considering the age and acquirements of the persons who are to receive instruction. If they possess the proper elementary notions, and the necessary preliminary knowledge, there seems no reason why the teacher should not follow his own views of what will be most serviceable to the class in

the actual state of their knowledge; he may touch lightly on some parts, dwell more on others, and endeavour to direct the studies of his hearers by suitable remarks and references, rather than by minutely working out any one branch. We can imagine that there may be many very good courses which shall differ materially as to arrangement, and the proportion allowed to each division. But we do not think that in any course of teaching, or in any elementary treatise, geography properly so called, that is, physical geography, should be mixed up with political geography, or statistics. By keeping the two subjects quite distinct, by exercising a careful criticism on all facts presented as facts, and by arranging them respectively in their proper classes, we shall begin to reduce to the form of knowledge two of the most interesting branches of human inquiry. One will teach us what the surface of the globe is, and what nature has done for each portion to fit it for the use of man: the other will show what man is doing for himself; and by the brief symbols of number, well ascertained, well digested, and then rightly interpreted, we shall learn how man lives,—we shall know his pains and his pleasures, his knowledge and his ignorance, his virtues and his vices, his progress or his retrograde movements, his coming into the world, his going out of it, and the period of duration assigned to him, when his life is considered as a fraction of one large integer. In this country, unfortunately, it will be long before statistics can assume the form from which all these useful inferences can be drawn.

The teaching of the elementary part of geography is the most important. By a few years of judicious training, boys will be fitted to receive and to profit by the courses of a public lecturer, while at present we fear

most youths are so devoid of all exact elementary notions as to be unable, as a general rule, to profit much by a complete written course of lectures. It is therefore most necessary that the improvement should begin with schools. The remarks that we are going to make have reference only to instruction in geography for youths, and they suppose that all the necessary previous knowledge has been obtained. The method used at Bruce Castle (Journal of Education, No. XI. p. 115, &c.), of giving the elementary notions of geographical position by making the youth familiar with the relative position of places near him, and the mode of teaching him the use of a map, appear as judicious as any that could be chosen. When these preliminary notions are obtained, it seems doubtful what is the next best step: whether to demonstrate the spherical figure of the earth, in such ways as are suitable to youthful capacity, and then to apply Agren's method for the purpose of giving a general notion of the exterior configuration of the land; or to take the country in which the youth lives, and for the present dropping all notions of astronomical position, confine him to the determination of all points and places by the measurement of straight lines from a fixed point. If the latter mode is preferred, to which we incline, London, of course, would be used by us for obvious reasons. By measuring the distances of ail the great salient points on the coast from London, and laying them down according to their true bearings, the student would get a pretty accurate notion of the form of the island, and would become familiarized with the mode of referring the position of one place to that of another by its bearings. It would be desirable that he should obtain by actual measurement on a tolerably accurate map the length of sea-coast; first by making the island into a

polygon by lines drawn from one salient coast point to another, and then by measuring it along its sinuosities. The greatest and least dimensions of the island should also be measured both on meridians, on parallels, and also between other points on the coast not under the same meridian or parallel. Methods of approximating in a rough way to the area in square miles should also be pointed out. It might then be observed how many miles of coast there are for each square mile of area, and the fraction expressing this ratio would be useful as a standard of comparison for similar fractions deduced from the ratio of the coast line and area of other islands. The value of the fraction would at once show the general nature of the coast line of any island or insular mass of land, whether it was regular or irregular *.

In describing the coast as well as the mountains and rivers of the country, a number of terms come immediately into use, such as gulf, bay, sound, channel, promontory, æstuary, river, velocity of stream, plain, plateau, marsh, mountain, mountain-range, &c.

And here, as it appears to us, is an opening of considerable difficulty. Many of these terms are vague in their meaning, and have a different value when applied to different countries. The name of gulf is not applied to any parts of our English coast, though there are indentations to which it would be applicable. We believe a notion of considerable magnitude is generally attached to the term gulf, though there are exceptions to this; but we are not aware that the term includes any notion of form. As specimens of gulfs, there are the Gulf of Venice, Gulf of Lepanto, Gulf of Lions, Gulf of Mexico, Gulf of St. Lawrence, Gulf of Guinea, &c.

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* See Berghaus, Erste Elemente der Erdebeschreibung, p. 124, Berlin, 1830.

seems difficult to say what a gulf is, though it is certainly desirable to fix the meaning of such a term. Of bays we have various specimens in these islands, from Pegwell Bay, a shallow sandy flat on the coast of Kent, to Bantry Bay in Ireland. Of foreign bays, we find the Bay of Biscay, Chesapeake Bay, the Bay of Bengal, &c., from which it appears difficult to say what are those characters which enable us to distinguish a bay from a gulf. It may be said that this is all trifling, and that such objections are mere quibbles, and that we all know what is meant by the words when applied to a particular gulf or bay. But any such answer as this appears to us entirely insufficient. We do not expect that people will forthwith call the Gulf of Mexico and Pegwell Bay by their new and more appropriate terms as soon as they are announced to the world; but if there be any marked characters of form, magnitude, position, &c., which will enable us to classify the gulfs, bays, &c., under certain heads, so that when we hear of a new gulf or bay, we have at least one correct idea suggested by the word, something would be gained. If this cannot be done, so much the worse for geography, which must always remain, as many wish it to do, rather loose and indefinite.

There is some difficulty about promontories, capes, heads, headlands, points, noses, though we think this difficulty is not insuperable. The word promontory might be used in a limited sense to express the bluff projecting termination of a mountain in the sea; but there is no reason why it should be restricted to such a piece of land terminating in the sea. It is capable of being applied equally well, and sometimes is applied, to similar abrupt terminations of mountains on the edges of plains.

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