Geography can just as little be contented with being a mere description of the Earth, and a catalogue of its divisions, as a detailed account of the objects in nature can take the place of a thorough and real natural history. The very word Geography, meaning a description of the Earth, has unfortunately been at fault, and has misled the world: to us it merely hints at the elements, the factors of what is the true science of Geography. That science aims at nothing less than to embrace the most complete and the most cosmical view of the Earth; to sum up and organize into a beautiful unity _all_ that we know of the globe. The whole body of facts revealed by past and present discovery must be marshaled into harmony, before we gain the high pinnacle of Geographical Science. The Earth, in all its parts, must be known in all its relations, before we can speak of it as the scholars of our day ought to speak of the world they inhabit. Moreover, the Earth is to be considered in two main relations—a relation, and an absolute relation; that is, we are to regard it in its connection with the greater whole, of which it forms a part, the Universe, and as a body standing alone, existing, as it were, for itself. It is the latter view which falls within the strict province of Geography. The very prominence of the old Greek word Γη indicates the pre-eminence which, in this science, our own planet, rather than others, receives. _Ge_-ography confines our attention to the Earth, and concentrates it upon the globe, regarded _per se_, rather than in its relations to the Universe. Taken, therefore, strictly, as already hinted at in the foregoing remark, Geography is the department of science that deals with the globe in all its features, phenomena, and relations, as an independent unit, and shows the connection of this unified whole with man and with man’s Creator. Should we go beyond this, and discuss the relations of the Earth to the Universe, (as is often done in our geographical treatises, in a singularly imperfect and unfruitful manner,) we should outrun the strict bounds of a single science, and should be encroaching on the domain of the sister science of astronomy. This we have no right to do. Yet, from time to time, we must borrow the results of other departments of learning to confirm our own. The field which we have to till has been immensely reduced in its proportions by the publication of “Kosmos,” which great work has almost exhausted the subject of the earth in its external relations. The limiting of our own department may, perhaps, give more opportunity for thorough investigation within itself.