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THE CORRESPONDING SOCIETIES'
COMMITTEE OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION,
LEICESTER, 1907.
Report of the Club's Delegate.
F. W RUDLER, I.S.O., F.G.S., Secretary of the Conference of Delegates.
THE Conference was opened by Mr. H. J. Mackinder, the
distinguished geographer, who delivered from the chair
an address on "The Advancement of Geographical Science
by Local Scientific Societies." Believing that no adequate
geographical description of the British Isles will be possible
until there is a much richer local literature, from which an
author can mine, he urged each local society to become a centre
of original geographical study. As an illustration of what is
needed he instanced the production of local maps showing
plant-associations ; but these, to be fully useful, must be
produced on a uniform system, and uniformity can be best
secured by a meeting of representatives of the societies, such as
the Conference of Delegates at the British Association. Mr.
Mackinder suggested that in each society there should be some
member, or members, whose duty would be that of correlating
from a geographical point of view the work of local specialists in
various branches of knowledge. The society might even
produce a text-book for use in the local schools, describing the
monuments of the district and the physical features and natural
history of the surrounding country-side, perhaps correlating this
work with the local museum. The unit should be a natural
area, not limited by merely county boundaries where these
appear arbitrary, so that there would be some mutual giving and
taking between local societies.
The question of appointing a Committee for County Photo-
graphic Surveys, brought forward at the York Conference by
Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, had received the attention of the
Corresponding Societies' Committee during the past year, but
it was felt that the suggested scheme was too extensive to be
undertaken by the Association. At the same time there was the
possibility of some special branch being dealt with, and it was
suggested that archaeology might be selected. Accordingly the
Rev. R. Ashington Bullen introduced a discussion on "The