such it can be called, took the form of being mother and mentor to her guests, many of whom were indebted to her generosity for substantial help. Although her aim appears to have been to have the Encyclopédie in conversation and action around her, she was extremely displeased with any of her friends who were so rash as to incur open disgrace. Marmontel lost her favour after the official censure of Bélisaire, and her advanced views did not prevent her from observing the forms of religion. A devoted Parisian, Mme Geoffrin rarely left the city, so that her journey to Poland in 1766 to visit the king, Stanislas Poniatowski, whom she had known in his early days in Paris, was a great event in her life. Her experiences induced a sensible gratitude that she had been born "Française" and "particulière." In her last illness her daughter, Thérèse, marquise de la Ferté Imbault, excluded her mother's old friends so that she might die as a good Christian, a proceeding wittily described by the old lady: "My daughter is like Godfrey de Bouillon, she wished to defend my tomb from the infidels." Mme Geoffrin died in Paris on the 6th of October 1777. See Correspondance inédite du roi Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski et de Madame Geoffrin, edited by the comte de Mouy (1875); P. de Ségur, Le Royaume de la rue Saint-Honoré, Madame Geoffrin et sa fille (1897); A. Tornezy, Un Bureau d'esprit au XVIIIe siècle: le salon de Madame Geoffrin (1895); and Janet Aldis, Madame Geoffrin, her Salon and her Times, 1750-1777 (1905). GEOFFROY, ÉTIENNE FRANÇOIS (1672-1731), French chemist, born in Paris on the 13th of February 1672, was first an apothecary and then practised medicine. After studying at Montpellier he accompanied Marshal Tallard on his embassy to London in 1698 and thence travelled to Holland and Italy. Returning to Paris he became professor of chemistry at the Jardin du Roi and of pharmacy and medicine at the Collège de France, and dean of the faculty of medicine. He died in Paris on the 6th of January 1731. His name is best known in connexion with his tables of affinities (tables des rapports), which he presented to the French Academy in 1718 and 1720. These were lists, prepared by collating observations on the actions of substances one upon another, showing the varying degrees of affinity exhibited by analogous bodies for different reagents, and they retained their vogue for the rest of the century, until displaced by the profounder conceptions introduced by C. L. Berthollet. Another of his papers dealt with the delusions of the philosopher's stone, but nevertheless he believed that iron could be artificially formed in the combustion of vegetable matter. His Tractatus de materia medica, published posthumously in 1741, was long celebrated. His brother CLAUDE JOSEPH, known as Geoffroy the younger (1685-1752), was also an apothecary and chemist who, having a considerable knowledge of botany, devoted himself especially to the study of the essential oils in plants. GEOFFROY, JULIEN LOUIS (1743-1814), French critic, was born at Rennes in 1743. He studied in the school of his native town and at the Collège Louis le Grand in Paris. He took orders and fulfilled for some time the humble functions of an usher, eventually becoming professor of rhetoric at the Collège Mazarin. A bad tragedy, Caton, was accepted at the Théâtre Français, but was never acted. On the death of Élie Fréron in 1776 the other collaborators in the Année littéraire asked Geoffroy to succeed him, and he conducted the journal until in 1792 it ceased to appear. Geoffroy was a bitter critic of Voltaire and his followers, and made for himself many enemies. An enthusiastic royalist, he published with Fréron's brother-in-law, the abbé Thomas Royou (1741-1792), a journal, L'Ami du roi (1790-1792), which possibly did more harm than good to the king's cause by its ill-advised partisanship. During the Terror Geoffroy hid in the neighbourhood of Paris, only returning in 1799. An attempt to revive the Année littéraire failed, and Geoffroy undertook the dramatic feuilleton of the Journal des débats. His scathing criticisms had a success of notoriety, but their popularity was ephemeral, and the publication of them (5 vols., 1819-1820) as Cours de littérature dramatique proved a failure. He was also the author of a perfunctory Commentaire on the works of Racine prefixed to Lenormant's edition (1808). He died in Paris on the 27th of February 1814. GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ÉTIENNE (1772–1844), French naturalist, was the son of Jean Gerard Geoffroy, procurator and magistrate of Etampes, Seine-et-Oise, where he was born on the 15th of April 1772. Destined for the church he entered the college of Navarre, in Paris, where he studied natural philosophy under M. J. Brisson; and in 1788 he obtained one of the canonicates of the chapter of Sainte Croix at Étampes, and also a benefice. Science, however, offered him a more congenial career, and he gained from his father permission to remain in Paris, and to attend the lectures at the Collège de France and the Jardin des Plantes, on the condition that he should also read law. He accordingly took up his residence at Cardinal Lemoine's college, and there became the pupil and soon the esteemed associate of Brisson's friend, the abbé Hauy, the mineralogist. Having, before the close of the year 1790, taken the degree of bachelor in law, he became a student of medicine, and attended the lectures of A. F. de Fourcroy at the Jardin des Plantes, and of L. J. M. Daubenton at the Collège de France. His studies at Paris were at length suddenly interrupted, for, in August 1792, Hauy and the other professors of Lemoine's college, as also those of the college of Navarre, were arrested by the revolutionists as priests, and confined in the prison of St Firmin. Through the influence of Daubenton and others Geoffroy on the 14th of August obtained an order for the release of Haüy in the name of the Academy; still the other professors of the two colleges, save C. F. Lhomond, who had been rescued by his pupil J. L. Tallien, remained in confinement. Geoffroy, foreseeing their certain destruction if they remained in the hands of the revolutionists, determined if possible to secure their liberty by stratagem. By bribing one of the officials at St Firmin, and disguising himself as a commissioner of prisons, he gained admission to his friends, and entreated them to effect their escape by following him. All, however, dreading lest their deliverance should render the doom of their fellowcaptives the more certain, refused the offer and one priest only, who was unknown to Geoffroy, left the prison. Already on the night of the 2nd of September the massacre of the proscribed had begun, when Geoffroy, yet int nt on saving the life of his friends and teachers, repaired to St Firmin. At 4 o'clock on the morning of the 3rd of September, after eight hours' waiting, he by means of a ladder assisted the escape of twelve ecclesiastics, not of the number of his acquaintance, and then the approach of dawn and the discharge of a gun directed at him warned him, his chief purpose unaccomplished, to return to his lodgings. Leaving Paris he retired to Etampes, where, in consequence of the anxieties of which he had lately been the prey, and the horrors which he had witnessed, he was for some time seriously ill. At the beginning of the winter of 1792 he returned to his studies in Paris, and in March of the following year Daubenton, through the interest of Bernardin de Saint Pierre, procured him the office of sub-keeper and assistant demonstrator of the cabinet of natural history, vacant by the resignation of B. G. E. Lacépède. By a law passed in June 1793, Geoffroy was appointed one of the twelve professors of the newly constituted museum of natural history, being assigned the chair of zoology. In the same year he busied himself with the formation of a menagerie at that institution. In 1794 through the introduction of A. H. Tessier he entered into correspondence with Georges Cuvier, to whom, after the perusal of some of his manuscripts, he wrote: "Venez jouer parmi nous le rôle de Linné, d'un autre législateur de l'histoire naturelle." Shortly after the appointment of Cuvier as assistant at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Geoffroy received him into his house. The two friends wrote together five memoirs on natural history, one of which, on the classification of mammals, puts forward the idea of the subordination of characters upon which Cuvier based his zoological system. It was in a paper entitled "Histoire des Makis, ou singes de Madagascar," written in 1795, that Geoffroy first gave expression to his views on " the unity of organic composition," the influence of which is perceptible in all his subsequent writings; nature, he observes, presents us with only one plan of construction, the same in principle, but varied in its accessory parts. In 1798 Geoffroy was chosen a member of the great scientific [ expedition to Egypt, and on the capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801, he took part in resisting the claim made by the British general to the collections of the expedition, declaring that, were that demand persisted in, history would have to record that he also had burnt a library in Alexandria. Early in January 1802 Geoffroy returned to his accustomed labours in Paris. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences of that city in September 1807. In March of the following year the emperor, who had already recognized his national services by the award of the cross of the legion of honour, selected him to visit the museums of Portugal, for the purpose of procuring collections from them, and in the face of considerable opposition from the British he eventually was successful in retaining them as a permanent possession for his country. In 1809, the year after his return to France, he was made professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Paris, and from that period he devoted himself more exclusively than before to anatomical study. In 1818 he gave to the world the first part of his celebrated Philosophie anatomique, the second volume of which, published in 1822, and subsequent memoirs account for the formation of monstrosities on the principle of arrest of development, and of the attraction of similar parts. When, in 1830, Geoffroy proceeded to apply to the invertebrata his views as to the unity of animal composition, he found a vigorous opponent in Georges Cuvier, and the discussion between them, continued up to the time of the death of the latter, soon attracted the attention of the scientific throughout Europe. Geoffroy, a synthesist, contended, in accordance with his theory of unity of plan in organic composition, that all animals are formed of the same elements, in the same number, and with the same connexions: homologous parts, however they differ in form and size, must remain associated in the same invariable order. With Goethe he held that there is in nature a law of compensation or balancing of growth, so that if one organ take on an excess of development, it is at the expense of some other part; and he maintained that, since nature takes no sudden leaps, even organs which are superfluous in any given species, if they have played an important part in other species of the same family, are retained as rudiments, which testify to the permanence of the general plan of creation. It was his conviction that, owing to the conditions of life, the same forms had not been perpetuated since the origin of all things, although it was not his belief that existing species are becoming modified. Cuvier, who was an analytical observer of facts, admitted only the prevalence of "laws of co-existence" or "harmony" in animal organs, and maintained the absolute invariability of species, which he declared had been created with a regard to the circumstances in which they were placed, each organ contrived with a view to the function it had to fulfil, thus putting, in Geoffroy's considerations, the effect for the cause. In July 1840 Geoffroy became blind, and some months later he had a paralytic attack. From that time his strength gradually failed him. He resigned his chair at the museum in 1841, and died at Paris on the 19th of June 1844. Geoffroy wrote: Catalogue des mammifères du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle (1813), not quite completed; Philosophie anatomique-t. i., Des organes respiratoires (1818), and t. ii., Des monstruosites humaines (1822); Système dentaire des mammifères et des oiseaux (1st pt., 1824); Sur le principe de l'unité de composition organique (1828); Cours de l'histoire naturelle des mammifères (1829); Principes de philosophie zoologique (1830); Etudes progressives d'un naturaliste (1835): Fragments biographiques (1832); Notions synthétiques, historiques et physiologiques de philosophie naturelle (1838), and other works; also part of the Description de L'Egypte par la commission des sciences (1821-1830); and, with Frédéric Cuvier (1773-1838), a younger brother of G. Cuvier, Histoire naturelle des mammifères (4 vols., 1820-1842); besides numerous papers on such subjects as the anatomy of marsupials, ruminants and electrical fishes, the vertebrate theory of the skull, the opercula of fishes, teratology, palaeontology and the influence of surrounding conditions in modifying animal forms. See Vie, travaux, et doctrine scientifique d'Étienne Geoffroy SaintHilaire, par son fils M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Paris and Strasburg, 1817), to which is appended a list of Geoffroy's works; and Joly, in Biog. universelle, t. xvi. (1856). GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, ISIDORE (1805-1861), *French zoologist, son of the preceding, was born at Paris on the 16th of December 1805. In his earlier years he showed an aptitude for mathematics, but eventually he devoted himself to the study of natural history and of medicine, and in 1824 he was appointed assistant naturalist to his father. On the occasion of his taking the degree of doctor of medicine in September 1829, he read a thesis entitled Propositions sur la monstruosité, considérée chez l'homme et les animaux; and in 1832-1837 was published his great teratological work, Histoire générale et particulière des anomalies de l'organisation chez l'homme et les animaux, 3 vols. 8vo. with 20 plates. In 1829 he delivered for his father the second part of a course of lectures on ornithology, and during the three following years he taught zoology at the Athénée, and teratology at the Ecole pratique. He was elected a member of the academy of sciences at Paris in 1833, was in 1837 appointed to act as deputy for his father at the faculty of sciences in Paris, and in the following year was sent to Bordeaux to organize a similar faculty there. He became successively inspector of the academy of Paris (1840), professor of the museum on the retirement of his father (1841), inspector-general of the university (1844), a member of the royal council for public instruction (1845), and on the death of H. M. D. de Blainville, professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences (1850). In 1854 he founded the Acclimatization Society of Paris, of which he was president. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1861. Besides the above-mentioned works, he wrote: Essais de zoologie générale (1841); Vie d'Elienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1847); Acclimatation et domestication des animaux utiles (1849; 4th ed., la viande de cheval (1856); and Histoire naturelle générale des règnes 1861); Lettres sur les substances alimentaires et particulièrement sur organiques (3 vols., 1854-1862), which was not quite completed. He was the author also of various papers on zoology, comparative anatomy and palaeontology. GEOGRAPHY (Gr., earth, and ypádem, to write), the exact and organized knowledge of the distribution of phenomena on the surface of the carth. The fundamental basis of geography is the vertical relief of the earth's crust, which controls all mobile distributions. The grander features of the relief of the lithosphere or stony crust of the earth control the distribution of the hydrosphere or collected waters which gather into the hollows, filling them up to a height corresponding to the volume, and thus producing the important practical division of the surface into land and water. The distribution of the mass of the atmosphere over the surface of the earth is also controlled by the relief of the crust, its greater or lesser density at the surface corresponding to the lesser or greater elevation of the surface. The simplicity of the zonal distribution of solar energy on the earth's surface, which would characterize a uniform globe, is entirely destroyed by the dissimilar action of land and water with regard to radiant heat, and by the influence of crust-forms on the direction of the resulting circulation. The influence of physical environment becomes clearer and stronger when the distribution of plant and animal life is considered, and if it is less distinct in the case of man, the reason is found in the modifications of environment consciously produced by human effort. Geography is a synthetic science, dependent for the data with which it deals on the results of specialized sciences such as astronomy, geology, oceanography, meteorology, biology and anthropology, as well as on topographical description. The physical and natural sciences are concerned in geography only so far as they deal with the forms of the earth's surface, or as regards the distribution of phenomena. The distinctive task of geography as a science is to investigate the control exercised by the crust-forms directly or indirectly upon the various mobile distributions. This gives to it unity and definiteness, and renders superfluous the attempts that have been made from time to time to define the limits which divide geography from geology on the one hand and from history on the other. It is essential to classify the subject-matter of geography in such a manner as to give prominence not only to facts, but to their mutual relations and their natural and inevitable order. The fundamental conception of geography is form, including the figure of the earth and the varieties of crustal relief. Hence mathematical geography (see MAP), including cartography as a practical application, comes first. It merges into physical geography, which takes account of the forms of the lithosphere (geomorphology), and also of the distribution of the hydrosphere and the rearrangements resulting from the workings of solar energy throughout the hydrosphere and atmosphere (oceanography and climatology). Next follows the distribution of plants and animals (biogeography), and finally the distribution of mankind and the various artificial boundaries and redistributions (anthropogeography). The applications of anthropogeography to human uses give rise to political and commercial geography, in the elucidation of which all the earlier departments or stages have to be considered, together with historical and other purely human conditions. The evolutionary idea has revolutionized and unified geography as it did biology, breaking down the old hard-and-fast partitions between the various departments, and substituting the study of the nature and influence of actual terrestrial environments for the carlier motive, the discovery and exploration of new lands. Flat earth HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHICAL THEORY | earth by three arguments, two of which could be tested by obser to the While the theory of the sphere was being elaborated the efforts of the outline and configuration of the oekumene, or habitable practical geographers were steadily directed towards ascertaining Fitting the world, the only portion of the terrestrial surface known oekumene to the ancients and to the medieval peoples, and still retaining a shadow of its old monopoly of geographical sphere. attention in its modern name of the Old World." The fitting of the oekumene to the sphere was the second theoretical problem. The circular outline had given way in geographical opinion to the elliptical with the long axis lying east and west, and Aristotle was inclined to view it as a very long and relatively narrow band almost encircling the globe in the temperate zone. His argument as to the narrowness of the sea between West Africa and East Asia, from the occurrence of elephants at both extremities, is difficult to understand, although it shows that he looked on the distribution of animals as a problem of geography. Pythagoras had speculated as to the existence of antipodes, but it was not until the first approximately accurate measurements of the globe and estimates of the length and breadth of the Problem oekumene were made by Eratosthenes (c. 250 B.C.) that of the the fact that, as then known, it occupied less than a quarter Antipodes. of the surface of the sphere was clearly recognized. It was natural, if not strictly logical, that the ocean river should be extended from a narrow stream to a world-embracing sea, and here again Greek theory, or rather fancy, gave its modern name to the greatest feature of the globe. The old instinctive idea of symmetry must often have suggested other ockumene balancing the known world in the other quarters of the globe. The Stoic philosophers, especially Crates of Mallus, arguing from the love of nature for life, placed an ockumene in cach quarter of the sphere, the three unknown worldislands being those of the Antoeci, Perioeci and Antipodes. This Iwas a theory not only attractive to the philosophical mind, but eminently adapted to promote exploration. It had its opponents, however, for Herodotus showed that sea-basins existed cut off from the ocean, and it is still a matter of controversy how far the prePtolemaic geographers believed in a water-connexion between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. It is quite clear that Pomponius Mela (c. A.D. 40), following Strabo, held that the southern temperate zone contained a habitable land, which he designated by the name Antichthones. The earliest conceptions of the earth, like those held by the primitive peoples of the present day, are difficult to discover and almost impossible fully to grasp. Early generalizations, as far as they were made from known facts, were usually expressed in symbolic language, and for our present purpose it is not profitable to speculate on the underlying truths which may sometimes be suspected in the old mythological cosmogonies. The first definite geographical theories to affect the western world were those evolved, or at least first expressed, by the Greeks.1 Early The earliest theoretical problem of geography was the form of the earth. The natural supposition that the earth Greek ideas. is a flat disk, circular or elliptical in outline, had in the time of Homer acquired a special definiteness by the introduction of the idea of the ocean river bounding the whole, an application of imperfectly understood observations. Thales of Miletus is claimed as the first exponent of the idea of a of Homer. spherical earth; but, although this does not appear to be warranted, his disciple Anaximander (c, 580 B.C.) put forward the theory that the earth had the figure of a solid body hanging freely in the centre of the hollow sphere of the starry heavens. The Pythagorean school of philosophers adopted the theory of a spherical earth, but from metaphysical rather than scientific reasons; their convincing argument was that a sphere being the most perfect solid figure was the only one worthy to circumscribe the dwellingplace of man. The division of the sphere into parallel zones and some of the consequences of this generalization seem to have presented themselves to Parmenides (c. 450 B.C.); but these ideas did not influence the Ionian school of philosophers, who in their treatment of geography preferred to deal with facts demonstrable by Hecataeus. travel rather than with speculations. Thus Hecataeus, claimed by H. F. Tozer as the father of geography on account of his Periodos, or general treatise on the earth, did not advance beyond the primitive conception of a circular disk. He systematized the form of the land within the ring of ocean-the Oikovμev, or habitable world-by recognizing two continents: Aristotle left no work on geography, so that it is impossible to Europe to the north, and Asia to the south of the midland sea. know what facts he associated with the science of the earth's surface. Herodotus. Herodotus, equally oblivious of the sphere, criticized and The word geography did not appear before Aristotle, Aristotle's ridiculed the circular outline of the ockumene, which he the first use of it being in the Hepi kooper, which is one knew to be longer from east to west than it was broad from north to of the writings doubtfully ascribed to him, and H. Berger graphical south. He also pointed out reasons for accepting a division of the considers that the expression was introduced by Eratos views. land into three continents-Europe, Asia and Africa. Beyond the thenes. Aristotle was certainly conversant with many limits of his personal travels Herodotus applied the characteristically facts, such as the formation of deltas, coast-erosion, and to a certain Greek theory of symmetry to complete, in the unknown, outlines extent the dependence of plants and animals on their physical of lands and rivers analogous to those which had been surroundings. He formed a comprehensive theory of the variations explored. Symmetry was in fact the first geographical of climate with latitude and season, and was convinced of the neces theory, and the effect of Herodotus's hypothesis that the sity of a circulation of water between the sea and rivers, though, Nile must flow from west to east before turning north in like Plato, he held that this took place by water rising from the sea order to balance the Danube running from west to east before turning through crevices in the rocks, losing its dissolved salts in the process. south lingered in the maps of Africa down to the time of Mungo He speculated on the differences in the character of races of mankind Park. living in different climates, and correlated the political forms of To Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) must be given the distinction of found-communities with their situation on a scashore, or in the neighbour. ing scientific geography. He demonstrated the sphericity of the hood of natural strongholds. The idea of sym. metry. 1 A concise sketch of the whole history of geographical method or theory as distinguished from the history of geographical discovery (see later section of this article) is only to be found in the introduction to H. Wagner's Lehrbuch der Geographie, vol. i. (Leipzig, 1900), which is in every way the most complete treatise on the principles of geography. History of Ancient Geography (Cambridge, 1897), p. 70. geo Strabo (c. 50 B.C.-A.D. 24) followed Eratosthenes rather than Aristotle, but with sympathies which went out more to the human interests than the mathematical basis of geography. He Strabo. compiled a very remarkable work dealing, in large measure from personal travel, with the countries surrounding the Mediterranean. He may be said to have set the pattern which was followed in succeeding ages by the compilers of "political geographies' Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen (Leipzig, 1891), Abt. 3, p. 69. dealing less with theories than with facts, and illustrating rather than formulating the principles of the science. Claudius Ptolemaeus (c. A.D. 150) concentrated in his writings the final outcome of all Greek geographical learning, and passed it across the gulf of the middle ages by the hands of the Arabs, Ptolemy. to form the starting-point of the science in modern times. His geography was based more immediately on the work of his predecessor, Marinus of Tyre, and on that of Hipparchus, the follower and critic of Eratosthenes. It was the ambition of Ptolemy to describe and represent accurately the surface of the ockumene, for which purpose he took immense trouble to collect all existing determinations of the latitude of places, all estimates of longitude, and to make every possible rectification in the estimates of distances by land or sca. His work was mainly cartographical in its aim, and theory was as far as possible excluded. The symmetrically placed hypothetical islands in the great continuousoccan disappeared, and the oekumene acquired a new form by the representation of the Indian Ocean as a larger Mediterrancan completely cut off by land from the Atlantic. The terra incognita uniting Africa and Farther Asia was an unfortunate hypothesis which helped to retard exploration. Ptolemy used the word geography to signify the description of the whole oekumene on mathematical principles, while chorography signified the fuller description of a particular region, and topography the very detailed description of a smaller locality. He introduced the simile that geography represented an artist's sketch of a whole portrait, while chorography corresponded to the careful and detailed drawing of an eye or an car.1 The Caliph al-Mamūn (c. A.D. 815), the son and successor of Härün al-Rashid, caused an Arabic version of Ptolemy's great astronomical work (Zivraĝis peyiorn) to be made, which is known as the Almagest, the word being nothing more than the Gr. peyiorn with the Arabic article al prefixed. The geography of Ptolemy was also known and is constantly referred to by Arab writers. The Arab astronomers measured a degree on the plains of Mesopotamia, thereby deducing a fair approximation to the size of the carth. The caliph's librarian, Abu Jatar Muhammad Ben Musa, wrote a geographical work, now unfortunately lost, entitled Rasm el Arsi (“ A Description of the World "), which is often referred to by subsequent writers as having been composed on the model of that of Ptolemy. The middle ages saw geographical knowledge die out in Christendom, although it retained, through the Arabic translations of Ptolemy, a certain vitality in Islam. The verbal interGeography pretation of Scripture led Lactantius (c. A.D. 320) and other ecclesiastics to denounce the spherical theory of the middle earth as heretical. The wretched subterfuge of Cosmas ages. (c. A.D. 550) to explain the phenomena of the apparent movements of the sun by means of an earth modelled on the plan of the Jewish Tabernacle gave place ultimately to the wheel-maps -the T in an O-which reverted to the primitive ignorance of the times of Homer and Hecataeus.2 lo the The journey of Marco Polo, the increasing trade to the East and the voyages of the Arabs in the Indian Ocean prepared the way for the reacceptance of Ptolemy's ideas when the sealed books of the Greek original were translated into Latin by Angelus in 1410. The old arguments of Aristotle and the old measurements of Ptolemy were used by Toscanelli and Columbus in urging a westward voyage to India; and mainly on this account did the Revival of crossing of the Atlantic rank higher in the history of geography. scientific geography than the laborious feeling out of the coast-line of Africa. But not until the voyage of Magellan shook the scales from the eyes of Europe did modern geography begin to advance. Discovery had outrun theory; the rush of new facts made Ptolemy practically obsolete in a generation, after having been the fount and origin of all geography for a millennium. The earliest evidence of the reincarnation of a sound theoretical geography is to be found in the text-books by Peter Apian and Sebastian Münster. Apian in his Cosmographicus liber, Apianus. published in 1524, and subsequently edited and added to by Gemma Frisius under the title of Cosmographia, based the whole science on mathematics and measurement. He followed Ptolemy closely, enlarging on his distinction between geography and chorography, and expressing the artistic analogy in a rough diagram. This slender distinction was made much of by most subsequent writers until Nathanael Carpenter in 1625 pointed out that the difference between geography and chorography was simply one of degree, not of kind. Sebastian Münster, on the other hand, in his Cosmographia universalis of 1544, paid no regard to the mathematical basis of geography, but, following the model of Strabo, described Münster. the world according to its different political divisions, and entered with great zest into the question of the productions Bunbury's History of Ancient Geography (2 vols., London, 1879), Müller's Geographi Graeci minores (2 vols., Paris, 1855, 1861) and Berger's Geschichte der wissenschaftlichen Erdkunde der Griechen (4 vols., Leipzig, 1887-1893) are standard authorities on the Greek geographers. The period of the early middle ages is dealt with in Beazley's Dawn of Modern Geography (London: part i., 1897; part ii., 1901; part iii., 1906); see also Winstedt, Cosmos Indicopleusies (1910). of countries, and into the manners and costumes of the various peoples. Thus early commenced the separation between what were long called mathematical and political geography, the one subject appealing mainly to mathematicians, the other to historians. Throughout the 16th and 17th centuries the rapidly accumulating store of facts as to the extent, outline and mountain and river systems of the lands of the earth were put in order by the generation of cartographers of which Mercator was the chief; but the writings of Apian and Münster held the field for a hundred years without a serious rival, unless the many annotated editions of Ptolemy might be so considered. Meanwhile the new facts were the subject of original study by philosophers and by practical men without reference to classical traditions. Bacon argued keenly on geographical matters and was a lover of maps, in which he observed and reasoned upon such resemblances as that between the outlines of South America and Africa. Philip Cluver's Introductio in geographiam universam tam velerem quam novam was published in 1624. Geography he defined as the description of the whole earth, so far as it is known to us." It is distinguished from cosmography by dealing Cluverius. with the earth alone, not with the universe, and from chorography and topography by dealing with the whole carth, not with a country or a place. The first book, of fourteen short chapters, is concerned with the general properties of the globe; the remaining six books treat in considerable detail of the countries of Europe and of the other continents. Each country is described with particular regard to its people as well as to its surface, and the prominence given to the human element is of special interest. A little-known book which appears to have escaped the attention of most writers on the history of modern geography was published at Oxford in 1625 by Nathanael Carpenter, fellow of Exeter College, with the title Geographie delineated forth Carpenter. in Two Bookes, containing the Sphericall and Topicall parts thereof. It is discursive in its style and verbose; but, considering the period at which it appeared, it is remarkable for the strong common sense displayed by the author, his comparative freedom from prejudice, and his firm application of the methods of scientific reasoning to the interpretation of phenomena. Basing his work on the principles of Ptolemy, he brings together illustrations from the most recent travellers, and does not hesitate to take as illustrative examples the familiar city of Oxford and his native county of Devon. He divides geography into The Spherical Part, or that for the study of which mathematics alone is required, and The Topical Part, or the description of the physical relations of parts of the earth's surface, preferring this division to that favoured by the ancient geographers into general and special. It is distinguished from other English geographical books of the period by confining attention to the principles of geography, and not describing the countries of the world. Varenius. A much more important work in the history of geographical method is the Geographia generalis of Bernhard Varenius, a German medical doctor of Leiden, who died at the age of twentyeight in 1650, the year of the publication of his book. Although for a time it was lost sight of on the continent, Sir Isaac Newton thought so highly of this book that he prepared an annotated edition which was published in Cambridge in 1672, with the addition of the plates which had been planned by Varenius, but not produced by the original publishers. The reason why this great man took so much care in correcting and publishing our author was, because he thought him necessary to be read by his audience, the young gentlemen of Cambridge, while he was delivering lectures on the same subject from the Lucasian Chair." The treatise of Varenius is a model of logical arrangement and terse expression; it is a work of science and of genius; one of the few of that age which can still be studied with profit. The English translation renders the definition thus: "Geography is that part of mixed mathematics which explains the state of the earth and of its parts, depending on quantity, viz. its figure, place, magnitude and motion, with the celestial appearances, &c. By some it is taken in too limited a sense, for a bare description of the several countries; and by others too extensively, who along with such a description would have their political constitution.' Varenius was reluctant to include the human side of geography in his system, and only allowed it as a concession to custom, and in order to attract readers by imparting interest to the sterner details of the science. His division of geography was into two parts-(i.) General or universal, dealing with the earth in general, and explaining its properties without regard to particular countries; and (ii.) Special or particular, dealing with each country in turn from the chorographical or topographical point of view. General geography was divided into-(1) the Absolute part, dealing with the form, dimensions, position and substance of the earth, the distribution of land and water, mountains, woods and deserts, hydrography (including all the waters of the earth) and the atmosphere; (2) the Relative part, including the celestial properties, i.e. latitude, climate zones, longitude, &c.; and (3) the Comparative part, which "considers the 'From translator's preface to the English version by Mr Dugdale (1733), entitled A Complete System of General Geography, revised by Dr Peter Shaw (London, 1756). particulars arising from comparing one part with another "; but under this head the questions discussed were longitude, the situation and distances of places, and navigation. Varenius does not treat of special geography, but gives a scheme for it under three heads(1) Terrestrial, including position, outline, boundaries, mountains, mines, woods and deserts, waters, fertility and fruits, and living creatures; (2) Celestial, including appearance of the heavens and the climate; (3) Human, but this was added out of deference to popular usage. This system of geography founded a new epoch, and the booktranslated into English, Dutch and French-was the unchallenged standard for more than a century. The framework was capable of accommodating itself to new facts, and was indeed far in advance of the knowledge of the period. The method included a recognition of the causes and effects of phenomena as well as the mere fact of their occurrence, and for the first time the importance of the vertical relief of the land was fairly recognized. Ritter. prepare the way for Humboldt. The theory of geography was advanced by Humboldt máinly by his insistence on the great principle of the unity of nature. He brought all the "observable things," which the eager collectors of the previous century had been heaping together regardless of order or system, into relation with the vertical relief and the horizontal forms of the earth's surface. Thus he demonstrated that the forms of the land exercise a directive and determining influence on climate, plant life, animal life and on man himself. This was no new idea; it had been familiar for centuries in a less definite form, deduced from a priori considerations, and so far as regards the influence of surrounding circumstances upon man, Kant had already given it full expression. Humboldt's concrete illustrations and the remarkable power of his personality enabled him to enforce these principles in a way that produced an immediate and lasting effect. The treatises on physical geography by Mrs Mary Somerville and Sir John Herschel (the latter written for the eighth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica) showed the The physical side of geography continued to be elaborated after effect produced in Great Britain by the stimulus of Humboldt's work. Varenius's methods, while the historical side was developed separ Humboldt's contemporary, Carl Ritter (1779-1859), extended and ately. Both branches, although enriched by new facts, remained disseminated the same views, and in his interpretation of "Comstationary so far as method is concerned until nearly the end of the parative Geography " he laid stress on the importance of 18th century. The compilation of "geography books by unin- forming conclusions, not from the study of one region by structed writers led to the pernicious habit, which is not yet wholly itself, but from the comparison of the phenomena of many places. overcome, of reducing the general or "physical" part to a few Impressed by the influence of terrestrial relief and climate on human pages of concentrated information, and expanding the particular movements, Ritter was led deeper and deeper into the study of history or "political" part by including unrevised travellers' stories and and archaeology. His monumental Vergleichende Geographic, which uncritical descriptions of the various countries of the world. Such was to have made the whole world its theme, died out in a wilderness books were in fact not geography, but merely compressed travel. of detail in twenty-one volumes before it had covered more of the The next marked advance in the theory of geography may be earth's surface than Asia and a portion of Africa. Some of his taken as the nearly simultaneous studies of the physical earth followers showed a tendency to look on geography rather as an carried out by the Swedish chemist, Torbern Bergman, auxiliary to history than as a study of intrinsic worth. Bergman. acting under the impulse of Linnacus, and by the German During the rapid development of physical geography many philosopher, Immanuel Kant. Bergman's Physical Description of branches of the study of nature, which had been included in the the Earth was published in Swedish in 1766, and translated into cosmography of the early writers, the physiography of Geography English in 1772 and into German in 1774. It is a plain, straight-Linnacus and even the Erdkunde of Ritter, had been forward description of the globe, and of the various phenomena so much advanced by the labours of specialists that of the surface, dealing only with definitely ascertained facts in the their connexion was apt to be forgotten. Thus geology; science. natural order of their relationships, but avoiding any systematic meteorology, oceanography and anthropology developed classification or even definitions of terms. into distinct sciences. The absurd attempt was, and sometimes The problems of geography had been lightened by the destructive is still, made by geographers to include all natural science in geocriticism of the French cartographer D'Anville (who had purged graphy; but it is more common for specialists in the various detailed the map of the world of the last remnants of traditional sciences to think, and sometimes to assert, that the ground of Kant. fact unverified by modern observations) and rendered physical geography is now fully occupied by these sciences. Political richer by the dawn of the new era of scientific travel, when Kant geography has been too often looked on from both sides as a mere brought his logical powers to bear upon them. Kant's lectures on summary of guide-book knowledge, useful in the schoolroom, a poor physical geography were delivered in the university of Königsberg relation of physical geography that it was rarely necessary to from 1765 onwards. Geography appealed to him as a valuable recognize. educational discipline, the joint foundation with anthropology of The science of geography, passed on from antiquity by Ptolemy, that "knowledge of the world" which was the result of reason re-established by Varenius and Newton, and systematized by Kant, and experience. In this connexion he divided the communication included within itself definite aspects of all those terrestrial phenoof experience from one person to another into two categories--the mena which are now treated exhaustively under the heads of geology, narrative or historical and the descriptive or geographical; both meteorology, oceanography and anthropology; and the inclusion history and geography being viewed as descriptions, the former a of the requisite portions of the perfected results of these sciences in description in order of time, the latter a description in order of geography is simply the gathering in of fruit matured from the seed scattered by geography itself. space. Physical geography he viewed as a summary of nature, the basis not only of history but also of "all the other possible geographies, of which he enumerates five, viz. (1) Mathematical geography, which deals with the form, size and movements of the earth and its place in the solar system; (2) Moral geography, or an account of the different customs and characters of mankind according to the region they inhabit; (3) Political geography, the divisions according to their organized governments; (4) Mercantile geography, dealing with the trade in the surplus products of countries; (5) Thcological gcography, or the distribution of religions. Here there is a clear and formal statement of the interaction and causal relation of all the phenomena of distribution on the earth's surface, including the influence of physical geography upon the various activities of mankind from the lowest to the highest. Notwithstanding the form of this classification, Kant himself treats mathematical geography as preliminary to, and therefore not dependent on, physical geography. Physical geography itself is divided into two parts: a general, which has to do with the earth and all that belongs to it-water, air and land; and a particular, which deals with special products of the earth-mankind, animals, plants and minerals. Particular importance is given to the vertical relief of the land, on which the various branches of human geography are shown to depend. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) was the first modern geographer to become a great traveller, and thus to acquire an extensive stock of first-hand information on which an improved Humboldt. system of geography might be founded. The impulse given to the study of natural history by the example of Linnaeus; the results brought back by Sir Joseph Banks, Dr Solander and the two Forsters, who accompanied Cook in his voyages of discovery: the studies of De Saussure in the Alps, and the lists of desiderata in physical geography drawn up by that investigator, combined to Printed in Schriften sur physischen Geographie, vol. vi. of Schubert's edition of the collected works of Kant (Leipzig, 1839). First published with notes by Rink in 1802. as a natural The study of geography was advanced by improvements in cartography (see MAP), not only in the methods of survey and projec tion, but in the representation of the third dimension by means of contour lines introduced by Philippe Buache in 1737, and the more remarkable because less obvious invention of isotherms introduced by Humboldt in 1817. gument in The argument from design had been a favourite form of reasoning amongst Christian theologians, and, as worked out by Paley in his Natural Theology, it served the useful purpose The teleo of emphasizing the fitness which exists between all the logical ar inhabitants of the earth and their physical environment. It was held that the earth had been created so as to fit geography. the wants of man in every particular. This argument was tacitly accepted or explicitly avowed by almost every writer on the theory of geography, and Carl Ritter distinctly recognized and adopted it as the unifying principle of his system. As a student of nature, however, he did not fail to see, and as professor of geography he always taught, that man was in very large measure conditioned by his physical environment. The apparent opposition of the observed fact to the assigned theory he overcame by looking upon the forms of the land and the arrangement of land and sea as instru ments of Divine Providence for guiding the destiny as well as for supplying the requirements of man. This was the central theme of Ritter's philosophy; his religion and his geography were one, and the consequent fervour with which he pursued his mission goes far to account for the immense influence he acquired in Germany. The evolutionary theory, more than hinted at in Kant's " Physical Geography," has, since the writings of Charles Darwin, become the unifying principle in geography. The conception of the The theory development of the plan of the earth from the first of evolu cooling of the surface of the planet throughout the long tion in geological periods, the guiding power of environment on geography. the circulation of water and of air, on the distribution of plants and animals, and finally on the movements of man, give to geography a philosophical dignity and a scientific completeness |