54 THE FIRST YEARBOOK 



mineralogy." Hence the physical description of the world by a geog- 

 rapher of Humboldt's type is "not to be confounded with a so-called 

 cyclopaedia of natural sciences." In such geographic writings details 

 are studied only in their relation to the whole as parts of the world's 

 phenomena. In refutation of the charge that geography is but "an 

 agglomeration of fragmentary knowledge borrowed from a dozen other 

 sciences," the same writer has well shown that there is "no science now 

 known in which one mind can have an equally complete command of 

 all subdivisions; even the greatest men in medicine, zoology, history, 

 etc., are specialists in some definitely limited areas." Hence a physician 

 is still a scientist, though he be not a specialist in laryngology or 

 gynaecology; and a place in science is granted to the geologist, though 

 he be not a palaeontologist. 



Perhaps the relation which geography bears to kindred sciences 

 may be best likened to that borne in these days of specialization by 

 civil engineering to allied branches of the engineering profession. 

 The assertion is frequently made that the parent profession, civil engi- 

 neering, has ceased to exist; that it is but a hash of its component 

 specialties — hydraulic, sanitary, topographic, railroad, bridge, mining, 

 electrical, and mechanical engineering — from each of which it borrows 

 a little. The absurdity of this becomes evident when we consider that 

 the electrical engineer who builds a rural trolley line or develops 

 electric energy from water power, and the mining engineer who drives 

 a tunnel or constructs a tramroad, may with equal truth be said to be 

 practicing a composite calling composed of civil, hydraulic, and 

 mechanical engineering. In this day of specialization and of adminis- 

 trative concentration, it is but natural that the foremost workers in 

 scientific as in commercial pursuits, jostled by the elbows of the 

 devotees of sister-sciences, should give expression to their "com- 

 munity of interests" feeling by endeavoring to absorb or attach all 

 that comes in touch with them. Civil engineering still remains the 

 parent or administrative engineering profession, which correlates the 

 wisdom of its component branches by utilizing on the greatest works 

 the services of their specialists. Yet, in the beginning, the greatest of 

 our civil engineers were themselves specialists, and they may still be 

 called upon to lend their special services to mining, hydraulic, and 

 electrical engineers, or to architects. 



It is so with geography, the oldest of sciences, which properly 

 bears the same relation to the natural sciences that civil engineering 



