938 



SCIENCE 



[K. S. Vol. XXXI. No. I 



ern part of the country, can not be neg- 

 lected by the geographers of this new 

 century. The only matter that is ques- 

 tionable is the manner in which the ad- 

 vances shall be practically applied in geo- 

 graphical investigation. 



GEOLOGY, AS SUCH, TO BE AVOIDED IN GEO- 

 GRAPHICAL DESCRIPTIONS 



The influence of geology upon geography 

 has indeed been so great that it has come 

 to be a common practise to introduce some 

 statement of geological history, as if in 

 explanation of the origin of land forms, so 

 as to aid in their description; but if geo- 

 logical history is introduced in a more or 

 less haphazard way, it often goes too far 

 in taking the attention away from the geo- 

 graphical present and holding it too long 

 on the irrelevant past; and it often does 

 not go far enough in the way of empha- 

 sizing the origin of visible forms. The 

 accidental geological explanation is more- 

 over especially deficient in not developing 

 a carefully extended series of deductive 

 types, in terms of which existing forms 

 may be presented. In some way or other 

 such a series of types certainly ought to 

 be developed and carried in the mind as 

 an indispensable equipment for outdoor 

 observation and description. The way that 

 has been most convenient, effective and 

 helpful in my experience is the one em- 

 bodied in the method to which I have 

 given the name "structure, process and 

 stage," and of which some illustration 

 has been afforded by the examples pre- 

 sented above from my Italian excursion. 



THE SCALE OF VERBAL DESCRIPTION 



There are certain supplementary con- 

 siderations regarding the description of 

 land forms to which brief attention may 

 be given. The first concerns what may be 

 called the scale of verbal description, and 



corresponds to what we familiarly under- 

 stand by the scale of a map. The well- 

 trained cartogTapher has had conscious 

 practise in reducing large-scale maps to 

 small scale, and knows that in so doing 

 he must intelligently and critically se- 

 lect the major features for retention and 

 the minor features for omission; he knows 

 also that a really good small-scale map can 

 be made only by reducing it from a well- 

 prepared map of larger scale. What I 

 wish to point out here is that the principle 

 of large and small scales may be applied 

 not only to maps, but to verbal descrip- 

 tions as Avell. The kind of maps here con- 

 sidered are not those sketch maps of hasty 

 route surveys, in which large spaces are 

 necessarily left blanks; these would corre- 

 spond to the verbal reports of hurried ex- 

 cursions in which the writer is well aware 

 that his records are deficient in many re- 

 spects. It is here a question of more thor- 

 ough work; that is, of maps for which all 

 necessary surveys have been made, and of 

 descriptions for which all necessary 

 studies have been completed. Then, just 

 as a cartographer must intelligently select 

 certain features to be retained in reducing 

 a large-scale map to a smaller scale, so a 

 geographer, who has already gained suffi- 

 cient information about a district to com- 

 plete an elaborate or large-scale descrip- 

 tion of it, must critically select the major 

 features for retention and the minor fea- 

 tures for omission, in compressing his ac- 

 count to the space of small-scale presenta- 

 tion. 



In view of this principle, the geographer 

 who wishes to make a well-considered, brief 

 statement concerning a district or region 

 must first learn a good deal more about it 

 than can be contained in a little space. 

 He must then intelligently and critically 

 select the major features for retention and 

 the minor features for omission. He must 



