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Walter Woodburn Hyde. 25
poetic feeling for nature, and which, in the slow course of time, had
become fixed and the poets' conventionalized synonym for the
beauty of nature. Thus the case with Tempe is not so very dis
similar to that of the Alexandrine Arcadia, for both became poetic
ideals quite apart from what they really were. The actual scenery
of Tempe seems from the first to have been but imperfectly known.
The first historical description of an eye-witness of which we have
any record is that of Polybius, which, from Livy's paraphrase, we
know was at variance with the poetic conception of it formed long
before. The romantic beauty of the entrance to the defile, the
wooded slopes of Ossa and Olympus enclosing the little glade in
which the modern village of Baba is situated, may in early tradition
have stood for the entire vale. Perhaps the old Thracian bards, who
prehistorically moved the Muses from the slopes of Olympus to
those of Helicon, carried the germs of the tradition with them in
some of their songs. In later times accounts of the wooded glade
where Apollo's altar stood, were doubtless told by members of the
various Delphic embassies sent every ninth year to bring the laurel
from Tempe to the Castalian spring. But doubtless the entire defile
was not known even to these noble youths and their train.
In Tempe, then, in the process of time, the Greek poets came to
see their ideal of sylvan, rustic nature. The Roman poets of the
empire carried the ideal further on. With them Tempe quite lost
its original meaning as an actual place, and came to be used only in
a fully ideal and generic sense of any lovely spot. Thus Vergil
speaks of the " speluncae vivique lacus et f rigida Tempe "M0
as the delights of the farmer's life, and Horace says that Tempe is
a spot "non zephyris agitata.""1
This is assuredly not the glen in far away northeastern Thessaly,
but merely a figment of poetic imagination. And so the culminating
picture, which we have seen in iElian, and which was composed still
later and upon the basis of all these accumulated fancies, was noth
ing more than a summary picture of the GrEeco-Roman ideal of
nature. M0Georgics, II, 469.
101 Odes, III, 1, 24. (223)

WILLIAM MORRIS DAVIS, GEOGRAPHER.
Ellsworth Huntington.
M I
No science reaches maturity until it attains the power of pre
diction. So long as scientists merely gather facts or group them into
systematic categories, their science lacks completeness. Maturity is
attained only when a science is able to say that, given such and such
conditions, certain specific results are sure to follow. When William
Morris Davis began his work, about 1875, this mature or predictive
stage had not been reached in most branches of geography. His
life work has been to take the most neglected and yet perhaps the
most obvious branch of the subject, and to transform it from a
mere mass of undigested facts into a well-developed science. Geog
raphy, as every one knows, is commonly divided into two great sec
tions, one of which deals with the physical phenomena of the earth's
surface in the broadest sense, while the other is concerned with the
relation of these physical facts to the distribution of animate beings
and of their characteristics so far as these are peculiar to one region
and not another. The first of these sections, commonly known as
physical geography, is divided into three portions, dealing respect
ively with the atmosphere, or aerial envelope, the hydrosphere, or
water envelope, and the lithosphere, or rock envelope which forms
the lands. It is in this last field, the study of the lands, that Pro
fessor Davis has made his chief contribution to science. Neverthe
less he has not confined himself to this entirely, but has done
good work along other lines. In order rightly to estimate the impor
tance of his labors, let us take up the various branches of geog
raphy, beginning with the atmosphere, passing on to the ocean and
the lands, and ending with the living beings that inhabit sky, sea,
and earth. In each case let us examine the position of the subject
when Professor Davis began his work, and see what he has added.
In 1875, the study of the air, which includes the subjects of
meteorology and climatology, had advanced to the explanatory and
predictive stages. Students of the subject had worked out the laws
of insolation; they had discovered the relation of these to atmos-
224)

William Morris Davis

Ellsworth Huntington. 27
pheric pressure, and the movement of winds, and they were thor
oughly familiar with the importance of evaporation and condensa
tion. They had worked out the effect of the rotation and revolution
of the earth upon the various climatic factors, and they had
developed a theory as to the origin of the terrestrial zones of winds
and of climate, which was crystallized by Ferrell, and which in its
main features is still accepted. Moreover, the importance of
meteorology was so thoroughly recognized that international con
gresses had been held, and government weather bureaus were
beginning to be established. Finally, as the crown of meteorological
achievements Abbey had developed the method of weather prediction
which is now used in all parts of the globe. In other words,
meteorology had passed through all the stages of a complete science
and was able to predict future events. To be sure, it is not yet
possible to do this with absolute accuracy, and we still have ahead of
us a task of almost indefinite length, first before we arrive at a true
understanding of the causes of the fluctuations of the weather, and
second before we attain the ability to predict the weather conditions
for weeks, months, or even years in advance. Abbey's epoch-making
discovery, however, crystallized meteorology into a full grown science,
whose main outlines have not since been changed. Nevertheless
many important advances have been made. Professor Davis has had
an honorable share in these, although his chief contribution to science
has by no means lain in this line. During the earlier years of his
teaching of geography he felt the need of a text-book of meteor
ology; as there was none to be had which suited him, he went to
work to write one. The book does not pretend to announce any new
discoveries, but even to-day, after twenty years, it is recognized as
one of the best books in its special field. If this were his sole con
tribution to science, he might well be proud of it.
In 1875, the subject of oceanography was as far advanced as
that of meteorology. Aside from its importance in navigation, the
subject does not touch men so closely as do the other branches of
geography, since we breathe the air and walk upon the land, while
we merely cross the ocean at rare intervals. Nevertheless, inter
national congresses for the discussion of oceanography had been
held in Brussels in 1853 and in London in 1873. Maury and others
had formulated the great principles of oceanic circulation; and the
relation of the oceans to climate was well understood. Active work
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28 William Morris Davis, Geographer.
in solving the remaining problems of the oceans was going on in the
form of the famous Challenger Expedition under Sir John Murray.
To the ambitious beginner in the science of geography, therefore,
the subject of oceanography offered relatively little opportunity. It
was fascinating, but it was a subject which, in the nature of things,
only a few persons could study, and in which there was at that time
no crying need for more abundant investigation. Hence Professor
Davis has never attempted to engage in original work along this line,
although he has made constant use of the principles of the subject
in his teaching and text-books.
The portion of geography wherein the greatest deficiency existed
when Professor Davis began his career was the study of the lands.
No one can deny that a true understanding of the physical fea
tures of the land whereon we walk each day, and from which we
raise the food that preserves life, and upon which we build our
houses, our railroads, our factories, and all that we have, is of ines
timable importance. Yet, in 1875, the world had practically no
scientific knowedge of the subject. Geologists, to be sure, had
made great progress in interpreting the physical processes by which
the earth has attained its present form, and they were busily and
successfully working out its past history. Some of them, indeed,
had made a praiseworthy effort at the scientific interpretation of the
surface of the earth as we see it in the daily walks of life, but their
efforts had scarcely done more than call attention to the great gap
in geography toward the filling of which Professor Davis was later
to do so much. Yet even among geographers, the majority had appar
ently never realized the necessity of such scientific interpretation.
They thought, as many of those who belong to the most progressive
geographic societies still do, that map-making and exploration were
the chief objects of geographical research, and that when a land had
been thoroughly mapped and had been described in empirical terms,
the work of the geographer was completed. They saw that the
students of the air and of the ocean were framing exact laws and
were able to tell precisely what would happen under certain condi
tions, but most of them had no definite conception of the necessity
for a similar treatment of the land. Only in a few simple cases did
the names of the various features of the earth's surface suggest to
the mind of the geographer any adequate explanation of how those
features came to exist. Everyone, to be sure, recognized that the
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Ellsworth Huntington. 29
expression " a volcanic crater " carries with it, by implication, a full
statement of the fact that a volcanic eruption has thrown out lava
or ashes, and that ultimately the volcano has built up a cone-shaped
mountain with a depression in its top. It was recognized, too, that
a beach implies the presence of a body of water whose waves act
upon the shore. A valley also was considered a necessary adjunct
of a river, but many people who called themselves geographers were
still in doubt as to whether the valley was there because of the river,
or the river because of the valley.
_ When Professor Davis began to teach geography at. Harvard he
found himself face to face with this problem of land forms. He
has often talked with the writer about the difficulty he experienced in
his early teaching because of the impossibility of finding any books
which adequately discussed the forms of the hills, plains or other
features of ordinary scenery. Therefore, he set himself to work
to put the study of the lands upon as firm a basis as that of the
air or the water. How thoroughly he has re-made the subject may
be judged from the terms in use. The words meteorology and
oceanography have long been recognized, and there is no question
as to their meaning. For the study of the lands, however, no term
existed until recently. Professor Davis himself has generally
spoken of his special work as the study of land forms. Huxley
invented, or at least popularized, the use of the term physiography
as a name for the science of nature in general. Professor Davis
took this term and limited it to the study of all the inanimate fea
tures of the earth's surface, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere
and lithosphere. He meant it to be the antithesis, or better, the
complement of ontography, by which term of his own invention he
meant to designate that half of geography which is concerned with
animate things and their relation to geographical environment. His
own work, however, prevented the word physiography from being
used with the implication that he intended. In the first place, he
showed most forcibly that for the world at large the study of the
laws governing the form of the land is no less important than the
study of the laws of meteorology or of the ocean. In the second
place, his own work placed so preponderating an emphasis upon
these same land forms that the term physiography, in the mind of
both the student and the general public, became associated with
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30 William Morris Davis, Geographer.
these features of the subject, rather than with physical geography
as a whole.
In the study of physiography, by which I now mean the study
of the form of the land, including its rivers, lakes and shores, Pro
fessor Davis has continually emphasized the need of explanatory,
as contrasted with empirical, descriptions. His aim has been to
develop a method whereby a trained man can describe the land
scape of any portion of the globe in the briefest possible way and
with the maximum amount of lucidity. For this purpose he has
always insisted on the necessity of a geological background. The
first requisite in the comprehension of a hill, a valley, a plateau, a
plain, a shore line, or any other feature of the earth's surface, is a
knowledge of its rock structure. Not that the geographer must be
able to distinguish one species of gneiss or granite from another, or
that he must know whether the limestone he is dealing with is Cam
brian or Jurassic, but he must understand the difference in solubility,
rate of weathering and resistance to erosion, of the various types of
rocks. Moreover, he must understand enough of geology to be able
to estimate the influence of folding, faulting, jointing, or other
processes upon the attitude of the rocks and upon their resistance
to the atmospheric forces which have brought them to their present
form. In other words, the first essential to an understanding of the
scenery of a country is some knowledge of its rock structure.
The second essential is a knowledge of the processes which have
acted upon rocks of a given structure. Professor Davis has taken
a foremost place in describing and evaluating the enormous differ
ences in scenery which arise from the differences in the process of
erosion. Save in regions very lately uplifted from the ocean, prac
tically all scenery, as we now know, owes its appearance not to
convulsions of the earth's surface whereby valleys have yawned and
mountains have been heaved up, but to the processes of weather
ing and erosion, whether by running water, creeping ice, or swiftly
moving air. Under condition of aridity these processes produce
results very different from those produced under ordinary condi
tions of moisture such as we have in the eastern United States, or
in western Europe. The results of these two processes again are
notably different from those arising from the erosion of glaciers, or
of the sea; while the topography of tropical lands possesses features
distinctly different from those acquired where snow prevails for a
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Ellsworth Huntington. 31
large part of the year. Evidently then, in order to understand the
scenery of a country, it is not enough to know the structure; we
must also know what process, or processes, have been at work
upon it.
The final step in the comprehension of the form of the land is a
knowledge of the stage of erosional change which it has reached.
No one feels that he can form a mental picture of some unknown
person unless he knows the approximate age. Even so, with the
lands. Before Professor Davis undertook to study them, it was a
common thing to describe all lands as if they were of the same age —
which is just as illogical as it would be for the author of a novel to
describe a child of five and a man of sixty in the same terms.
Professor Davis saw that the form of the earth's surface is in con
tinual process of evolution and that different stages follow one an
other in logical order. Others before him had known that valleys
change their form from millennium to millennium, but it remained
for him distinctly and fully to set forth those stages one by one, and
show how they vary according to structure and process. As a
result of all this the world's stock of ideas has been increased by a
new and fruitful conception of the hills, valleys and plains that sur
round us. Thoughtful people no longer think of the scenery as un
changing, but as subject to continual modification and development
according to distinct and readily comprehended principles. Pro
fessor Davis, has, so to speak, taken a supply of timber, hewed partly
by himself and partly by others, and has prepared a series of com
partments wherein we may put the features of the earth's surface.
The compartments are classified according to three heads : structure,
process and stage of development. When all three are known, the
mere statement of them enables us to form a clear picture of the
place concerned, or to write a description of it which shall be intel
ligible and interesting to the reader who understands the rudiments
of the subject.
The value of the work of Professor Davis lies not merely in the
fact that he has filled the most obvious gap in the science of geog
raphy, but in the degree to which he has stimulated all other parts
of the science. His work has made it easy to observe and to de
scribe. The conditions now, as compared with those of thirty or
forty years ago, are comparable to the difference between a man who
cannot distinguish between an angiosperm and a gymnosperm, and
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32 William Morris Davis, Geographer.
the one who is familiar with all the chief genera of plants. The
unknowing man passes through a virgin forest and recognizes that
some leaves are large and some small, and some plants have beautiful
flowers while others have merely insignificant greenish inflores
cences. Both men may be equally intelligent and equally interested
in giving a good description of the forest, but the one cannot set
down his observations — not only because of the large number of
words required for empirical descriptions, but because he is obliged
to attempt the impossible task of observing and describing every
individual feature of each plant. The other, on the contrary, is
able to give a valuable description because he sees at a glance that a
given bush belongs to a certain genus of the Rosaceae, and the only
things to be recorded are that fact and the one or two points in
which the specific plant differs from the generalized type. 'In the
same way a geographer who has studied the methods of Professor
Davis is able to observe the features of a landscape rapidly and to
describe them succinctly.
Quite as important as the increased facility of geographic obser
vation and description which has come from Professor Davis's work
is the added interest which it lends to the travels of persons who
have had even an elementary training in physiography. Time and
again I have heard of men or women who are enthusiastic over the
new pleasure which has been brought to their travels by a perusal
of Professor Davis's writings. Most of my readers know from their
own experience that the more fully one is able to explain the
scenery of a railroad journey, for instance, the more interesting
it becomes. The man who thoroughly understands the matter never
tires of looking out of the window. In an unknown country, even
in a desert, he continually sees that which is new; while in an old
country which he is thoroughly familiar with, his powers of observa
tion grow by use, and each further bit of explanation in accordance
with physiographical principles adds a new zest to his wanderings.
Professor Davis's great contribution to geography has been, as
we have seen, the systematizing of the science of physiography, but
that is not his only claim to our gratitude. So far as the other half
of geography is concerned — the half which he has called ontography
— he has avowedly done but little. He has made many most inter
esting and valuable suggestions as to the relation of physical features
to the activity of living beings, but he has not attempted to frame the
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Ellsworth Huntington. 33
laws of the subject or to elucidate its principles as he has in the
case of physiography. This is not because he does not realize the
importance of the subject, for he is keenly alive to it. More than
once I have heard him say to his students, " You younger men must
go on and work out the relation of man and other living things to
their geographical environment. You must get at the laws which
govern this matter, and must find out how to present the subject.
That I cannot do. It is too late now ; my work has been to develop
the subject of physiography. That was the need when I began; the
next need is a fuller study of the relation of life to geographical
environment." This brings us to one of the most interesting and valuable fea
tures of Professor Davis's career — namely his relation to other
scientists. No one who knows him has failed to notice how fre
quently he becomes the center when a group of geologists or geogra
phers gather.
When any important question arises, someone is almost sure to
turn eventually to Professor Davis, and his opinion is listened to
with a respect accorded to only a few men in a generation. His
criticisms are often keen and sometimes severe, and yet his fellow-
scientists are thankful for them. He sees to the heart of a sub
ject, and time and again his suggestions have changed men's views
in such a way as to enable them to make their contributions strong
instead of vulnerable. Of late years he has been keenly impressed
with the necessity for clearer and more forcible methods of writing
than are commonly found among scientists. He has felt — as who
has not? — that good work is often spoiled by poor presentation; and
he has also felt the force of the corollary of this proposition, namely,
that for the attainment of clear thinking and intelligent observation
nothing is more helpful than the confirmed habit of clear and logical
presentation. Therefore he has written a series of articles which,
while important because of the facts, hypotheses and arguments pre
sented, are more important as models of scientific literature. Some of
the best of these are his papers on glaciation, part of which are col
lected in his volume of " Geographical Essays," edited by Professor D.
W. Johnson. One lays them aside with the feeling that every possible
hypothesis, every important consequence of each hypothesis, and
every fact that may bear on the case has been considered. When
Professor Davis has finished with a subject, there seems to be
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34 William Morris Davis, Geographer.
nothing left to say, — a remark which I have often heard after he
has made an address.
Curiously enough this very perfection of his scientific methods
carries with it a temporary danger. The fellow-geographers of
Professor Davis, younger than himself, are greatly stimulated by his
clear and forceful presentation, but the very fact that he has done
such brilliant work diverts many of them from pure physiography.
Inasmuch as there seems nothing left to do on a subject which he
has discussed, they turn to other phases of geography, such as
regional geography or anthropogeography. The science as a whole
is enormously the gainer, not only by reason of the increasingly
broad field which is covered, but by reason of the better methods
used in all branches. Nor will physiography suffer any real harm,
for as soon as other branches reach a stage at all comparable to
that to which Professor Davis has brought this particular branch all
parts will advance together.
In the future Professor Davis will be recognized chiefly as the
father of the science of physiography. Yet, to those with whom he
comes in immediate contact his method of work is quite as valuable
as his achievements. While he is in the field, or is engaged in the
preliminary work of observation, he insists upon forming hypothesis
after hypothesis. He insists, too, that the hypotheses must be
formed and tested while the facts are capable of observation. Many
scientists make their notes, take them home and think about them
later. Professor Davis decries this habit. The time for testing an
hypothesis is while it is still possible to make observations. The
proper method of work is to think out the consequences of each
hypothesis and see whether the facts agree with the exceptions.
While this process is going on the scientist is capable of acting as a
judge. I have heard it said by one who greatly admires Professor
Davis that he is an advocate rather than a judge: that his tem
perament is that of the pleader rather than of one who renders a
calm and unbiased judgment. This is true in part, and in it lies one
secret of Professor Davis's strength. At first, while he is making
his observations, he is calm and judicial. When an opinion has once
been formed, he supports it with ardor. Not that he is unwilling to
see the other side, but being once convinced, he has the love of doing
well and forcefully whatever comes to his hand. All of the world's
chief benefactors have been men who, when they once became con-
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Ellsworth Huntington. 35
vinced of the truth of an idea, have endeavored to get that idea
accepted, — and Professor Davis is no exception.
One of the strongest evidences of the importance of Professor
Davis's career is found in the uncommonly wide extent of his influ
ence. In almost any geography, one finds either direct references
to his work, or else a form of thought or expression clearly indi
cating his influence. Again and again one takes up articles from
Australia, India, Germany, or some other part of the world, and
says at once, " This man has been reading Davis." So wide an influ
ence indicates the wide range of the subject and also the need of his
work which has been felt unconsciously in all quarters of the globe.
Of late years he has increased his influence through his two terms
•of service as exchange professor, one at Berlin, 1908-09, and one
at Paris, 1911-12. The success of these two terms is largely due
to his having lectured in German and French and this was the re
sult of his constant industry. For some years he spent his odd
moments in studying French and German in order to speak as
•effectively as possible. On the street I have seen his lips moving
as he talked to himself in French in order to perfect himself in the
presentation of his results to Frenchmen. As a result of this he has
been able to influence his German and French students just as he
has influenced those in America. One of his books, translated and
adapted to German use by Dr. G. Braun of Berlin, is destined to be
widely influential in spreading his ideas in Germany; and now
he is publishing various articles in French. Few people have made
greater efforts or been more successful than he in spreading their
conclusions beyond the narrow bounds of a single country.
I have spoken of the relations of Professor Davis to his students.
It is through them that he is doing much of his work. He has im
pressed himself so strongly upon them that many of the books which
they are writing may almost be considered as his own contribution.
In his contact with them nothing has seemed too small for considera
tion. He has criticised their methods of observation, of thought,
and of style, and many of them recognize that they have learned
more from him in regard to the writing of English than from any of
their other instructors. The position of physiography to-day as
one of the growing sciences is largely the work of Professor Davis.
Many of the geographers who are actively at work in America at
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36 William Morris Davis, Geographer.
the present time have been his pupils and owe to him their inspira
tion. When they meet, the conversation seems naturally to go back
to him and to the things he inculcated. They feel that they have not
been mere scholars and he a mere teacher, but that they have been
disciples and he has been their master.

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