Science and Citizenship 



and time. The geographer sees the land in its 

 varying relief from sea -shore, over plain and 

 plateau, valley and height, up to mountain sum- 

 mit. He sees below the surface of the waters, 

 noting the shape and level of river-bed, of lake 

 and sea bottom. He sees the crust of the earth 

 everywhere in section, from the lowest and oldest 

 rocks up through the superimposed geological 

 strata, to the superficial deposits which wind and 

 rain, storm and sunshine, snow and frost, dis- 

 integrate for the making of soil, on which the 

 flora of the world fix themselves and feed, region 

 by region, and across which the fauna of the world 

 move and make their tiny marks and scratches. 

 He sees the surface of the globe changing from 

 day to day, season to season, age to age, epoch 

 to epoch. And these changes he sees to be brought 

 about in part by the place of the globe in space, 

 and its relation to other celestial bodies, and in 

 part by the very shape, form, and character of 

 the surface and configurations themselves. Thus 

 to the geographer the phantasmagoria of visible 

 things presents itself as a drama, a great cosmic 

 drama in which the part allotted to the human 

 species is both insignificant and predetermined in 

 all essential respects. The operations of man on 

 the planet are, from this point of view, limited 

 and conditioned by inexorable cosmic forces. The 

 roads and railways, by which man connects his 

 cities, are seen to be the merest scratches on the 

 surface of the globe, wholly comparable in their 

 insignificance to the tracks which the elephants 



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