510 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXV. No. 639 



kind and serve as types." When this sug- 

 gestion is well carried into practise, geography 

 will have made a great advance. 



W. M. D. 



SYSTEMATIC PHYSIOGRAPHY 



A SERVICEABLE article by Hettner, professor 

 of geography at Heidelberg, on 'Das Wesen 

 und die Methode der Geographie' (Geogr. 

 Zft., XL, 1905, 545-564, 615-629, 6Y1-686), 

 revives Hitter's conception of geography as 

 the science that is concerned with the material 

 filling of terrestrial spaces — ' die dingliche 

 Erfiillung der Erdraume' — and emphasizes 

 the importance of the causal notion which has 

 been coming into greater and greater promi- 

 nence in the last half century, as fuller ex- 

 planation has been found for the earth's phys- 

 ical features, and as fuller meaning has been 

 given to the distribution and behavior of plants, 

 animals and man by the philosophy of evo- 

 lution. He recognizes also the advantage that 

 comes from a scientific terminology in making 

 short and clear descriptions possible; yet he 

 expresses a doubt as to the possibility of de- 

 scribing various geographical features such as 

 valleys and towns, in generic terms, because 

 such features possess so many details which 

 can be portrayed only by individual descrip- 

 tion. The Neckar Valley is taken as an ex- 

 ample to illustrate this conclusion ; it is briefly 

 described as ' a DurcKbruchstal formed in a 

 climate without the cooperation of ice action; 

 we can perhaps still find even a few more 

 generic features, but everything else is indi- 

 vidual.' This is hardly more than begging 

 the question, f6r the possibility of giving an 

 adequate account of the Neckar Valley in 

 terms of generic features can not be so lightly 

 tested. The study of the development of gen- 

 eric features in the class of incised meander- 

 ing valleys, to which the Neckar Valley be- 

 longs, has already proved the repeated or sys- 

 tematic occurrence of various minor elements 

 whose recognition greatly increases the power 

 of description. (See an article by the under- 

 signed on ' Incised Meandering Valleys,' Bull. 

 Geogr. Soc. Phila., July, 1906.) In view of 

 the notable progress of this kind in recent 



years there is every reason to expect a still 

 greater progress in the years to come : there is 

 indeed no direction in which a physiographer 

 may labor more profitably than in contrib- 

 uting to this progress. Instead of practically 

 giving up the problem, and abandoning the 

 method of systematic or generic description 

 of geographical features as impracticable be- 

 cause insufficient, as Hettner suggests, it is 

 our plain duty to make every effort to develop 

 it farther than its present stage, in the man- 

 ner suggested by Russell in the preceding 

 note; and there is good ground for hope that 

 systematic description may yet be so far ad- 

 vanced, especially if carefully chosen adjec- 

 tives are consistently used to modify the gen- 

 eric nouns which represent standardized type 

 forms, that whatever local supplement is 

 needed will be not so well given by an unsys- 

 tematic verbal account of individual features 

 as by reference to a good map, where many 

 items that are fatiguingly represented in 

 words are very easily shown graphically. 



W. M. D. 



THE NEW GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF BRAZIL 

 The Diario Official, the ofiicial organ of the 

 federal government of Brazil published at Rio 

 de Janeiro, in its issue of January 22, 1907, 

 prints the text of the decree establishing the 

 Brazilian Geological Survey or, as it is called 

 officially, the ' Servigo Geologico e Mineral- 

 ogico do Brazil ' (the geological and mineral- 

 ogical service of Brazil). This decree was 

 approved January 10, 190Y, by the president 

 of the republic, Affonso Augusto Moreira 

 Penna, and by the minister of industry and 

 public works, Miguel Calmon du Pin e Al- 

 meida, and has already gone into effect. 



The following instructions are translated 

 from the same issue of the Diario Official: 



Instructions for the Operations of the Servigo 

 Geologico e Mineralogico do Brazil 



Article I. — The following are the principal 

 objects of the geological service : 



1. To carry on a scientific study of the geo- 

 logical structure, mineralogy and mineral re- 

 sources of the territory of the republic, having 



