THE NEW GEOGRAPHY. 815 



the other life and have commnnion with angels and spirits, occa- 

 sionally it even sees God himself. In many such hallucinatory 

 experiences there is a curious constancy of type which, with our 

 scanty information, we can not at present explain, and I would 

 be glad to receive authentic accounts of any cases known to my 

 readers. 



THE NEW GEOGRAPHY. 



By ALBERT PEEEY BEIGHAM. 



THE doctrine that land forms have had a history chiefly dis- 

 tinguishes 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 sci- 

 ence ; it rather underlies the whole, modifying or, more truly, con- 

 trolling climate, organic distribution, and the history of man. The 

 new geography can not, therefore, be charged with infringing 

 upon the rights of the old, for it contributes vitality, unity, and 

 continuity to the whole range of geographic fact and theory ; it 

 rejects absolutely the category of the author of one of our text- 

 books in physical geography, that the air, the water, and the land 

 are " the three dead geographic forms." 



Geography is sometimes defined as a description of the earth as 

 it is, without reference to its past. One author has called it the 

 science of distribution, but well adds that because it is a science it 

 can not rest in a mere record, but must have the causes. The new 

 movement has simply applied the evolutionary principle to ge- 

 ography, giving it the life and freedom which this doctrine has 

 imparted to all other sciences in our day. It has been seriously 

 asked whether the new notion of geography does not confuse it 

 with geology. Thus the minority report of the Conference on Ge- 

 ography to the Committee of Ten criticises the majority report as 

 bearing too plainly the marks of the geologist's hand. It may as 

 well be frankly admitted that geography and geology overlap. 

 All sciences transgress each other's boundaries, and all bounds in 

 Nature are largely matters of convenience. Geology never truly 

 interpreted terrestrial history until, with Hutton and Lyell, it 

 took to studying geography. Nor will the geographer understand 

 the earth which he sees until he takes account of geology. Land 

 forms can not be truly seen or faithfully described until seen and 

 described in the light of their origin. Such forms will hide them- 

 selves from the student who thinks they are dead. For him they 



