S88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



curious minds as to why the ten largest cities were largest. They merely 

 were. No one tried to tell why the great wheat plains were plains. 

 They just were. Yea, verily have many been piloted about the earth, 

 passing with kaleidoscopic haste picture after picture, cramming their 

 heads with encyclopedic facts until they were made aching by the rush 

 of detail. Truly were they as the summer tourist with red Baedeker 

 in hand, seeing and learning. 



Geography is not a mere placing of things upon an earth. It is 

 not a subject fit only to be placed in childhood's curriculum and passed 

 through hurriedly during immature years. Geography ought to 

 awaken an interest and kindle an enthusiasm rivaled by few other 

 sciences, to all minds, the mature as well as the young, because of its 

 far-reaching relations. What about the romance of the forces of the 

 earth, the beauty of topographic expression? Why not see in the tiny 

 trickle of the rain gully the roaring, destruction-bearing Colorado? 

 or behold in the frozen cap of the pond ice the wasted expanse of 

 Greenland's glaciers? — or picture in the muddy sidewalk the tons of 

 debris dumped by the Father of Waters at New Orleans to add new 

 lands to the old? 



Vermont may be a great producer of slate. But why? What a 

 story a piece of Vermont slate might tell ! — of a time many thousands 

 of years ago when beneath the sea were being deposited muds worn from 

 the land beyond. Then, deeply buried beneath overlying sediments, 

 the clay became pressed to a firm shale. In the turning and folding of 

 the whole mass to make new land, the heat of the disturbance baked the 

 shale, and the pressure of the overlying rocks developed in it the fine 

 planes of cleavage; the shale became a slate. And the wearing of the 

 rocks above by the processes of erosion brought to man's view the roofing 

 of his home ! Then, too, compare the passionate temperamental Italian 

 with his more stable and phlegmatic cousins of the north. Is it just 

 " the nature of the beast " ? or is there a " why " ? Why is the oriental 

 art so rich in all its riot of color ? Why the prominence of Philadelphia, 

 Chicago, Eichmond? Why the steel rails of Pittsburgh? — the great 

 fruit produce of New York? 



These and many like questions may give an insight into the " differ- 

 ent " way of thinking of geography. For, although all of us will admit 

 that what we have or are is because we are of the earth's food, shelter or 

 clothing — the three E's of life — ^yet I want to suggest some of the per- 

 haps less well known but just as interesting correlations between our- 

 selves and geographical conditions. 



The earth supplies man with the necessities of food, clothing and 

 shelter, which, naturally, differ in different parts of the world. And 

 yet in each locality man has adapted himself to these differences. The 



