THE GEOGRAPHICAL CYCLE AND ITS COMPLICATIONS 593 



ains or the Great Basin ranges. As far as my inquiries have gone, 

 American geographers and geologists do not share Passarge's misgivings 

 en this matter. 



Misconception of the geographical Cycle as a rigid Scheme 



The various objections to the general scheme of the cycle of erosion 

 above alluded to are, in my own opinion, founded chiefly on a misap- 

 prehension of it as a rigid and complete concept. It has never been 

 considered either rigid or complete in my mind, but rather a growing- 

 idea, always plastic, so that it might be corrected where wrong, or modi- 

 fied and extended where accommodation is needed for new facts and 

 processes. The scheme was first conceived simply in relation to ordinary 

 or "normal" erosion by rain and rivers, by weather and water acting on 

 a landmass of horizontal structure; it was slowly extended to include 

 the action of the same normal processes on various kinds of structures; 

 and later to include various kinds of processes; yet even in the first 

 statement a certain breadth of view was reached, for it was there said : 



"The channels [.valleys] will be narrow and steep walled in regions of 

 relatively rapid elevation, but broadly open in regions that have risen slowly ; 

 and I believe that rate of elevation is thus of greater importance than climatic 

 conditions in giving the canyon form to a valley." 4 



It is quite possible that a misconception regarding the scheme has 

 arisen from the fact that certain brief presentations which I have made 

 of it have emphasized the elementary case of a region which first suffers 

 a rather rapid uplift and which thereafter stands still for an indefinitely 

 long period, 5 and have given less attention to cases of greater complica- 

 tion, such as those of slow and of variable uplift alluded to above. But 

 even the brief mentions made of possible complications supplementary 

 to the elementary case appear to me quite sufficient to show that they 

 also inhere in the generalized concept of upheaval at various rates and 

 in various manners, associated with degradation by various processes 

 in various combinations. Such complications and variations would not 

 characterize a rigid scheme into which the facts of nature must be 

 forced to fit, as if it were Procrustes' bed; but they certainly do char- 

 acterize a plastic scheme, the very essence of which is its capacity to 

 adapt itself to the facts of nature, and the main object of which has 



4 Geographic classification, illustrated by a study of plains, plateaus, and their derivci- 

 tives. Proc. Amer. Assoc., 1884. 



5 The geographical cycle. Geogr. Journ., 1899. 



The geographical cycle, Verhandl. VII Internat. Geogr. Kougr. Berlin. 1899'. 1900, 

 221-231. 



