Page:The National geographic magazine, volume 1.djvu/39

 than a sixth of the total mass above present base level is yet consumed. To say that a country is hilly gives so wide a range to the imagination that no correct conception of it can be gained, but I venture to think that one who understands the terms used can derive a very definite and accurate conception from the statement that a certain country is an old, almost completed base level, raised from one to three hundred feet, and well advanced toward maturity in its present cycle of change.

It is from geographic methods thus conceived that geologic investigation will gain assistance. As the subject is properly developed it will form an indispensable part of the education of every explorer, topographer and geologist; and in its simpler chapters it will penetrate the schools. There is no other subject in which there is greater disproportion between the instruction, as commonly carried on, and the opportunity for application in after life. The intelligent part of the world is travelling from place to place to an extent that our fathers could not have believed possible, and yet not one person in ten thousand has any geographic instruction that enables him to see more than that a river is large or small, or that a hill is high or low. The meaning of geography is as much a sealed book to the person of ordinary intelligence and education as the meaning of a great cathedral would be to a backwoodsman, and yet no cathedral can be more suggestive of past history in its many architectural forms than is the land about us, with its innumerable and marvelously significant geographic forms. It makes one grieve to think of the opportunity for mental enjoyment that is lost because of the failure of education in this respect.

It may be asked perhaps how can one be trained in geographic types, seeing that it is impossible for schools to travel where the types occur. This is surely a great and inherent difficulty, but it may be lessened if it cannot be overcome. Good illustrations are becoming more and more common by means of dry plate photography; maps are improving in number and quality; but the most important means of teaching will be found in models. No maps, illustrations or descriptions can give as clear an idea of relief as can be obtained from a well-made model, and with a set of models, fifty or sixty in number, the more important types and their changes with age can be clearly understood. Maps, illustrations and descriptions supplement the models. The maps should be contoured, for in no other way can the quantitative