A Geographic Interpretation of New York City

Abstract

Compared with many sciences of equal rank and age, geography has but little changed its aim and scope. Beginning as a most inclusive science which dealt with descriptions and observations relating to the entire visible universe, the science has narrowed with the separation from the parent science of geology, meteorology, anthropology, sociology, and phases of other sciences-but still holds rather closely to the meaning expressed by its etymology-earth science. The content of the science has been, and, to a great extent, still remains, the description of the surface of the earth and its peoples, together with any reflections and observations that present themselves to the writer. Perhaps the best efforts of geographers have been given to exploring and mapping the earth's surface, and such work is absolutely a necessary precedent to further description. Such work, although of great value, does not reach its highest value when it remains almost entirely descriptive. With the general enrichment and increase in the content of all the other sciences, geography has slowly been assuming a new aspect. The facts of location which constituted the principal content of the old geography demand explanation. As a consequence, more attenton is being given to the relations of geographic facts and factors. Ritter, Guyot, Ratzel, and many others have given a new outlook by their labors along this line of correlation. Their working definition of geography may be summarized in the statement that geography treats of the earth as the home of man-that is, it considers those earth influences that affect man. The earth in this sense includes the land, the seas, and the atmosphere. Davis would enlarge this definition to include all life responses to earth conditions and would add plants and animals to the organic factors of geography.t Mill states the idea somewhat differently by emphasizing geography as the science of distribution, and would include facts of distribution