46 



SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXIV. No. 863 



well as dimensions of the place represented. 

 The naturalistic principle calls for rational 

 procedure throughout, toward the end that the 

 result shall not only reproduce shapes and 

 measurements, but characteristic expression 

 of the land as well. The procedure must be 

 rational according- with natural laws, to bring 

 about naturalistic results. 



The subject of the representation of the 

 earth's surface in relief is to-day little gen- 

 erally understood. It is one with a dual 

 basis, the earth sciences on one hand, with the 

 principles and application of art on the other. 

 As paleobotany rests on both geology and bot- 

 any, so the subject of land representation in 

 relief has its rational basis on a knowledge of 

 the lands and the principles and applications 

 of landscape art. Each place chosen for rep- 

 resentation in relief is a subject in natural 

 history presenting a problem whose rational 

 solution as such depends upon a comprehen- 

 sive study of the locality with its meaning 

 and possibilities as representative of earth 

 form, and an adequate treatment as such nat- 

 ural phenomena or landscape, throughout the 

 entire process of modelling and coloring. 

 Simple and reasonable as may be this view 

 little application of it seems to have been 

 made in the land relief work produced in this 

 country. Without a conception of the nat- 

 uralistic basis as a guide, the mechanical 

 turning of map data into a raised form, how- 

 ever accurate and complete the process may 

 be, is machine-like drudgery. With the nat- 

 uralistic conception which has been rarely 

 well appreciated by those not versed in the 

 m.otives of art, the work becomes rational and 

 definite. Each subject under this light is a 

 problem involving natural phenomena, whose 

 adequate solution requires deduction from 

 field observation applied to the special re- 

 quirements of the work, with due recognition 

 of the established principles of good art. 



Eelief maps are plentiful, but as yet nat- 

 uralistic models of land forms are scarce. (In 

 our museums there are few specimens of nat- 

 uralistic earth models. Neither the govern- 

 ment Geological Survey nor the National 

 Museum has yet undertaken or exhibited this 



class of work. In the United States, geology 

 and geography are to-day practically without 

 natural history specimens of their greater 

 forms.) 



Howell was a man whose fortune it was to 

 be little troubled with artistic sensibilities, his 

 work in land relief could be compared to that 

 of an anatomist engaged in making anatom- 

 ical models, indeed he dealt in this work, and 

 his product played quite the same relation to 

 figure sculpture that relief maps bear to nat- 

 uralistic models. 



Relief maps in the making of which Howell 

 stood at the head, have their place, but they 

 do not fulfill that of the naturalistic model 

 and the two distinct principles of work which 

 each represents need not be confused. The 

 raised or relief map is a form of diagram, a 

 conventional representation of topography 

 made by raising che signs on a map into 

 relief, as indicated by its symbols. It is 

 mechanical and can be largely produced by a 

 machine. In the French military service it is 

 so done. The purpose of the naturalistic 

 model is to represent nature, not maps; it 

 corresponds to figure sculpture and landscape 

 painting, and aims to give not only correct 

 dimensions, but a character and likeness 

 of the special part of the world represented. 

 The raised map is like the engineering dia- 

 gram, special and very limited in its applica- 

 tion. The naturalistic model contains all the 

 data of the relief map and much more in 

 addition, and its fields of use and influence is 

 correspondingly broader. 



Had Howell been an artist-naturalist as 

 well as geologist, his work must have devel- 

 oped along different channels, for the nat- 

 uralist mind will not be satisfied 'with the 

 diagram as a representation of the expressive 

 surface of the earth. That Howell tried to 

 satisfy his clients, who, as Dr. Gilbert writes, 

 " were numerous among the investigators and 

 teachers of geology and geography," is without 

 doubt, and had this influence been that of 

 men well versed in art or its applications as in 

 architecture, landscape gardening, sculpture 

 or painting, it must have tended to direct his 

 work toward a naturalistic conception. 



