REPORT OF ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON GEOGRAPHY 



To the Board of Trustees of the Carnegie Institution. 



Gentlemen : The subject of geography being named without 

 limitation in my appointment as adviser, I wish briefly to set forth 

 the contents of the subject as a whole, in order to indicate the rela- 

 tion of its several parts and to point out those that seem most in 

 need of aid. 



Geography is best defined as the study of the relationship between 

 the factors of physical environment (causes) and the responses of the 

 environed organisms (effect), and hence of these factors and responses 

 themselves. The subject ma}^ be treated systematically or region- 

 ally, but neither of these chief divisions has yet reached a mature 

 development. vSystematically, all the different categories of phj^sical 

 factors and of organic responses are taken up, illustrated by typical 

 examples, and arranged in some appropriate order. Regionally, all 

 the physical factors and organic responses occurring in a certain re- 

 gion are brought together, in an arrangement corresponding to that 

 adopted for systematic geography. Under either of these headings 

 special attention may be given to larger or smaller parts of the sub- 

 ject ; but at present it is too generally the case that these partial 

 studies are undertaken without any sufficient consideration of the 

 relation of the parts of the whole. 



The Carnegie Institution can do much to aid the development of 

 the scientific and thorough study of geography, and some practical 

 suggestions to this end are given below ; but it is desired to explain 

 at the outset that some of the most promising results may be expected 

 from comparatively young geographers, for the reason of the unde- 

 veloped condition of the subject as a whole. In this respect geogra- 

 phy occupies a very different position from astronomy. Geography 

 has long had the service of men of energy and of action ; but the 

 more philosophical side of the subject has been little developed by 

 geographers. Astronomy, on the other hand, has for centuries 

 commanded the services of the greatest intellects of the world, and it 

 today is recognized as holding a leading place among the sciences. 

 It is in the hope of developing the more scientific or philosophical 

 side of geography that I recommend below the granting of aid not 

 only to professional geographers of established position, but also to 



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