Geography in Germany.

Abstract

IN 1886–87 there was much discussion among English geographers about the limits and methods of their subject. The whole matter had been gone into by the Germans a few years before. It is curious to note that just when we had relapsed into something like silence on the point, and had agreed to put our views to the test of practice, the debate was vigorously revived in the Fatherland. In part this was the effect of the sympathy and of the supply of material for criticism which came across the water, but in the main it was due to Dr. Gerland's striking introduction to the first volume of the Strassburg “Contributions to Geophysics.” In the last Geographisches Jahrbuch Dr. Wagner sums up both the English and the German discussions, and, though he differs radically from Dr. Gerland's fundamental positions, he gives to his essay the place of honour. The clearness and richness of its style, the closeness of its argument, the extreme and unhesitating views it enunciates, and its author's great experience command attention, and must be the excuse for once more bringing an almost threadbare subject before English readers.

Beiträge zur Geophysik: Abhandlungen aus dem geographischen Seminar der Universität Strassburg.

Herausgegeben von Prof. Dr. Georg Gerland. I. Band. (Stuttgart: Koch, 1887.)

Bericht über die Entwickelung der Methodik und des Studiums der Erdkunde.

Von Prof. Dr. Hermann Wagner. Im Geographisches Jahrbuch, 1888. (Gotha: Perthes.)