In the year 1859 there occurred three events which, though not all comparable to one another, yet make the year one of such importance that we may take it as marking the beginning of the distinctively modern period of geographical science. These three events were, first, the deaths of Humboldt and Ritter, two great geographical pioneers who hewed tracks through the tangled jungle of unsystematised geographical facts, and second, the publication of the _Origin of Species_, by Charles Darwin, a book which supplied the compass which has made further road-making in that same jungle possible. In other words, as a result of the life-work of the two great geographers named, and of the throwing by C…
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