128 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XIX. No. 473. 



disciplinary quality that is so profitable in 

 other subjects until it is as jealously 

 guarded from the intrusion of irrelevant 

 items as is physics or geometry or Latin. 

 Indeed, the analogy of the blades of grass 

 in the cornfield is hardly strong enough. 

 It is well known that Ritter, the originator 

 of the causal notion in geography, and, 

 therefore, the greatest benefactor of geog- 

 raphy in the nineteenth century, was so 

 hospitable in his treatment of history that 

 his pupils grew up in large number to be 

 historians, and his own subject was in a 

 way lost sight of by many of his students 

 who became professors of geography, so- 

 called, in the German universities, until 

 Peschel revolted and turned attention 

 again to the essential features of geog- 

 raphy proper. 



Close scrutiny of what is commonly 

 called geography will certainly be bene- 

 ficial in bringing forward the essence of 

 the subject and in regulating irrelevant 

 topics to the background; but it is not to 

 be expected that any precise agreement 

 will soon be reached as to what constitutes 

 geography, sti'ictly interpreted. Opinions 

 on the subject, gathered- from different 

 parts of the country, even if gathered 

 from persons entitled to speak with what 

 is called 'authority,' would probably differ 

 as widely as did the nomenclatures of the 

 leading physiographic divisions of North 

 America as proposed in a symposium a 

 few years ago ; but if careful consideration 

 and free discussion are given to the sub- 

 ject, unity of opinion will in due time be 

 approached as closely as is desirable. 



As a contribution toward this collection 

 of opinions, let me state my own view : the 

 essential in geography is a relation between 

 the elements of terrestrial environment 

 and the items of organic response; this 

 being only a modernized extension of Rit- 

 ter 's view. Everything that involves such 

 a relationship is to that extent geographic. 



Anything in which such a relationship is 

 wanting is to that extent not geographic. 

 The location of a manufacturing village at 

 a point where a stream affords water- 

 power is an example of the kind of rela- 

 tion that is meant, and if this example is 

 accepted, then the reasonable principle of 

 continuity will guide us to include under 

 geography every other example in which 

 the way that organic forms have of doing 

 things is conditioned by their inorganic 

 environment. The organic part of geog- 

 raphy must not be limited to man, because 

 the time is now past when man is studied 

 altogether apart from' the other forms of 

 life on the earth. The colonies of ants on 

 our western deserts, with their burrows, 

 their hills, their roads and their threshing 

 floors, exhibit responses to elements of en- 

 vironment found in soil and climate as 

 clearly as a manufacturing village exhibits 

 a response to water-power. The different 

 coloration of the dorsal and ventral parts 

 of fish is a response to the external illumin- 

 ation of our non-luminous earth. The 

 word arrive is a persistent memorial of the 

 importance long ago attached to a success- 

 ful crossing of the shore line that separates 

 sea and land. It is not significant Avhether 

 the relation and the elements that enter 

 into it are of easy or difficult understand- 

 ing, nor whether they are what we call im- 

 portant or unimportant, familiar or unfa- 

 miliar. The essential quality of geography 

 is that it involves, relations of things or- 

 ganic and inorganic; and the entire con- 

 tent of geography would include all such 

 relations. A large library would be re- 

 quired to hold a full statement of so broad 

 a subject, but elementary text-books of 

 geography may be made by selecting from 

 the whole content such relations as are 

 elementary, and serviceable handbooks 

 may be made by selecting such rela- 

 tions as seem important from their fre- 

 quency or their significance. The essen- 



