22 National Geographic Magazine. 



ceived from that which has overtaken the biological sciences. 

 The better teaching of these subjects lays representative forms 

 before the student and requires him to examine their parts 

 minutely. The importance of the parts is not judged merely by 

 their size, but by their signiiicance also. From a real knowledge 

 of these few types and their life history it is easy to advance in 

 school days or afterwards to a rational understanding of a great 

 number of forms. Few students ever go so far in school as to 

 study the forests of North America or the fauna of South Amer- 

 ica. It is sufficient for them to gain a fair acquaintance with a 

 good number of the type forms that make up these totals. It is 

 quite time that geography should as far as possible be studied in 

 the same way, No school boy can gain a comprehensive idea of 

 the structure of a continent until he knows minutely the individ- 

 iial parts of which continents are composed, No explorer can 

 perceive the full meaning of the countiy he traverses, or record 

 his observations so that they can be read intelligently by others 

 until he is fully conversant with the features of geographic types 

 and with the changes in their exjDression as they grow old. Both 

 scholar and explorer should be trained in the examination and de- 

 scription of geographic types, not necessarily copies of actual 

 places, before attempting to study the physical features of a 

 country composed of a large number of geographic individuals. 

 When thus prepared, geography will not only serve in geologic 

 investigation, it will prosper in its proper field as well. 



Geographic description will become more and more definite as 

 the observer has more and better type forms to which he may 

 liken those that he finds in his explorations, and the reader, taught 

 from the same types, will gather an intelligent appreciation of 

 the observer's meaning. Take the region north of Philadelphia 

 above referred to. Having grown up upon it, I called it a hilly 

 country, in accordance with the geographic lessons of my school 

 days, and continued to do so for twenty years or more, until on 

 opening niy eyes its real form was perceived. It is a surface 

 worn down nearly to a former base level but now diversified by 

 ramifying valleys, cut into the old base level in consequence of a 

 subsequent but not very ancient elevation of a moderate amount. 

 Maturity is not yet reached in the present cycle of develojDment, 

 for there is still much of the old base level surface remaining, 

 into which the valleys are gnawing their head ravines and thus 

 increasing the topographic differentiation. Perhaps not more 



