Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/759

 SCIENCE AND CITIZENSHIP 743

schrift fiir Socialwissenschaft calling itself Social Notes and Queries, and the Archiv fiir Rassen-und Gesellschafts-Biologie calling itself Race Notes and Queries, and so forth. That the analogy between the popular and scientific variety is real, and not fanciful, will further be recognized when it is observed that what are called conundrums and solutions in the one are called memoirs and hypotheses in the other. And, moreover, the suc- cessful contributors are, it will be seen by reference to the above description of the Royal Geographical Society, rewarded, if not by participation in a guinea prize, yet by one or other of "the two royal gold medals which are awarded annually" and "the Vic- toria medals which are awarded at intervals."

XVII. The Journal of the Royal Geographical Society con- sists of two parts. There is in each month's Journal a bundle of maps and a budget of letterpress. In order to utilize the re- sources of the society, which function through its Journal and other publications, one must learn the interpretation of the sym- bolism and notation of the maps, and one must acquire familiarity with the few technical formulae which occasionally break through the ordinary and simple language of its letterpress. There are simple, easy, and pleasant ways of achieving both these ends in fact, short-cuts by which one may penetrate right into the heart of geographical science. To master the symbolism and notation of cartography, all one has to do is to compare the best contour maps (that is to say, those of the Ordnance Survey) with what one sees with naked eye, with field-glass, or with tele- scope, when one ascends all the high points of vantage in one's own region. These high points of vantage are, of course, for the towns and cities, their towers such as they may be, and for the surrounding country whatever mound, hilltop, or mountain summit one's excursions and explorations may discover. The primary problem of the cartographer is to show, by symbolic notation on a flat surface, all the varying heights and shapes assumed by, or imposed on, the earth's surface above or below sea-level. What the ideal geographer, as cartographer, first of all tries to do is to devise a notation by which he and his fellow-