colour. And we want
pictures painted in words as well as on canvas. Not shallow
rhapsodising of the journalese and guide-book type, but true
expression in which each noun exactly fits the object, each epithet is
truly applicable, and each phrase is rightly turned, and in which the
emphasis is placed on the precisely right point, and the whole
composed so as distinctly to bring out that point.

Then in time we shall gather together the most valuable knowledge
about the Earth. And when a stranger from a far land comes to us to
know about any particular country, we shall be able to provide him
with something worth having. When an Australian comes to
England and wishes to know its essential characteristics, we shall do
something more than hand him over maps and treatises on the
orography and hydrography, the distribution of rainfall, of plants
and animals, and the population. We shall regard ourselves as
having omitted to point out to him the essential characteristic of the
land from which Englishmen have sprung and in which they dwell if
we have not shown him the beauty of its natural features. We shall
give him the maps as aids to finding his way about, and we shall
give him the treatises. But we shall tell him that these are only aids
for special purposes, and that if he is really to understand England
he must know its beauty in its many aspects. He will then have the
geographical knowledge of chief value about England.

* * *

A project in which the Society is now interested affords an excellent
opportunity of applying the principles I have been trying to persuade
you to adopt. The most prominent feature of this Earth, and the
feature of most geographical interest, is the great range of the
Himalaya Mountains. In this range the supreme summit is Mount
Everest, the highest point on the Earth, 29,002 feet above sea-level.
Attempts have been made to ascend the second highest mountain,
K2, 28,278 feet, notably by the Duke of the Abruzzi. Colonel Hon.
Charles Bruce, Major Rawling, and others have had in mind the idea
of ascending Mount Everest itself. And for more than a year past
both the Alpine Club and this Society have been definitely
entertaining the idea of helping forward the achievement of this
object. We hope within the next few years to hear of a human being
standing on the pinnacle of the Earth.

If I am asked, What is the use of climbing this highest mountain? I
reply, No use at all: no more use than kicki