Evening star., 1939-01-01

and philosopher, and anihor Of the famous
''Story Of Mankind" IS also a mord
1enouned geoerabhe1. "Van Looms Ceoe
1abhy," published in 1882. became an
immediate best seller and has perhaps done
more to make geography fascinating than any
other single book We asked him TO tell Whaf
lonely spots are lett in The Woyld uhere
Euobes refugees might start life anew. This
is his 0ns,cer.
p AM. among other things. geographer.
Therefore, when the problem was being
d discussed of finding some convenient ter
ritory, preferably not too we'll inhabited,
which could be used as a general place of
refuge for those who now face exile from
their native lands, | became sort of peram
bulating geographical encyclopedia and
whenever met one of my neighbors on the
train or in the drugstore. / was asked the
question: Now. where would you send these
exiIes if you were running this problem:'
When | confessed that | had not the
slightest idea. | was looked at with deep scorn
and suspicion, and not infrequently | heard
the question whether l had ever studied any
geography at all,
Now. this was not quite fair, for during
the last forty years have devoted most OF
my spare time to this most fascinating sub
lect But no use telling people this. for IN
their eagerness to expose my ignorance, they
used to drag me into their houses to show
me maps and more maps and still more maps.
Then they would trumphantly point to all
sorts of territories - millions of square miles
. Of them - right here on our own continent
and in Asia and Africa and most specially in
Australia. and then they would say. none too
politely
You see this? 1t shows that all these
hundreds of thousands OF square miles are
practically uninhabited. Now. why can't all
those people who are looking for new home
go there and start all over again where they
won't suffer persecution and can be happy"
When you are brought face to face with
these arguments. the question seems very
simple, but as a matter of fact, it is hopelessly
complicated And if you will bear with me for
few minutes. l shall try to show you why.
Our ancestors who were muchmore matter
of-faCt than we, used to print the words
Terra Incogniid across all those parts of the
map about which they knew either very little
or nothing at ALL and then they ceased to
bother about these regions Sometimes they
went a little further and were little more
precise, as in the case of those Spanish
map makers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. who covered the greater part of the
United States with the delightful legend, "All
this land is of no earthly use to anybody.
and then felt that they had done their duty
towards everything between the Alleghenes
and the Pacific Ocean.
All this land was of mo earthly use to
anybody and probably never would be, they
reasoned. so let us leave it to the Indians and
forget about it.
OF course. they were hopelessly mistaken,
for that land that was of mo possible use to
ANYBODY" is today the United States of
America.
And for all we know. those thousands OF
square miles that seem to us today to be of
mo use to anybody" may some day feed
millions of inhabitants. But we have our
doubts, for technically we have gone so far
ahead of our ancestors that we can make the
desert blossom and raise grain where our
prandfathers could only hunt wolves and
bears. or starve to death.
From strictly geographical point of view,