New School of Geographers

The labors of Humboldt, of Ritter, of Guyot and their followers, have given to the science of geography a more philosophical, and, at the same time, a more imaginative character than it had received from the hands of their predecessors. Perhaps the most interesting field of speculation, thrown open by the new school to the cultivators of this attractive study, is the inquiry: how far external physical conditions, and especially the configuration of the earth's surface, and the distribution, outline, and relative position of land and water, have influenced the social life and social progress of man.