l68 ' The American Geologist. March. 1904. 
from the whole content such relations as are elementary, 
and serviceable handbooks may be made by selecting such 
relations as seem irnportant from their frequency or their 
significance. The essential throughout would, however, still 
be a relation of earth and life, practically as Ritter phrased it 
when he took the important step of introducing the causal 
notion as a geographical principle. 
Thus defined, geography has two chief divisions. Every- 
thing about the earth or any inorganic part of it, considered 
as an element of the environment by which the organic inhab- 
itants are conditioned, belongs under physical geography or 
physiography.* Every item in which the organic inhabitants 
of the earth — plant, animal, or man — show a response to the 
elements of environment, belongs under organic geography. 
Geography proper involves a consideration of relations in 
which the things that belong under its two divisions are in- 
volved. 
The validity of these propositions may be illustrated by a 
concrete case. The location and growth of Memphis, Helena, 
and Vicksburg are manifestly dependent on the places where 
the Missisippi river swings against the bluffs of the uplands 
on the east and west of its flood plain. The mere existence 
and location of the cities, stated independent of their control- 
ling environment are empirical items of the organic part of 
geography, and these items fail to become truly geographic as 
long as they are stated without reference to their cause. The 
mere course of the Missisippi, independent of the organic con- 
sequences which it controls, is an empirical element of the in- 
organic part of geography, but it fails to become truly geo- 
graphic as long as it is treated alone. The two kinds of facts 
must be combined in order to gain the real geographic flavor. 
Geography is therefore not simply a description of places ; it is 
not simply an account of the earth and its inhabitants, each 
described independent of the other; it involves a relation of 
some element of physical geography to some item of organic 
geography, and nothing from which this relation is absent pos- 
sesses the essential quality of geographical discipline. The 
location of a cape or of a city is an elementary fact which may 
• It should be noted that the British definition of physiography gives it a 
much wider meaning than is here indicated. 
