gone on moving ever since with accelerated velocity.

The great progress that has been made can hardly be realized without comparing the famous Borgia map, constructed about one hundred years before the discovery of America, with the modern maps of the same countries; or Hubbard's map of New England made two hundred years ago, with the corresponding map of to-day. The improvements in map-making originated with Mercator, who, in 1556 constructed his cylindrical projection of the sphere. But it has been only during the last hundred years that great progress has been made. Much yet remains to be done before geographic art can fully accomplish its mission.

The present century forms a new era in the progress of geography—the era of organized research. In 1830, the Royal Geographical Society of England was founded, and it already forms a landmark in the history of discovery. The Paris Society preceded it in point of time, and the other countries of Europe soon followed the example. Through these organizations, students and explorers have been encouraged and assisted, and information systematically collected and arranged. The wide diffusion of geographical knowledge through the medium of these societies and the publicity of the discussions and criticism that followed, operated to direct the current of exploration into the most useful channels. Before organized effort, darkness gave way at every step. Each observer added fresh knowledge to the existing store, without unnecessary duplication of research. The reports of discoveries were discussed and criticized by the societies, and the contributions of all were co-ordinated into one great whole.

America refuses to be left in the rear. Already her explorers are in every land and on every sea. Already she has contributed her quota of martyrs in the frozen north, and has led the way into the torrid regions of Africa. The people of Europe, through Columbus, opened up a new world for us; and we, through Stanley, have discovered a new world in the old, for them.

Much has been done on land—little on the other three-quarters of the earth's surface. But here America has laid the foundations of a new science,—the Geography of the Sea.

Our explorers have mapped out the surface of the ocean and discovered the great movements of the waters. They have traced the southward flow of the Arctic waters to temper the climate of the torrid zone. They have followed the northward set of the heated waters of the equator and have shown how they form those wonderful rivers of warm water that flow, without walls, through the colder waters of the sea, till they strike the western shores of Europe and America, and how they render habitable the almost Arctic countries of Great Britain and Alaska. They have even followed these warm currents further and shown how they penetrate the Arctic Ocean to lessen the rigors of the Arctic cold. Bravely, but vainly, have they sought for that ignis fatuus of explorers—the open polar sea—produced by the action of the warm waters from the south.

American explorers have sounded the depths of the ocean and discovered mountains and valleys beneath the waves. They have found the great plateaus on which the cables rest that bring us into instantaneous communication with the rest of the world. They have shown the probable existence of a vast submarine range of mountains, extending nearly the whole length of the Pacific Ocean—mountains so high that their summits rise above the surface to form islands and archipelagoes in the Pacific. And all this vast region of the earth, which, a few years ago, was considered uninhabitable on account of the great pressure, they have discovered to be teeming with life. From the depths of the ocean they have brought living things, whose lives were spent under conditions of such pressure that the elastic force of their own bodies burst them open before they could be brought to the surface; living creatures whose self-luminous spots supplied them with the light denied them in the deep abyss from which they sprang—abysses so deep that the powerful rays of the sun could only feebly penetrate to illuminate or warm.

The exploring vessels of our Fish Commission have discovered in the deep sea, in one single season, more forms of life than were found by the Challenger Expedition in a three years' cruise. Through their agency, we have studied the geographical distribution of marine life; and in our marine laboratories, explorers have studied the life history of the most useful forms.

The knowledge gained has enabled us to breed and multiply at will; to protect the young fish during the period of their infancy—when alone they are liable to wholesale destruction—finally to release them in the ocean, in those waters that are most suitable to their growth. The fecundity of fish is so great, and the protection afforded them during the critical period of their life so ample, that it may now be possible to feed the world from the ocean and set the laws of Matthews at defiance. Our geographers of the sea have shown that an acre of water may be made to produce more food for the support of man than ten acres of arable land. They have thrown open to cultivation a territory of the earth constituting three-quarters of the entire surface of the globe.

And what shall we say of our conquests in that other vast territory of the earth, greater in extent than all the oceans and the lands put together—the atmosphere that surrounds it.

Here again America has led the way, and laid the foundations of a Geography of the Air. But a little while ago and we might have truly said with the ancients "the wind bloweth where it listeth, and we know neither from whence it comes nor whither it goes"; but now our explorers track the wind from point to point and telegraph warnings in advance of the storm.

In this department, the Geography of the Air, we have far outstripped the nations of the world. We have passed the mob-period of research when the observations of multitudes of individuals amounted to little, from lack of concentrated action. Organization has been effected. A Central Bureau has been established in Washington, and an army of trained observers has been dispersed over the surface of the globe, who all observe the condition of the atmosphere according to a pre-concerted plan.

The vessels of our navy and the mercantile marine of our own and other countries have been impressed into the service, and thus our geographers of the air are stationed in every land and traverse the waters of every sea. Every day, at the same moment of absolute time, they observe and note the condition of the atmosphere at the part of the earth where they happen to be, and the latitude and longitude of their position. The collocation of these observations gives us a series of what may be termed instantaneous photographs of the condition of the whole atmosphere. The co-ordination of the observations, and their geographical representation upon a map, is undertaken by a staff of trained experts in the Central Bureau in Washington, and through this organization we obtain a weather-map of the world for every day of the year. We can now study at leisure the past movements of the atmosphere, and from these observations we shall surely discover the grand laws that control aerial phenomena. We shall then not only know, as we do at present, whence comes the wind and whither it goes, but be able to predict its movements for the benefit of humanity.

Already we have attained a useful, though limited, power of prediction.

Our Central Bureau daily collects observations by telegraph from all parts of this continent, and our experts are thus enabled to forecast the probabilities by a few hours. Day by day the results are communicated to the public by telegraph in time to avert disaster to the mariners on our eastern coast, and facilitate agricultural operations in the Eastern and Middle States.

Although many of the predictions are still falsified by events, the percentage of fulfilments has become so large as