January 22, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



129 



tial througliout would, however, still be a 

 relation of earth and life, practically as 

 Ritter phrased it when he took the impor- 

 tant step of introducing- the causal notion 

 as a geographical principle. 



Thus defined, geography has two chief 

 divisions. Everything about the earth or 

 any inorganic part of it, considered as an 

 element of the environment by which the 

 organic inhabitants are conditioned, be- 

 longs under physical geography or physi- 

 ography.* Every item in which the or- 

 ganic inhabitants of the earth— plant, ani- 

 mal or man— show a response to the ele- 

 ments of environment, belongs under 

 organic geography. Geography proper in- 

 volves a consideration of relations in which 

 the things that belong under its two divi- 

 sions are involved. 



The validity of these propositions may 

 be illustrated by a concrete case. The loca- 

 tion and growth of Memphis, Helena and 

 Vicksburg are manifestly dependent on 

 the places where the Mississippi River 

 swings against the bluifs of the uplands 

 on the east and west of its flood plain. The 

 mere existence and location of the cities, 

 stated independently of their controlling 

 environment, are empirical items of the 

 organic part of geography, and these items 

 fail to become truly geographic as long as 

 they are stated without reference to their 

 cause. The mere course of the Mississippi, 

 independent of the organic consequences 

 which it controls, is an empirical element 

 of the inorganic part of geography, but it 

 fails to become truly geographic as long as 

 it is treated alone. The two kinds of facts 

 must be combined in order to gain the real 

 geographic flavor. Geography is, there- 

 fore, not simply a description of places; it 

 is not simply an account of the earth and 

 of its inhabitants, each described independ- 



* It should be noted that the British definition 

 of physiography gives it a much wider meaning 

 than is here indicated. 



ent of the other; it involves a relation of 

 some element of physical geography to 

 some item of organic geography, and noth- 

 ing from which this relation is absent pos- 

 sesses the essential quality of geographical 

 discipline. The location of a cape or of a 

 city is an elementary fact which may be 

 biiilt up with other facts into a relation of 

 full geographic meaning; but taken alone, 

 it has about the same rank in geography 

 that spelling has in language. A map has 

 about the same place in geography that a 

 dictionary has in literature. The mean an- 

 nual temperature of a given station, and 

 the occurrence of a certain plant in a cer- 

 tain locality, are facts of kinds that must 

 enter extensively into the relationships 

 with which geography deals; but these 

 facts, standing alone, are wanting in the 

 essential quality of mature geographical 

 science. Not only so; many facts of these 

 kinds may, when treated in other relations, 

 enter into other sciences; for it is not so 

 much the thing that is studied as the rela- 

 tion in which it is studied that determines 

 the science to which it belongs. I, there- 

 fore, emphasize again the broad general 

 principle that mature scientific geography 

 is essentially concerned with the relations 

 among its inorganic and organic elements ; 

 among the elements of physical and of 

 organic geography, or, as might be said 

 more briefly, among the elements of phys- 

 iography and of . Let me confess to 



the most indulgent part of this audience 

 that I have invented a one-word name for 

 the organic part of geography, and have 

 found it useful in thinking and writing 

 and teaching; but inasmuch as the ten, or 

 at the outside twelve, new words that I 

 have introduced as technical terms into the 

 growing subject of physiography have 

 given me with some geological critics the 

 reputation of being reckless in regard to 

 terminology, it will be the part of pru- 

 dence not to mention the new name for 



