EROSION AND THE SUMMIT LEVEL OF THE ALPS 23 



have been rarely used, apparently because few physiographers care 

 to carry their analyses so far into detail as the use of these terms 

 implies. 



In Great Britain the scheme of the erosion cycle has not been 

 actively cultivated, although its leading principles appear to be 

 more or less passively accepted there. In France the principles of 

 the scheme were largely recognized by de la Noe and de Margerie 

 in their notable work, Les Formes du Terrain (Paris, 1888), and the 

 developed scheme was cordially adopted by de Lapparent and given 

 effective publicity in his Leqons de Geographie physique (Paris, 

 1896); it has since then been practically appHed in a number of 

 essays, but the devotion of most French geographers to the historical 

 aspects of their science seems to have caused them to give only a 

 secondary attention to physical geography, the scheme of the cycle 

 of erosion included. 



In Germany a number of geographers, including Penck,^ Riihl,^ 

 and Braun,^ have accepted the scheme more or less fully, but certain 

 others, especially Hettner'' and Passarge,^ have rejected it on various 

 grounds. Some of the objections to it may be noted. 



Objections to the scheme of the cycle. — Various objections have 

 been made to the terminology of the scheme. In spite of the not 

 infrequent use of the German word for cycle (Zyklus) in such a 

 phrase as a cycle or course of lectures, in which the conclusion of the 

 last lecture need have no relation to the introduction to the first, the 

 phrase "cycle of erosion" has nevertheless been objected to because 

 the initial form is not returned to in the ultimate form. However, 

 if insistence be made on that point, it may be answered that a good 

 number of cycles do begin and end with very similar forms. Such 

 is the case with plains and plateaus; and also singularly enough 



' See his chapter in Scobel's Handhuch, referred to above. 



2 "Eine neue Methode auf dem Gebiet der Geomorphologie," Fortschr. naiurwiss. 

 Forschung, VI (1912), pp. 67-130. 



^Grundziige der Physiogeographie, Leipzig, ist ed., 1911; 2d ed., 1915-17. This 

 book is a modified translation of my Physical Geography. 



4 In addition to various essays in the Geographische Zeitschrijt, see Die Oberflachen- 

 formen des Festlandes, Leipzig, 192 1. 



s"Die Grundlagen der Landschaftskunde," Die Oberfldchenges talking der Erde, 

 Vol. Ill, Hamburg, 1919. 



