176 The American Geologist. March. 1904. 
in larger relations ; it is merely a matter of fact that the is- 
olated specialist remains somewhat to one side of the larger 
sciences with which he might become associated. On the other 
hand, the geographer is not necessarily so broad-minded that 
he must be shallow ; he may specialize deeply on the climato- 
logic, oceanographic, geomorphic, topographic, organic divis- 
ions of his subject; but if he wishes to be considered a geog- 
rapher he should cultivate all the geographic relations into 
which the facts of his chosen division enters, and he will find 
that it is largely through these relations that he associates him- 
self profitably with other geographers. 
Two of the most beneficial results of the systematic study 
of geography are the great increase in the number of classes 
or types with which the geographer becomes familiar, and 
the great improvement in the definition of these types. This 
is particularly the case with those types which contain many 
individual examples, such as rivers and cities, and which are 
therefore capable of division into many headings. So long as 
the geographer deals only with things in an empirical fashion, 
he may be satisfied with a rough classification; as soon as he 
begins to treat his problems more carefully, his classification 
becomes more refined and he has relatively more to do with 
classes of things than with the things themselves. The things 
are actual, the classes ^re ideal, and therein lies one of the 
greatest values of systematic geography; it enforces attention 
upon the idealized type; by means of this increased attention 
the type is more fully conceived, and both observation and de- 
scription of actual things are greatly aided. Let me illustrate. 
The breezes that descend from mountain valleys at night 
are well known and well understood phenomena. As a result, 
one may form a well-defined conception of such a breeze — a 
type mountain breeze — imagining its gradual beginning, its 
increase in strength with its extension in area, and its gradual 
extinction ; all its phases of waxing and waning being duly 
related to the passing hours of the night and to the associated 
changes of temperature. It is safe to say that no actual moun- 
tain breeze is as well known by direct observation of all its 
parts and stages as is the type breeze, in which all pertinent 
observations are properly generalized, and in which the defici- 
encies of observation are supplemented as far as possible by in- 
