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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLI. No. 1051 



does our going leave a zone of destruction 

 behind. Our work is constructive and slow. 

 Whether the worker be a geographer or 

 bear some longer name, is not material. If 

 he have no name at all, let us accept his 

 fact, his principle, in good faith that as 

 workers and half -thoughts come and go, the 

 body of truth gathers volume, order and 

 power. 



We come now to the last phase of our 

 discussion, the most important and difficult 

 of all — lines of investigation. What is our 

 present status? It would be a good work 

 if some one would review historically the 

 progress of the idea of environmental influ- 

 ence. Here the barest sketch must be the 

 preliminary to our inquiry. 



We may pass by the fragmental notices 

 of ancient and medieval writers. Modern 

 seed thoughts are not uncommon, and some 

 harvest could be gathered from the philos- 

 ophers and literary writers, Hobbes, Mon- 

 tesquieu, Kant, Herder, Hegel, Comte, 

 Taine, and others. Humboldt, Ritter and 

 Guyot laid the foundations of our modern 

 human geography, and then came Darwin, 

 pointing the road to fruitful study for all 

 the sciences of oi-ganic nature and of man. 

 Ratzel, in the spirit of Darwin, kept the 

 unfolding of geography abreast of the 

 progress of anthropology, history and other 

 human sciences in the last half century, 

 and now Miss Semple has placed all geog- 

 raphers in her debt in the expansion and 

 precision which she has added to the work 

 of Ratzel. 



General works of lesser scope, some of 

 them regional, have appeared in this coun- 

 try and in Europe. Mackinder, Herbert- 

 son, Lyde, Chisholm, and others in Great 

 Britain, and Vidal la Blaehe, Brunhes, 

 Partseh, Penck and many others on the 

 continent, have made important contribu- 

 tions. Already we have a large and 

 rapidly growing list of small mono- 

 graphs dealing with limited phases or 



regions in this country. In America this 

 work is largely the achievement, direct and 

 indirect, of the members of this associa- 

 tion, and the present program is sharp evi- 

 dence of the force of an impulse that has 

 gathered power among us during the ten 

 years of our cooperative endeavor. 



My first hint is in the direction of clima- 

 tology in its relation to man.*^ Here is a 

 new science, with a growing body of obser- 

 vation, generalization and record, made 

 available in description and in maps. 

 Climatology is beginning to be appreciated 

 in relation to other fields of physical geog- 

 raphy. We begin to value and to express 

 in text-books the relation of the atmosphere 

 to the origin of land surfaces, glaciers, arid- 

 ity and the waves and currents of the sea. 

 We see its functions also in relation to the 

 mineral contents of the earth, and in rela- 

 tion to the origin and use of soil. 



Even more pronounced is the growth of 

 ideas in relating the atmosphere to fauna 

 and flora, to plant and animal types and 

 societies, to bacteria, and to forests, steppes 

 and deserts. Involved in all this relation 

 to the inorganic and organic world is an 

 immense indirect influence on man. 



There is also direct influence on man, 

 through temperature, varying constitution, 

 variations of pressure, moisture content, 

 movements, optical effects and sound 

 waves. And we can not stop short of psy- 

 chical, social and economic phases of influ- 

 ence, all tangled in difficult fashion. When 

 the consumptive goes to Colorado for help, 

 and finds it, what has accomplished the 

 result? Is it rarity and increased lung 

 expansion? Is dryness and a non-relaxing 

 quality uppermost ? And how much is due 

 to new hope, new effort, fresh scenery, new 

 and glorious land forms, clear skies, gray 

 desert and new social environment? Let 



45 J. Brunhes, Scot. Geog. Mag., 29, 312 ; C. E. 

 Dryer, Jour. Geog., Feb., 1913, 178; Ratzel, 

 " Anthropogeographie, " I., Ch. Das Klima. 



