EARTH SCIENCES IN NINETEENTH CENTURY 683 



use in money and fuel of the properties that gold and coal possess, 

 just as we make use of moving air in wind-mills and of falling water 

 in factories. 



There are no special names for the phenomena of oceans or of the 

 other divisions of physiography, considered as elements of organic 

 environment; and there is perhaps no need of such names. Yet I 

 hold that it is desirable, and even important, to recognize the two 

 ways in which the inorganic features of the earth may be studied: 

 either for themselves, without regard to their controls over organic 

 life; or as elements of an inhabited planet, with continuous attention 

 to the controls that they exert over the inhabitants. 



When we come to the organic inhabitants of the earth, it is evident 

 that they fall under biology when studied for themselves, and that 

 they may be divided under botany and zoology, and subdivided as 

 often as is desired. This is manifestly true as well of fossils as of 

 living forms. When, on the other hand, the inhabitants of the earth 

 are studied with respect to the responses that they have made to their 

 inorganic or physiographic environment, they are appropriately 

 included under geography. It has been recognized for many years 

 that no geographical description of a region is complete without some 

 account of its plants and animals, and especially of its peoples; just 

 as no paleogeographic account of a geological horizon would be 

 satisfying if its fossil fauna and flora were left unmentioned. But 

 in recent years it has been seen necessary to treat uniformly all the 

 organic elements of geographical descriptions in their relations to 

 environing controls; for, as I have already shown, if a beginning is 

 made, there is no reasonable stopping-place until this end is reached. 



We are in this matter still sometimes too much under the control 

 of traditional methods of treatment; we do not fully enough put into 

 practical effect the greater lessons that we have learned. The earth 

 as the home of man is a primitive, elementary definition of geography; 

 the earth as the home of life is more consistent with present progress. 

 Earth science has now certainly reached a position in which the unity 

 and continuity of life are recognized. Let us then adopt this position 

 as our starting-point in the organic half of geography that may be 

 called ontography. Let us make it practically useful by treating 

 all organic responses to environment under one general heading. 



