August 9, 1901.] 



SCIENCE. 



205 



knowledge, we can interpret only as those 

 of a stegocephalan, but no hard parts have 

 been found to show us what the animal was 

 like. We may hope, yes, almost expect, 

 that future exploration will show us stego- 

 cephalans in rocks of Devonian age, and 

 when those are found it is possible that 

 they will embrace types which will be de- 

 cisive as to mammalian ancestry. Yet how 

 slight are the chances of such discovery is 

 shown by one fact concerning our knowl- 

 edge of the mesozoic mammals. Nearly 

 half of the known species of these were 

 found in a bed of clay in southern England, 

 the whole deposit measuring forty feet in 

 length, ten in breadth and five inches in 

 thickness. 



J. S. KiNGSLEY. 



Tufts College. 



THE RELATION OF PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY 

 TO OTHER SCIENCE SUBJECTS* 



In geography we have not as yet reached 

 that stage when vague spheres of influence 

 give place to definite territorial boundaries. 

 Our science is still unorganized, its frontiers 

 are not demarked and the dividing lines of 

 its provinces are not yet drawn. My sub- 

 ject compels me to take up a number of 

 questions still so unsettled that I can hardly 

 hope to suggest even a modus vivencU which 

 in this time of boundary disputes will be 

 acceptable in all its details to many besides 

 its author. 



At least in America, we shall all agree 

 that physical geography is not identical in 

 its limits with what our English friends 

 term physiography. It is not a summation 

 of our knowledge of nature. Such was the 

 older physical geography, and valuable as 

 was its view over the entire kingdom of 

 science, it was found impracticable as an 

 educational instrument. With its string of 

 disconnected chapters on the elements of 



* Eeacl before the Department of Science Instruction, 

 National Educational Association, Detroit, July 12. 



physics, chemistry, astronomy, geologj^, 

 botany, zoology, and ethnology, conclud- 

 ing perhaps with a chapter on precious 

 stones, it is no wonder that there was some- 

 times applied to it the sacred definition of 

 a circle whose center is everywhere and 

 whose circumference is nowhere. And yet 

 to many a boy it gave his only world-view, 

 his only touch with nature. When Huxley 

 spoke of it, this Erdkunde, as ' a peg on 

 which the greatest quantity of useful and 

 entertaining scientific information can be 

 suspended,' it was not in disparagement ; 

 for he termed it one of the essentials of a 

 liberal education. 



Physical geography has often been treated 

 as though it were equivalent to the ' science 

 of geography,' as Strachey has defined it^ 

 or as synonymous with the ' general geog- 

 raphy ' of the Germans. But its note is 

 neither the introduction of the causal notion 

 nor a topical treatment of the subject. It 

 is not to be set over against either descrip- 

 tive or a real geography. Surely the adjec- 

 tive in the phrase may well have a restric- 

 tive influence. Either ' physical ' as here 

 used is equivalent to ' natural,' in which 

 case our science reverts to physiography, or 

 else it limits the subject to physical as dis- 

 tinct from biologic phenomena. Accepting 

 this restriction, we may set the divisions of 

 geography in the following scheme : 



1. Chorographic geography. 



2. Physical geography, with its subheads 

 of the geography of the planet, the geog- 

 raphy of the air, the geography of the sea^ 

 and the geography of the land. 



3. Biotic geography, the distribution of 

 animals and plants. 



4. Anthropic geography, the geography 

 of man. 



The chorographic member, dealing with 

 position, direction and dimension, is the 

 rudiment from which the entire body of 

 geograph}^ has developed. The map, its 

 first product, remains its chief vehicle of 



