Oeology and geography separate sciences 123 



Nevertheless, the most characteristic papers in tlie two societies are 

 significantly unlike, and with further development of geographical science 

 I am persuaded that their unlikeness will in certain respects increase, for 

 geographers are going to give more and more attention to the accurate 

 portrayal of existing landscapes — the term landscape being here used in 

 so general a sense that it includes the seas and the skies and their inhab- 

 itants along with the lands — while geologists will, I believe, give increas- 

 ing attention to the restoration of ancient landscapes. But the unlikeness 

 will never overcome the likenesses that must maintain the two societies in 

 close relations. Should one of the geographers some day wander, as it is 

 to be hoped he may, into a meeting of the geologists, let us trust that he 

 would have occasion to remark : "That is an excellent account of, for ex- 

 ample, the central Appalachian region in Oriskany time, for in spite of 

 being completely speculative, as all restorations of the invisible past must 

 be, it is so ingeniously and logically constructed out of the small existing 

 body of accessible facts, all of which have been patiently searched out and 

 scrupulously used, and it is so successful in vividly portraying the prob- 

 able conditions and correlations of things, inorganic and organic, through- 

 out central Appalachia in that remote period of earth history which 

 geologists call Oriskany !" 



Should, on the other hand, one of the geologists some day visit a meet- 

 ing of the geographers, where he would surely be welcome, let us hope that 

 he would have good reason for exclaiming : "That is an excellent descrip- 

 tion of, for example, Patagonia, for while always holding faithfully to 

 the rich store of observable facts, which are sometimes so numerous as to 

 embarrass a geographer from their very abundance, the paper is so sig- 

 nificantly suggestive of the evolutionary meaning of the facts, inorganic 

 and organic, and while not for a moment losing sight of the observable 

 present, it so helpfully describes existing conditions in terms of pertinent 

 and illuminating speculations as to their invisible origin, thus showing 

 that the accessible present is really comprehensible only when it is re- 

 garded as a continuation of the inaccessible past !" 



It is considerations of this nature that make me confident of the abun- 

 dant work of both these societies and of their sufficient individuality in 

 spite of their close relation; the older one, geology, already well estab- 

 lished, penetrating by brilliant speculation the deep structures of the 

 earth's crust and the past conditions, inorganic and organic, of the earth's 

 history, but necessarily basing all its speculations on the facts and condi- 

 tions of the present surface, which belong so largely in the field of the 

 newer one ; the newer one, geography, growing in efficiency year by year 



