( Presented to the Society January 23, 1891 .) Very few of the geographic events of the past year have been of such an essential nature as to require a reference in this report, and yet some of them are of surpassing interest. Fraught, as many of them are, with policies that must have a marked influence in the future in developing the still uncivilized regions and increasing the prosperity of the established communities, they present a field for research that has already attracted the political