September 26, 1901] 



NA TURE 



535 



a people has been carried too far by some writers — by Buckle, 

 in his "History of Civilisation," for example — but it is no less 

 certain that this influence is a potent one. 



The Nature of Geography. 



Granted that such influence is exercised, some objectors may 

 urge that geography has nothing to do with the matter, and we 

 are compelled to acknowledge that the meaning and contents of 

 geography are in this country as variously interpreted as the 

 colour of the chameleon in the traveller's tale. Vet my thesis 

 is that it is just thi^ relation between the forms of the solid crust 

 of the Earth and all the other phenomena of the surface that 

 constitutes the very essence of geography. 



It is a fact that many branches of the study of the Earth's 

 surface which were included in the cosmography of the sixteenth 

 century, the physiography of Linna;us, the physical geography 

 of Humboldt, and perhaps even the Erdkuiidc of Ritter, have 

 been elaborated by specialists into studies which, for their full 

 comprehension, require the whole attention of the student. 

 Geology, meteorology, oceanography and anthropology, for 

 example, have been successively specialised out of geography : 

 but it does not follow that these specialisations fully occupy the 

 place of geography, for that place is to coordinate and correlate 

 all the special facts concerned so that they may throw light on 

 the plan and the processes of the Earth and its inhabitants. 

 Geography, in fact, is concerned with the results, not with the 

 processes of the special sciences, and the limits between geography 

 and geology, to take a single instance, are to be drawn, not 

 between any one class of phenomena and another, but between 

 one way and another of marshalling and utilising the same facts. 

 This was clear to Carpenter in 1625, though we have almost 

 forgotten both it and him. 



The Principles of Geography. 



The principles of geography — the " pleasant principles," to 

 use the phrase of old William Cuningham in 1559 — on which 

 its claims to status as a science rest are generally agreed upon 

 by modern geographers, though with such variations as arise 

 from differences of standpoint and of mental process. The 

 evolutionary idea is unifying geography as it has unified Ijiology, 

 and the whole complicated subject may be presented as the 

 result of continuous progressive change brought about and guided 

 by the influence of external conditions. These views have been 

 often expressed in recent years, but they do not seem to have 

 been very seriously considered, and no excuse need be offered 

 for presenting them once more, though in an epitome curt to 

 baldness. 



The science of geography is of course based on the mathe- 

 matical properties of a rotating sphere ; but if we define geo- 

 graphy as the exact and organised knowledge of the distribution 

 of phenomena on the surface of the Earth, we see the force of 

 Kant's classification, which subordinated mathematical to 

 physical geography. The vertical relief of the Earth's crust 

 shows us the grand and fundamental contrast between the oceanic 

 hollow and the continental ridges ; and the hydrosphere is so 

 guided by gravitation as to fill the hollow and rise upon the 

 slopes of the ridges to a height depending on its volume, thus 

 introducing the great superficial separation into land and sea. 

 The movements of the water of the ocean are guided in every 

 particular by the relief of the sea-bed and the configuration of 

 the coast lines. Even the distribution of the atmosphere over 

 the Earth's surface is affected by the relief of the crust, the 

 direction and force of the winds being largely dominated by the 

 form of the land over which they blow. The diflerent physical 

 constitution of land, water and air, especially the great difference 

 between the specific heat and conductivity or diathermancy of 

 the three, causes changes in the distribution of the sun's heat, 

 and as a result the simple climatic zones and rhythmic seasons 

 of the mathematical sphere are distorted out of all their primi- 

 tive simplicity. The whole irregular distribution of rainfall and 

 aridity, of permanent, seasonable and variable winds, of sea- 

 climate and land-climate, is the resultant of the guiding action of 

 land forms on the air and water currents, disturbed in this way 

 from their primitive theoretical circulation. So far we see the sur- 

 face forms of the Earth, themselves largely the result of the action 

 of climatic forces, and constantly undergoing change in a definite 

 direction, controlling the two great systems of fluid circulation. 

 These in turn control the distribution of plants and aniir.als, in 

 conjunction with the direct action of surface relief, the natural 

 regions and climatic belts dictating the distribution of living 



NO T665, VOL. 64] 



creatures. A more complicated state of things is found whei> 

 the combined physical and biological environment is studied m 

 its incidence on the distribution of the human race, the areas of 

 human settlement, and the lines of human communications. The 

 complication arises partly from the fact that each of the successive 

 earlier environments acts both independently and collectively ; 

 but the difiiculty is in greater degree due to the circumstance that; 

 man alone amongst animals is capable of reacting on his en- 

 vironment and deliberately modifying the conditions which 

 control him. 



It seems to me that the glory of geography as a science, the 

 fascination of geography as a study, and the value of geography 

 in practical affairs are all due to the recognition of this unifying 

 influence of surface relief in controlling, though in the higher 

 developments rather by suggestion than dictation, the incidence 

 of every mobile distribution on the Earth's surface. 



The Classification of Geography, 



Following out this idea, we are led to a classification of the 

 field of geography in a natural order, in which every department 

 arises out of the preceding with no absolute line of demarcation, 

 and merges into the succeeding in the same way. This classi- 

 fication, it is necessary to note, is not like a series of pigeon- 

 holes, which may be placed in any arbitrary order, but like a 

 chain, in which the succession of the links is essential and 

 unalterable. 



Since form and dimension are the first and fundamental 

 concepts in geography, the first and basal division is the 

 Mathematical. Mathematical geography leaves the Earth as a 

 spinning ball lighted and warmed according to a rigid succession 

 of diurnal and annual changes. This merges into the domair> 

 of Physical Geography, which involves the results of contem- 

 porary change in the crust and the circulation of the fluid 

 envelopes, with the resulting modifications in the simple and 

 predictable mathematical distributions. This division falls 

 naturally into three parts : Geomorphology, dealing with the 

 forms of the solid crust and the changes they are undergoing 

 at the present time ; Oceanography, dealing with the great 

 masses of water in the world ; and Climatology, dealing 

 with the effects of solar energy in the air. But all three 

 spheres — lithosphere, hydrosphere, and atmosphere — are so 

 closely inter-related that no one of them can be studied without 

 some preliminary knowledge of the others. This forms the 

 largest and most important part of geography, more varied and 

 intricate than the mathematical, better known and more definite 

 than those involving life. 



Bio-geography, the geographical distribution of life, arises 

 directly from physical geography, which dominates it, but it is full 

 of complex questions which involve the biological nature of the ' 

 organism and the influence of physical environment, in which 

 geographical elements, although predominant, do not act alone. 

 Difficult as some of the problems of the distribution of life are 

 at the present day, the remains of living creatures found fossil in 

 the rocks, and the survivors of archaic forms still lingering in 

 remote islands, supply us with our only instrument of research 

 Into the- geography of past ages, often making it possible to lay 

 down the areas of land and water in earlier geological periods. 



The relation of man to the surface of the Earth detaches itself 

 from the rest of Bio-geography by the number of exceptions to 

 general laws of distribution and by the human power of modify- 

 ing environment. It has necessarily been formed into a special 

 department, Anthropo-geography. In primitive man the control 

 exercised by environment is nearly as complete and simple 

 as in the case of the lower animals ; but with every advance in 

 culture fresh complications are introduced. The relation of 

 people to the land they inhabit, the choice of sites for dwell- 

 ings and towns, the planning and carrying into effect of lines 

 of communication, are all obviously much under the control of 

 land form and climate. When people get settled in a favourable 

 position they usually become attached to it ; they acquire, one 

 may say, the colour of the land, in modes of thought as well as 

 in manner of life. The poems of Ossian and the Crofter Ques- 

 tion require for their elucidation a knowledge of the geographical 

 conditions of the Western Highlands, just as the Border ballads 

 and the Border raids were largely conditioned by the geography 

 of the Southern Uplands. <r. . . 



Attachment to the native valley or the native fields leads 

 to the holding of land by clans or tribes and the fusion of tribes 

 into nations, while changes in physical conditions stimulating 

 migration from a deteriorating country may lead to the invasion 



