RELATIONS TO OTHER SCIENCES 611 



detic surveys is the determination of the surface of the geoid. The 

 former, however, must be preceded by the latter; the geodesist sup- 

 plies the frame, the topographer fills in the picture. 



For these reasons geodesy is usually ranked above cartography, but 

 the topographer then often fails to win the desirable sympathy with 

 that science in whose service he really stands. This lack of sympathy 

 is not rarely to be seen in Europe, where the geographic mapping of 

 most of the countries lies in the hands of the army. Scholars cannot 

 be too thankful for this peaceful service rendered by the army, but 

 the fact cannot be concealed that the emphasizing of those features 

 which are of military importance has not always advanced our 

 knowledge of that which is geographically true. The employment of 

 contour-lines, which are so indispensable for the physiographer, was 

 long neglected in Europe because of the exclusive importance there 

 ascribed to the surveying of the militarily significant inclinations of 

 the slopes. Even to-day the map-maker runs the danger of using 

 stereotyped, stencil-like methods, because he so often records forms 

 whose nature and significance are unknown to him. And though it is 

 often claimed that the topographer merely draws that which he 

 sees, yet one forgets thereby that a specially trained observer sees 

 much more than one not so trained. The mere mapping of the forms 

 of the earth's surface does not lead to a deeper understanding of 

 them. It is true that topographic surveying long since observed 

 and made use of the fact that the surface of the earth is not only 

 a surface whose every point may be represented in a projection by 

 an individual point, but is a constantly downward-sloping surface 

 throughout the greater portion of its extent. This recognition 

 brought them the knowledge that the modeling of the earth's sur- 

 face must have been chiefly accomplished by exogene forces, but it 

 was attempted to refer the work to very great, and in part to cata- 

 strophic forces, rather than to slowly working causes. It is but a 

 few years since that great floods and cataclysms played the same 

 rdles in those theories of the earth's surface which were taught in 

 many military courses as they did in the scientific literature of the 

 eighteenth century. 



Although it is very necessary, in the interests of exactness of survey 

 of the surface forms, that the topographic work be under the control 

 of the geodetic side, yet this subordination has not essentially 

 increased our understanding of the forms. The greatest advances 

 in method of cartographic representation of these forms have been 

 made in those countries whose maps have been executed by tech- 

 nically well-educated engineers. The leading part played by Switzer- 

 land in the cartographic circles of Europe is due to this fact. 



A true comprehension of the forms of the earth's surface must 

 rest upon a genetic basis. It is only since we have accustomed our- 



