A major problem in the field of geography is to find some principle of selection providing a coherent theme for teaching and research. A geography of living things might provide such a principle in addition to those already employed, for it could focus attention especially on the study of communities, regarding the areas they occupy as functional regions. Communities so conceived would be regarded as organized groups of men, animals, plants or soils, or combinations of them. Developments in ecological studies, particularly community ecology and biogeography, make such a study possible; and with its stress on relationships, such as energy balance, biogeochemical cycles, limiting factors, and population dynamics, a geography of communities would be closely linked with other expanding fields of knowledge. It would be particularly susceptible to treatment by quantitative techniques and its biological emphasis would concentrate on the chief elements linking man and other creatures with their environment.EOGRAPHY has to deal with such a wide
Opening ParagraphThe savanna-forest boundary in West Africa is one of its most remarkable geographical features. The clarity with which the boundary is defined, whether seen from the air or from ground level, is, throughout most of its length, most striking. Moreover, the most casual observer will discover that many other features, particularly of settlement and of agriculture, reach the limit of their distributions at about the same location. Not the least significant feature, in sharp contrast with many other zones of vegetation change, is that the boundary is not an ecotone, or zone of gradual change in floristic composition and community structure in response to equally gradual changes in habitat character, but ‘a mosaic of communities representative of each region’. The zone of change consists of islands, salients, and enclaves of forest and savanna, sharply separated from one another. Only one community, the ‘transition woodland’, may in any sense be considered an ecotone. Even this, in some instances at least, may be a more or less transient sub-seral community, in view of the fact that forest trees within it are generally young, whereas the savanna trees are old.
Summary The soils of two cuestas developed on ferruginous sandstones, one of Cretaceous, and the other of Eocene/Pliocene age, were studied in relation to the slopes and planation surfaces with which they were associated. The processes involved in the retreat of hardened plinthite breakaways are shown to account for the principal morphological features of the soils, especially the lower diagnostic horizons, and thus throw light upon the mode of formation of the ‘Acid Sands’ of southern Nigeria, and the ‘terre de barre’ of the ‘Continental Terminal’ of southern Dahomey. A distinction is made between sheet plinthites and flanking plinthites according to their mode of occurrence, both being related to periods of stillstand in the evolution of the slopes.
The problem of the reasonableness of our belief in the validity of the specific statements which constitute geographical generalization is central to geographical thought; indeed, such questions are central to the credibility and status of any academic discipline.The problem involves two related sets of questions:i Why, and in what sense, are some geographical statements to be considered valid and others invalid and how may we distinguish between those that are valid, and those that are not? 2 Why are some statements to be considered authoritative and credible, worth taking seriously and trusting, and others not? And to what extent are the distinctions thus made themselves valid?The problem is essentially that of specifying the criteria which we use to distinguish between good and bad geography; and also an examination of the wider validity of the criteria which we do apply. In this analysis we shall draw heavily on the analysis of scientific method by R. B. Braithwaite (1968) both in relation to the definition and nature of science, and to the function of deduction in the scientific study of phenomena. II Generalizations in geographyIn common with all scientific statements, geographical general statements have two important fundamental characteristics. First, they are generalizations concerning the relations of certain kinds of observed facts to one another.Such generalizations fall into two main categories:i Essentially classificatory statements about properties; that is, descriptive statements. These are essentially factual summaries, and it is important to remark that, except in the case of purely numerical or statistical classificatory statements, all systems of classification of natural events or objects presuppose an explicit or implicit theoretical framework by means of which properties considered to be significant or important as distinguishing characters may be chosen.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.