Modern Geography

ely modern period of geographical science. These three events were, first, the deaths of Humboldt and Ritter, two great geographical pioneers who hewed tracks through the tangled jungle of unsystem

ontemporary thought, what had been a mere collection of facts began to be a reasoned and ordered science. Both Humboldt and Ritter lived to a great age, s

enabled him to observe a vast number of phenomena while his particular genius was manifest in the way in which he correlated these, and considered them in their relation to each other. Though it is true that his

last fifty years. He had not Humboldt's breadth of knowledge and interest, but in the stress which he laid upon the earth as above all interesting in that

animals, and less directly in his investigation of the part played by earthworms in the formation of soil, he himself added to geographical knowledge. But he did much

rest to the study of interrelations. Humboldt, as we have indicated, was greatly interested in such subjects as the connection between the climate of a region and the vegetation, between the activities of man in a particular region and the physical conditions, and so on. But Darwin added a new interest to such studies. For example, it is a curious fact that desert plants have often spiny

at almost any natural group of plants, if exposed through long ages to gradually increasing conditions of drought, will produce "cact

ome extent at least the characters of organisms can be explained by the nature of their surroundings. A further interest is added by the fact that in this respect human societies and settlements can be shown to behave like organisms. Therefore we can hope to explain at least partially the manifold differences in man and his societies in di

stimulating effect, not upon one science only but upon every department of thought. Phenomena of no importance suddenly became interesting, and the result of this interest was an enormous addition to known facts. Not only has

il, and of drainage; of the cartographer to represent the facts which emerge from their surveys, and so on. The physician must now seek the assistance of the zoologist before he can deal adequately with tropical disease, and the zoologist must have the help of the physical geographer before he can give adequate aid. The r

e from the marble in which it is imprisoned. So the geography of to-day is in the act of escaping from the matrix of mere facts in which i

in this period Africa has ceased to be an unknown continent; the innermost recesses of Asia have been largely explored; the Arctic and Antarctic areas have yielded many, though by no means the whole, of their secrets; a great deal of exploration has been done in America as a whole, as well as much detailed survey work in the United States and Canada; the oceans have be

little guide to the Rhine, and since it was first published this firm of publishers has not only extended its field of operations over nearly the whole world, but has issued a constant stream of new editions, which for the most frequented tourist regions are practically annual. That great tourist agency whose name is now a household word began operations in the early forties, and like the firm of Baedeker has now taken the world as its

of knowledge. But this is partly because geographical teaching has hitherto been badly organised, and the greater number of travellers have started on their journeys without having been taught what to observe or how to observe. There are already in

s during the course of the last half century adds enormously to the interest of travel, both a

st to lay most stress upon the conditions which prevail in Europe and North America, the areas which have been most thoroughly studied. Europe has the special interest that it has given origin to the type of civilisation which has most profoundly modified the earth's surface. This limitation cannot, however, be made rigid, for it is of the essence of the modern standpoint that no area can be understood without reference to the world at large.

t. All that will be attempted, therefore, is to suggest some of the lines along which research is proceeding most actively at the present time, special stress being laid upon those aspects of the subject wh