Grants sp-sor

We often say that there are no places left on the Earth where the foot of man has not trod. That,
however, is not quite so: there are still vast unexplored regions in Africa and in South America, not to
mention the Antarctic.
But even if we think that there are no blank spots on the map of the Earth, the Earth's land is not the
most typical for our planet. Dry land takes up no more than a third of the Earth's surface, the rest being
covered by the world ocean. Under it there are still hidden mountains, such as the Lomonosov Range in the
Arctic Ocean. Since we know only a third of our planet, its solid surface, we cannot establish the general
laws of its structure. To make up detailed geological and geographical maps of the ocean's bed — that is the
huge task which scientists of the 21st century will face.
Even greater are the prospects ahead for geologists. Today a little over four miles is the greatest depth
reached by drilling. We still do not know whether the core of our planet is red-hot with a temperature as
high as that of the stars, or only some 1,500 to 2,000 degrees, or if it retains the original cold of cosmic
space. I believe that by the 21st century we shall know all about the Earth's crust down to a depth of 20
miles.
The geographer of the future will be busy changing the nature of regions, and perhaps whole continents on
the globe. The study of warm ocean- currents makes it possible even today to predict how the climate will
change if their direction is changed.
Future society will be able to change the direction of sea as well as air currents. And then a stable humid
climate will be created over deserts, and they will flower, and the everfrozen ground of Siberia and North
America, and perhaps of Greenland, too, will be thawed.
To put it in a nutshell, the geographer will be a maker of nature instead of a describer of it.