The Dictionary of Human Geography

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to each other, giving prominence to compre-

hensive principles rather than isolated facts.

(Mill, 1913, p. 3)

and having:

... a unique value in mental training, being

at once an introduction to all the sciences

and summing up of their results ... (Mill,

1913, p. 14)

In others, physiography was a more limited

and scientifically precise component of phys-

ical geography, which had been:

... too often degraded into a sort of scien-

tific curiosity shop, in which there is a vast

collection of isolated facts ... without the

slightest attempt ... to show how interde-

pendent they are ... (Skertchly, 1878, p. 2)

Interdependence of natural kinds was a com-

mon theme in these early writings (see also

Thornton, 1901) and recourse to the funda-

mental physical concepts of matter, work and

energy (which seemed more at home under

the label of physiography) was the common

means by which this was treated. Indeed, the

approach bore a striking resemblance to later

attempts to rejuvenate physical geography

through the applications of systems theory

(see below).

Thomas Henry Huxley’s volume of 1877

was different. Huxley had ‘ ... borrowed the

title. .. which had ... been long applied. ..

to a department of mineralogy .. .’.

Significantly, Huxley’s purpose was to:

... draw a clear line of demarcation, both

as to the matter and method, between it

[physiography] and what is commonly

understood by ‘Physical Geography.’

(Huxley, 1877, p. vi)

The grounds for this demarcation lay in the

belief that physical geography had become too

thoroughgoing a physical science! Huxley’s

project, of course, was the extension of general

elementary education, and the comments

reflect his disappointment that the unique

educational value of physical geography had

been lost in more specialist study. Despite

Huxley’s ambition to give a sense of place

and purpose, where knowledge was grounded

in the local and observational, his physiog-

raphy was far from regional geography. Its

content reflected such practicalities as how to

find the North Pole or read aTimesweather

chart, alongside (by then) standard chapters

on ice, sea, earthquakes and the sun.

Notwithstanding Stoddart’s (1986) attempt

to place it more centrally within geography, it

probably held back, rather than promoted,

the subject – albeit ahead of its time in educa-

tional terms and somewhat misunderstood.

Certainly, more contemporary observers were

able to label physiography as the elementary

component of physical geography, and one

more influenced (and limited) by concerns of

relevance to human activity (Salisbury, 1907).

Later use of physiography confined it to the

description of landscape, and placed it firmly

within the geological tradition (Tarr, 1920).

Indeed, according to Lobeck, physiography.

. .. should not be called physical geog-
raphy, ... because the idea of the relation
of life to physical environment is not within
the scope of physiography. (Lobeck, 1939,
p. 3)

Physiography was thus identified with geo-

morphology, andbothterms became increas-

ingly synonymous with physical geography.

Davis (1899b) attempted to distinguish physi-

ography from physical geography based upon

a test of the presence or absence of ‘causes and

consequences’ (p. iv) between environment

and organic life. Physical geography made

these connections; in their absence was pure

landform study, or physiography as now cast.

Davis rarely applied this prescription to his

own work, and largely under his influence,

physical geography become closely associated

with regional landform description and evolu-

tion. In suggesting the test as a kind of pre-

scription for study, he had, however, helped

raise the spectre of environmental determin-

ism, and to some, had thereby eased the

passage of other areas of physical geography

into a long, but ultimately blind, alley

(Leighly, 1955).

Thus, while physiography allowed, as it

were, greater room for manoeuvre in the jost-

ling arena of nascent disciplines, it did nothing

to clarify or confirm physical geography (or

geography itself) as a coherent whole. On the

one hand, physiography was a polyglot phys-

ical geography, whose project remained more

ambitious than its achievements warranted.

On the other, it was a specialism, related to

geography around its circumference, along

with the other applied sciences (Fenneman,

1919: see figure 1). So many circumferential

fields of enquiry begged the question of

what was at the centre. It was into this that

physical geography was placed in uneasy alli-

ance with the varying forms of regional

enquiry.

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_P Final Proof page 533 1.4.2009 3:20pm

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY