Physical Geography as a Popular Study. 61 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY AS A POPULAR STUDY.* 



Amongst the newly-cultivated branches of science. Physical 

 Geography is one of the most generally interesting, because 

 its broad facts and reasonings are easily appreciated, and 

 no expensive apparatus is necessary for its pursuit. It ought 

 to form a prominent subject in any national system of edu- 

 cation ; and when it is absent, school-teaching in what is called 

 " geography," usually consists of little more than lists of lati- 

 tudes and longitudes, courses of rivers, and positions of cities, 

 separated from all associations that could give them the 

 character of true knowledge. The simplest facts and problems 

 of physical geography are eagerly apprehended by young 

 children, when properly explained, while the complex con- 

 siderations of terrestrial structure, and its influence upon tem- 

 perature, climate, and civilization, tax the highest intellect, 

 and furnish material for the profoundest thought. 



During the last twenty years many excellent works on 

 physical geography have been produced by various writers ; 

 but no one has appreciated more clearly than Professor Ansted 

 the range of subjects that ought to be included, or the way in 

 which they ought to be presented, so as to make the philo- 

 sophy of the science intelligible as well as its facts. The 

 advantage of a comprehensive scheme is very great, though it 

 is necessarily associated with an unavoidable degree of incom- 

 pleteness, when, as in the book before us, a variety of important 

 matters are compressed within the limits of a few hundred 

 pages. 



Professor Ansted begins by considering ' e the Earth as a 

 Planet," after which follows a chapter on " Physical Forces," 

 succeeded by one on " the Succession of Rocks." These chap- 

 ters are introductory, and it is in the second part that what is 

 commonly understood as " Physical Geography" really com- 

 mences. The distribution of land occupies three chapters ; 

 water, including ice phenomena, four chapters ; four more are 

 devoted to air, including winds and climate ; igneous phe- 

 nomena are treated in two chapters ; and the work concludes 

 with expositions of the broad features of terrestrial life. Any 

 one of these subjects might be easily expanded into a treatise 

 the size of the whole book ; but there is an obvious advantage 

 in presenting them in an epitomized form, and in the order 

 which the Professor has adopted. 



* "Physical Geography." By Professor D. T. Ansted, M.A., F.E.S., F.R.G.S., 

 F.G.S., Honorary Fellow of King's College, London, and late Fellow of Jesus 

 College, Cambridge, etc., etc. Win. Allen & Co. 



