Comparative GeographyJ.B. Lippincott & Company, 1865 - 190 páginas |
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Términos y frases comunes
advance Africa Alexander von Humboldt Alps altitude ancient Aral Australia basin breadth Carpathian Caspian Caucasus Central Asia channel character characteristics civilization coast coast-line connection continents culture Danube depression direction distance districts division earth east eastern Elbe elevation embracing entire Europe extends extremities feet high formation geography geological globe greater heaval height hemisphere highlands hills Himalayas Humboldt immense influence islands Lake Lake Tchad land hemisphere land-mass latitude less lower course lowlands mass middle course mountain chains mountain ranges mouth nature Nile North America northern Old World pass peninsulas Persia phenomena physical plains planets plateau Pyrenees race region relations Rhine rise sea level shore side southern square miles steppe Strabo streams surface table-land teaus terraces tion traced tract tributaries true upheaval upper course Ural Ural Mountains Valdai Valdai hills valleys Vistula volcanic Volga water hemisphere water-shed Weser whole
Pasajes populares
Página xvii - When Geography ceases to be a lifeless aggregate of unorganized facts, and becomes the science which deals with the earth as a true organization, a world capable of constant development, carrying in its own bosom the seeds of the future, to germinate and unfold, age after age, it first attains the unity and wholeness of a science, and shows that it grows from a living root; it becomes capable of systematic exposition, and takes its true place in the circle of sister sciences.
Página xx - Geography is the department of science that deals with the globe in all its features, phenomena, and relations, as an independent unit, and shows the connection of this unified whole with man and with man's Creator.
Página xxv - Ritter to study the physical structure of Europe and Asia, and thus to establish the new science of Comparative Geography. He says, " Whoever has wandered through the valleys and woods and over the hills and mountains of his own State, will be the one capable of following a Herodotus in his wanderings over the globe.
Página xx - ... the true science of Geography. That science aims at nothing less than to embrace the most complete and the most cosmical view of the Earth; to sum up and organize into a beautiful unity all that we know of the globe. The whole body of facts revealed by past and present discovery must be marshaled into harmony, before we gain the high pinnacle of Geographical Science. The Earth, in all its parts, must be known in all its relations, before we can speak of it as the scholars of our day ought to...
Página xxiii - They are at the foundation only arbitrary and unmethodical collections of all facts which are ascertained to exist throughout the earth. They are arranged according to countries, or great natural divisions; but the relation of one great natural division to another, the mutual and immense influence of one country on another, is never mentioned. The description of Europe follows in them to-day the same order in which Strabo set the pattern. The facts are arranged as the pieces of a counterpane, as...
Página xv - The Earth is the grand floor, so to speak, of Nature ; the home, or rather the cradle, of men and of nations, the dwelling-place of our race. It is not merely a region of immense spaces, a vast superficies ; it is the theatre where all the forces of Nature and the laws of Nature are displayed in their variety and independencies. Besides this, it is the field of all human effort, and the scene of a Divine revelation.
Página xiii - ... weight with the popular mind in a matter so remote from the crude speculations of the ignorant as this. And less than one century and a half ago (in 1727) another step was taken, and the theory was propounded by Newton, that the Earth is a spheroid, and not a perfect sphere. Later...
Página 205 - Polynesia, and of too compact and unriftcd a central mass, as in Africa, are alike shunned. Both extremes could not fail to be injurious to the best interests of the population. The fullness and richness of nature might, perhaps, be inincreased ; but the effects on human life could not fail to be bad. Man's highest development does not consist with any extreme in the natural world : it is linked to the action and reaction of contrasts. In Polynesia, the district of extreme dismemberment, the Malays...
Página xxiv - If we compare these geographical treatises with those made in the interest of any other great department, we shall speedily discover that they indicate knowledge rather than science ; they form a mere aggregation and index of rich materials, a lexicon rather than a true text-book.
Página xxviii - It is to use the whole circle of sciences to illustrate its own individuality, not to exhibit their peculiarities. It must make them all give a portion, not the whole, and yet must keep itself single and clear.' The same note is struck by one of the greatest of later .builders in the same field, Vidal de la Blache, in the notable summary of his conception of geography given at the end of a long life mainly devoted to its advancement : ' Nous avons connu longtemps la...