548 ISRAEL C. RUSSELL 



The control exerted by physiographical environment on human 

 development is so subtle, so concealed beneath seemingly accidental 

 circumstances, and its importance so obscured by psychological con- 

 ditions, that its recognition has been of slow growth. The countless 

 adjustments of both the individual man and of groups of men in com- 

 munities, nations, and races to physical conditions^ is so familiar that 

 the sequence of causes leading to observed results passes as a matter 

 of course and to a great extent fails to excite comment. The due 

 recognition of the influence of physiographic environment on history 

 is now coming to the front, and, as is evident, the rewriting of history, 

 and especially the history of industry, from the point of view of the 

 physiographer, is one of the great tasks of the future. The problems 

 in this broad field are countless, and the end in view is similar to those 

 embraced in dynamical physiography, namely, the study of the various 

 ways in which man is now influenced by his physical environment, with 

 the view of interpreting the records of similar changes in the past 

 and of predicting future results. Or more definitely formulated: 

 peoples have reached a high degree of culture under certain multiple 

 conditions of environment, while other peoples, exposed to other 

 combinations of conditions, have remained stationary, or retrograded 

 and become degenerate. What are the essential conditions in con- 

 trol in the one case or the other? Can predictions be made as to 

 what the results of a given combination of physical conditions on a 

 given community will be, in spite of that other and still more mobile, 

 and as yet but little understood, group of conditions embraced under 

 the term psychology ? Many profound questions, in the solution 

 of which the physiographer unites his efforts with those of the student 

 of the humanities, present themselves for study during the century 

 that is yet young. 



Within the broader questions just suggested are many others that 

 are more concrete and definite, and of vital importance to mankind, 

 which can be conveniently grouped under the term economic physi- 

 ography. The problems which here present themselves share their 

 chief interests with the engineer. They relate to plans for transpor- 

 tation in all of its various forms, drainage, irrigation, water supply, 

 sanitation, choice of municipal locations, control of river floods, 

 selection of cities for homes, farms, vineyards, factories, etc. In 



