January 29, 1904.] 



SCIENCE. 



179 



gions, of the relations of climate and 

 religion among the Hopi amerinds, and 

 of the facilities for irrigation peculiar to 

 aggrading iiuviatile plains, all in one jour- 

 nal ; this diversity of topics only illustrates 

 the great richness of geography, ajid thus 

 likens it to history and geology. 



Let me consider next the advantages 

 that will come to geography from the sys- 

 tematic collection and classification of all 

 the facts pertinent to it. The popular idea 

 of geographical research is fulfilled when 

 an explorer discovers a new mountain or a 

 new island; but discovery is not enough. 

 The thing discovered must be carefully de- 

 scribed in view of all that is known of sim- 

 ilar things, and the relation into which the 

 thing enters must be sought and analyzed. 

 Careful work of this nature involves the 

 development of systematic geography, in 

 which all items of a kind are brought 

 together, and- all kinds of items are ar- 

 ranged according to some serviceable 

 scheme of classification. Geographers are 

 far behind zoologists and botanists in this 

 respect, for there is to-day no comprehen- 

 sive scheme of geographical classification 

 in general use. Existing schemes are too 

 generally empirical and incomplete. So 

 important a group of land forms as moun- 

 tains has never yet been thoroughly treated 

 in a physiographic sense, while the organic 

 responses to inorganic controls are as a 

 rule not classified by geographers at all; 

 yet a comprehensive scheme of classifica- 

 tion should certainly provide systematic 

 places for the organic responses as care- 

 fully as for inorganic controls. In the ab- 

 sence of a generally accepted scheme of 

 classification, it is natural that items of one 

 kind and another should be neglected in 

 text-books and elsewhere; for it is well 

 known that incompleteness of treatment 

 goes with unsystematic methods. So sim- 

 ple and manifest a response to the glob- 

 ular form of the earth as is afforded by a 



wide extent of modern commerce is seldom 

 mentioned in connection with its control. 

 The many important and interesting re- 

 sponses to the eternal and omnipresent 

 force of. gravity are not habitually treated 

 as geographical, topics at all; nor is the 

 definition of boundaries in terms of me- 

 ridians and parallels usually recognized as 

 a response that civilized nations now habit- 

 ually make to the form and rotation of the 

 earth, when they have occasion to divide 

 new territory in advance of surveys and 

 settlement. Yet surely all these responses 

 to environment deserve systematic mention 

 when the earth is described as a rotating, 

 gravitating ■ globe, just as the location of 

 villages and the growth of cities at some 

 point of advantage to their inhabitants 

 deserve mention in the pages given u.p to 

 geography of the more conventional kind. 

 The development of a well-tested scheme 

 of systematic geography may, therefore, 

 be urged upon every geographer as a prob- 

 lem well worthy of his attention. A prac- 

 tical step toward the construction of such 

 a scheme is evidently the accumulation of 

 items that call for classification ; therefore, 

 let the geographer study the world about 

 him : and a most effectual aid in the accu- 

 mulation of items is found in searching for 

 the organic response to every inorganic 

 control, and for the inorganic control of 

 every organic response that comes to one's 

 attention; therefore, let the geographer 

 think carefully as he looks about him over 

 the world. It can hardly be doubted that 

 the explorer who goes abroad or the stu- 

 dent who stays at home will make better 

 progress in his investigations in propor- 

 tion to the completeness of the systematic 

 scheme with respect to which he con- . 

 sciously carries on his work. I would, 

 therefore, urge the development of the 

 habits of always associating causes with 

 their consequences and consequences with 

 their causes, and of always referring both 



