GEOGRAPHY THE GEOLOGY OF TODAY 



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past history of a region. To these members, who very likely tliink tliat 

 the word geography has already entered more often than is proper in an 

 address before a geological society, I am prepared to offer still another 

 statement, which it is to be hoped they will find conciliatory, for if they 

 still urge that the account of the Front Range as a morvan belongs under 

 geology I wish now to reply : Of course it does, for all geography belongs 

 under geology, since geography is neither more nor less than the geology 

 of today, and since all geology is essentially the sum of a long succession 

 of past geographies. The separation of the geographical part from the 

 geological whole w^as a natural consequence of the opinions that prevailed 

 a century ago, when most geographers were merely observational empiri- 

 cists and most geologists were in large measure fanciful catastrophists ; 

 but such a separation is, systematically considered, an absurdity at the 

 besinninff of the twentieth centurv, when we are all convinced that the 

 flow of the past into the present has been without a break, and when we 

 all believe that the geological past, with its days and nights, zones and 

 seasons, calms and storms, lands and waters, rivers and waves, and its 

 striving inhabitants, vegetable and animal, is best pictured in the geo- 

 graphical present, for whatever differences may be found the resemblances 

 are overw^helmingly greater. As the past is indeed nothing but an endless 

 succession of geographies, the present member of the succession naturally 

 claims great attention from geologists as well as from geographers, because 

 it is the visible standard for all the rest; all the earlier members can be 

 known only as departures from it. It is therefore utterly illogical, in so 

 far as the nature of their content is concerned, to classify the past and 

 the present conditions of the earth under two sciences. Consider how 

 closely alike would be the subjects of two investigations, one directed to 

 an account of the earth at the beginning of Carboniferous time, the other 

 to an account of the earth as it is today ! Each investigation would treat 

 of a momentary phase in a long evolution ; each would introduce as much 

 of the preceding phases as might aid the appreciative understanding of 

 the phase under discussion. To be sure, the study of Carboniferous geog- 

 raphy would probably include a considerable discussion of petrographic 

 problems, which would be ordinarily treated lightly in accounts of today's 

 geography, while today's geography would liave mucli to do with local 

 details of mean annual temperatures and rainfalls, wliich unfortunately 

 can not be minutely treated under Carboniferous geography ; hence there 

 would be characteristic differences between the two investigations. Never- 

 theless the two would have as many elements in common as any two mor- 

 vans would have, although the elements would of course have different 



IX — Bull. Geol. Soc. Am., Vol. 23, 1911 



