PHYSIOGRAPHICAL GEOLOGY. I Si 



Morphology of the Earths Surface. In a general way 

 Strabo, Seneca, and Ptolemy had discussed the geographical 

 distribution and individual forms of the elements that make up 

 the surface configuration of our globe. But the works of 

 Cluverius, Nathanael Carpenter, Kircher, and Varenius in the 

 seventeenth century, contain the earliest attempts at systematic 

 treatment of surface forms according to their mode of origin. 

 From the seventeenth century to the present day the study of 

 the earth's configuration may be said to have gone hand in 

 hand with that of geology, for the theories which at any time 

 prevailed amongst geologists were not without influence upon 

 contemporary views regarding the surface forms. 



Hutton and Playfair drew attention to the marked effects of 

 water and heat upon the earth's surface ; and Werner and his 

 followers showed the connection between the geological 

 structure of the ground and the particular distribution of 

 surface forms continents, islands, mountain-chains, solitary 

 mountains, plateaux, valleys, etc. The first accurate and 

 convincing proofs of the relation between geological structures 

 and the shapes of mountains were given by Pallas and by De 

 Saussure, who was the first to carry out the complete ascent of 

 Mont Blanc. 



As our geographical knowledge widened, the necessity made 

 itself felt of grouping the scattered and fragmentary facts 

 together and deriving from them some general principles of 

 surface morphology. An effort in this direction was made 

 towards the end of the eighteenth century by Reinhold 

 Forster, whose Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die ^#(1783) 

 contained a formal treatment of such features as the shape of 

 the continents, the structure and position of islands, coastal 

 forms, and coral reefs. 



But the ever-increasing love of travel found its first in- 

 spired scientific exponent in the great Humboldt, whose 

 wonderful descriptions of his personal impressions of natural 

 landscapes and form were as artistic as his classification and 

 distinction of structural types in tropical America and in 

 Central Asia were masterly. Humboldt's writings bore essen- 

 tially the stamp of an eye-witness, and were concrete in 

 character. The works of Carl Ritter, his Erdkunde and books 

 of travel, were abtruse and teleological, the works of a student 

 and thinker. Richthofen writes of him : " Never have all the 

 known facts regarding a group of geographical areas, never 



