Hermann Joseph Klein

“ With the aid of meteorology it shows how one continent tends to reduce another to the condition of a desert; and, taking man into the sphere of its observations, it discusses the influence of the soil and the configuration of a region upon the course of culture-development therein, and even upon the development of peculiarities of speech. Scientific geography in this way vivifies the dead superficies of our planet, and gives to the conventional lines of a map the power of speaking a language that is understood by the educated mind. ”

“ When the astronomer aims at new applications of the theory of disturbance, or when the physicist studies the phenomena of polarization; when the chemist undertakes to break up combinations of elements, or the geologist investigates the relations subsisting between different strata, each of these investigators labors in his own province, almost entirely without reference to the progress made in other departments of science. ”

“ The endeavor to meet the requirements of a higher geography is also to be seen in the better style of our modern maps. Thus, whereas in former times the seas were represented by blank spaces surrounding the land, now we have the results of soundings carefully represented, and the lines of equal depths, as they are more or less parallel to the present contours of the coast, supply to the geographer valuable data with respect to the formation of the land itself. ”

“ Scientific geography is dependent upon a number of other sciences, and its progress is conditioned upon the development of these. No other science is so ill adapted as geography to advance independently and without external aid. ”

“ But if, turning aside from these geological considerations, we again glance at our map of relative depths, we almost everywhere find that a flat coast accompanies a shallow sea; while, on the other hand, a mountainous coast implies a sudden and precipitous inclination of the neighboring sea-bottom. ”

“ Cartography is a powerful aid to scientific geography, inasmuch as it arranges in true projection a great mass of heterogeneous materials, bringing it before the eye within small space, and thus making apparent relations which else could hardly be noticed. As for political geography, viz., the description of the various empires of the world, their area, provinces, population, etc., this we would regard rather as a branch of statistics than of geography proper.—Gaea. ”

“ The shallow depth between Africa and Sicily, and especially the track of the hundred-fathom line, shown in our map by a dotted curve, prove that, at a time not very remote geologically, Africa and Europe were much nearer to one another than they are now, and that in the still remoter past the two continents were connected at this point. ”

“ Then, too, we must not overlook those sciences which have to do with organic Nature and which' consider from higher points of view the distribution of living beings. Bearing all this in mind, we can readily perceive how intimate is the connection between geography and all the natural sciences. Hence it is that in earlier times the idea of scientific geography could hardly be entertained. At first geography offered little besides an imperfectly-arranged mass of descriptions of strange lands and curious things ”

“ Scientific geography, on the other hand, regards these deserts as an integral part of the terrestrial organism, and shows how their occurrence is not accidental, but a necessary result of the past and present distribution of land and water, and of the position of the zone of calms. It exhibits to us the process of forming deserts still active, inasmuch as there exist centres of sand-radiation. ”

“ AMONG the various branches of natural science which have in recent times attained a high development, geography holds a prominent rank. By this, however, we must understand, not so much that vast regions of previously unexplored country have been made known to the educated world ”

“ The Lehmann method of representing the surface of a country with equidistant level-lines would be, in many respects, of the highest service for the study of the earth's surface, but as yet it can be practically employed only in individual cases, partly from the want of materials, partly also on account of technical difficulties. ”

“ It solves for us the enigma of the formation of springs in the oases, inasmuch as it rejects as unverified the asserted absolute rainlessness of the deserts, and in the precipitated meteoric water finds a sufficient supply for the wells of the low-lying oases. ”