The sources of geography, as of history, are twofold—established memorials and continued investigations. The study of it has this great advantage at the outset, that the surface of the earth is a standing monument of the past. We are obliged to search where all lies open; where investigation must be crowned with success. No manuscripts in this great library have perished; they all exist as legible, as accessible as ever. Moreover, personal investigation must be made by every student in order to understand the results of the investigations of others. Wherever our home is, there lie all the materials which we need for the study of the entire globe. Humboldt hints at this when he says in his Kosmos: “Every little nook and shaded corner is but a reflection of the whole of Nature.” The roaring mountain brook is the type of the thundering cataract; the geological formations of a single little island, suggest the broken coast lines of a continent; the study of the boulders which are so thickly scattered in token of a great primeval deluge from the north, reveals the structure of whole mountain chains. The digging of every well may contribute to our knowledge of the earth’s crust; the excavations made in the building of railroads may, without the loss of time, labor, and expense, be a ceaseless source of instruction. In the structure of a spear of grass, of a rush, of a single monocotyledon, may be studied in miniature the palm-tree, prince of the tropics; in the mosses and lichens on our walls, the stunted growths of mountain tops may be investigated. A small range of hills may be taken as the type of the loftiest Cordillera. The eye may be easily trained to see all the greater in the less. The study of our own district is the true key to the understanding of the forms and the phenomena of foreign lands. Whoever has wandered through the valleys and woods, and over the hills and mountains of his own State, will be the one capable of following a Herodotus in his wanderings over the globe. He, and he alone, will be able, with true appreciation, to accompany travelers through all foreign lands. The very first step in a knowledge of geography is to know thoroughly the district where we live.