Physical geography

“ Thus geology, meteorology, oceanography and anthropology developed into distinct sciences. The absurd attempt was, and sometimes is still, made by geographers to include all natural science in geography; but it is more common for specialists in the various detailed sciences to think, and sometimes to assert, that the ground of physical geography is now fully occupied by these sciences. ”

“ In recent years, especially through the scientific study of physical geography, the processes that go to the formation of climate, soil, and general configuration of land masses have been accurately determined, and the methods of teaching so simplified that it is possible to lead out from the central idea mentioned to the physical explanations of the elements of geographical difference quite early in the course of study. ”

“ Finally, physical geography is permitted to spread over much the same ground from a natural-science standpoint, giving many additional and interesting facts and laws concerning zones, volcanoes, ocean-beds and currents, atmospheric phenomena, geologic history, etc. The same earth, the same lands and oceans, furnish the outline in each case, and we travel over the same ground three or four times successively, each time adding new facts to the original nucleus. ”

“ Thus, if Political Geography be closely connected and interwoven, as it were, with History, not less intimate are its relations to Physical Geography. It does not embrace all Physical Geography, but it introduces us to many facts and — 4 — phenomena, the causes and mutual relations of which we cannot understand without first mastering the teachings of Physical Geography. In the study of this latter science we come more closely into contact with Nature ”

“ The student of physical geography, aware how much national characteristics are formed or modified by peculiarities of physical structure in every country, would fain know more of the lands and the seas, the mountains and the rivers, the forests and the fields, which fall within the limits of this almost terra incognita. ”

“ Physical geography depicts in broad outlines the even or irregular configuration of continents, the relations of superficial area, and the distribution of continental masses in the two hemispheres, a distribution which exercises a powerful influence on the diversity of climate and the meteorological modifications of the atmosphere; this science defines the character of mountain chains, which, having been elevated at different epochs, constitute distinct systems, whether they run in parallel lines or intersect one another ”

“ The division of the earth's surface into 28 per cent. land and 72 per cent. water is an all important fact of physical geography and anthropo-geography. Owing to this proportion, the land-masses, which alone provide habitats for man, rise as islands out of the three-fold larger surface of the uninhabitable ocean. Consequently, the human species, like the other forms of terrestrial life, bears a deeply ingrained insular character. ”

“ Again: the earth, as a whole, may be studied in its present forms, and the mutual action of all its parts—lands and seas, mountains and valleys, rivers, gulfs, and bays, currents of air and ocean—and the manner in which all these, by action and reaction, co-operate to produce climates and physical conditions such as we now find them. This is physical geography. Or, we may study the earth in its gradual progress toward its present condition—the changes which have taken place in all these parts, and consequent changes in climate; in a word, the gradual process of becoming what it now is. ”

“ The progress of research has, indeed, shown us the necessity of separating from the tertiary class a considerable quantity and variety of superficial accumulations, more or less evidently related in their position to the present features of physical geography ”

“ One of the subjects treated of by Physical Geography is the present geographical distribution of plants and animals. The land-surface of the globe has been mapped out into so many biological regions, each of which is characterised by its special fauna and flora. The greatest changes in the flora and fauna of a continent are met with as we pass from south to north, or vice versa. Proceeding in the direction of the latitude, the changes encountered are much less striking. ”

“ The influence of physical environment becomes clearer and stronger when the distribution of plant and animal life is considered, and if it is less distinct in the case of man, the reason is found in the modifications of environment consciously produced by human effort. Geography is a synthetic science, dependent for the data with which it deals on the results of specialized sciences such as astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, biology and anthropology, as well as on topographical description. ”

“ We will try to show how the earth has been built up, and how the great and terrible changes through which our little globe has passed have been effected. In our own islands, Great Britain and Ireland, we shall find traces of all the materials likely to be useful to us in our quest, As has been well said, “Geology is the Physical Geography of the past.” ”

“ We see the light beginning to break upon us, for we now begin to perceive why it is that the proportions between the land and water were made as we find them in nature. If there had been more water and less land, we should have had more rain, and vice versa; and then climates would have been different from what they now are, and the inhabitants, animal or vegetable, would not have been as they are. ”

“ A physical law concerning the distribution of land and water.—There is another physical circumstance which obtains generally with regard to the distribution of land and water over the surface of the earth, and which, as far as it goes, seems to favour the hypothesis of much land about the south pole; and that circumstance is this : It seems to be a physical necessity that land should not be antipodal to land. Except a small portion of South America and Asia, land is always opposite to water. ”

“ THE doctrine that land forms have had a history chiefly distinguishes the new geography from the old. Geography, indeed, takes account of sea as well as land, of the phenomena of the atmosphere, the distribution of organisms, including man, of economic products and political divisions. But the new phase of geography, which is sometimes known as physiography, and later, as geomorphology, is not an isolated and formal element of the science; it rather underlies the whole, modifying or, more truly, controlling climate, organic distribution, and the history of man. ”

“ Ge-ography confines our attention to the Earth, and concentrates it upon the globe, regarded per se, rather than in its relations to the Universe. Taken, therefore, strictly, as already hinted at in the foregoing remark, Geography is the department of science that deals with the globe in all its features, phenomena, and relations, as an independent unit, and shows the connection of this unified whole with man and with man’s Creator. ”

“ Thus, as we see the popular survey of regions, geography in its literal and initial sense, deepening into the various analyses of this and that aspect or element of the environment which we call the natural sciences—but which we might with advantage also recognise as what they really are, each a geolysis—so these sciences or geolyses, again, are tending to reunite into a higher geography considered as an account of the evolution of the cosmos. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Into almost every anthropo-geographical problem the element of environment enters in different phases, with different modes of operation and varying degrees of importance. Since the causal conception of geography demands a detailed analysis of all the relations between environment and human development, it is advisable to distinguish the various classes of geographic influences. ”

“ Geography has preserved this comprehensiveness of meaning as a branch of the study in the elementary schools down to the present day. After arithmetic, which treats of the abstract or general conditions of material existence, comes geography with a practical study of man’s material habitat, and its relations to him. It is not a simple science by itself, like botany, or geology, or astronomy, but a collection of sciences levied upon to describe the earth as the dwelling-place of man and to explain something of its more prominent features. ”

“ Other departments are also drawn upon; there can be no close study of the soil, the structure of mountains and plains, without mineralogy and geology. Meteorology, too, the science which discusses the climatic conditions of countries and the effects of climate upon the organization of plants, animals, and man, is of no mean value in illustrating geography. Nor can one be a great geographer who does not understand the flora of the world. Not that he needs to be familiar with the myriads of plants, but the laws of growth and the characteristics of localization must be known. ”

“ As the mere existence of mountain range, desert, sea or river, may be essentially the influence which has led to the growth or downfall of empires, it is clearly seen that a sound knowledge of structural geography is absolutely necessary for all intelligent study of history ”

“ The sciences of geonomy are divided usually into two correlative groups, called geography, in which five departments are pretty well recognized, namely, ethereal geography, stellar geography, aerial geography, hydrographic geography, and land geography ”

“ Descending to the earth, we encounter first of all the general science of our globe, or geography. In this order of studies a German, Ritter, enjoys an incontestable preeminence. He is called, even in France, the "creator of scientific geography." Scientific geography rests for support on nearly all the sciences: it proceeds from the general results of chemistry, physics, and geology. ”

“ In the light of these original and suggestive studies one may contend that when geographic forms in their vast variety are thus systematically interpreted as the surface features of as many structures, belonging to a moderate number of families and having expression characteristic of their age and accidents, their elevation and opportunity, then geography will be for the wasting lands what palæontology has come to be for the growing ocean floors. ”

“ In the first two of these arbitrary divisions into which Geography was severed, the relations of astronomy, mathematics, and physics were studied, and their applications to the confused phenomena of the globe investigated. Yet the most important thing of all escaped notice; students overlooked their chief task, the tracing of causation and interdependence in the phenomena, and the relation of every one to the country which supplies its conditions of being. It was not suspected that each phenomenon was one link of a great chain of phenomena, the whole revealing a comprehensive law. ”

“ In all these questions of former land connection, anthropo-geography follows the lead of bio-geography, whose deductions, based upon the dispersal of countless plant and animal forms, point to the paths of human distribution. ”

“ What I want to lay before you for your very earnest consideration is this—that we should take a profounder and broader view of Geography, of its fundamental conception, and of its scope and aim, than we have hitherto taken; and should regard the Earth as Mother-Earth, and the Beauty of her features as within the purview of Geography.
I will state my case as clearly and briefly as I can. Geography is a science. Science is learning, knowing, understanding. The object of geographical learning, knowing, understanding is the Earth. ”

“ The eventual form and scope of the science, the definition and organization of its material must evolve gradually, after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field. The eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns against precipitate or rigid conclusions. ”

“ The investigation into the relations of the Earth, in this respect, and into the organization of all the natural laws and phenomena in their bearing on man, his life and history, must constitute a prominent department of true geographical science. ”

“ It is no longer European culture that demands this, but the welfare of all countries claims of scholars this knowledge far more imperatively than a hundred years ago. Still, it must be confessed that we are far from the attainment of a perfect science of Geography, in its largest sense; the science which regards the Earth as the field of human discipline; the science of which what was formerly called Geography is only an outlying, rudimentary part. ”

“ We have now been tracing upon a spherical surface the region which we state to be occupied by the habitable earth; and whoever would represent the real earth as near as possible by artificial means, should make a globe like that of Crates, and upon this describe the quadrilateral within which his chart of geography is to be placed. ”