CORNELL
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

te Cle Jared park?

vr With the respects of the Author.

GARL RITTER:

An Aulieess

TO THE

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL
SOCIETY,

BY
ARNOLD GUYOT,

Professor of Physical Geography and Geology, College
of New Jersey.

PRINCETON, N. J.:
1860.

Cornell University Library
G69.R61 G98

“iA

1924 029 841 891

olin

CARL RITTER;

An Address

TO THE

AMERICAN GEOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL
SOCIETY,

BY

pend
ARNOLD, GUYOT,

Professor of Physical Geography and Geology, College
of New Jersey.

(From the Journal of the Amer. Geograph. Society, Vol. II., No. L)

Cy
PRINCETON, N. J.:
1860.

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 25

1V.—Carl Ritter: An Address to the Society. Bv Professor
ARNOLD HENRY GUYOT, LL.D., COR. MEM. A.G.S.S.

Delivered February 16, 1860.

Gentlemen of the American Geographical Society:

Less than a year has elapsed since we assembled in this
place to express our sorrow at the death of Humboldt, and to
pay a just tribute of honor to his glorious memory, as to one
who, for half a century, stood before the world as the embodi-
ment and fit representative of all modern progress in the
knowledge of the Physical Globe ; and here we come to-day,
once more to mourn the loss of another great Master in our
beloved science,—I might say the other great Master in the
Science of the Globe,—Carl Ritter, the world-renowned
author of the classical ‘““Erdkunde,” or the Science of the
Globe in its relations to nature and to the history of mankind.

Humboldt, who first entered the scene of life and of his
labors, first also left it on the 6th of May, 1859, at the
advanced age of 90 years; and before another season was
over, on the 28th of September last, soon after the close of
his 80th year, Ritter followed him into a better world.

The two high-priests of the temple of Nature and of
History have thus received the last summons from on high.
When called, both were found still actively engaged in their
high functions. They have obeyed the call; they are gone;
but the temple that they have reared and beautified, and the
Mighty One to whom it is consecrated, subsist, and both will
last forever.

It is not in death alone that they are thus associated.
Sons of the same mother country, living to the last in the same
city,—in the city of Berlin, that great metropolis of German
science,—united by ties of affection and by feelings of a deep
mutual esteem and regard, they still live united in the mem-
ory of men.

For the last forty years the names of Humboldt and
Ritter, constantly associated, have been household words with
every one interested in Geographical studies. With them is
connected, in the minds of all, the idea of a gigantic progress
in the science of the globe,—a progress due not only to the
addition of new facts, but, as is especially the case with
Ritter’s name, to a new dignity conferred upon that science
by a more philosophical method, by the elevated stand-point
from which it is viewed and treated, and by the living, harmo-

26 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

nious connection that has been established between it and the
sister sciences. To these great minds also is traced, as to its
main source, that reform movement which has impressed its
stamp upon all the geographical literature of the day in Ger-
many, has penetrated into every school, and the mighty flood
of which, flowing over its primitive boundaries, has covered
Scandinavia, Switzerland, now reaches England, and, I am
happy to say, is making rapid progress in this country.

A conviction so uttiversal, so deeply rooted in the pop-
ular consciousness, especially in that of the German nation,
which reared them and received their immediate teachings, of
that people endowed with so keen a power of appreciation of
all kinds of scientific merit, can but correspond to a reality.
That great progress cannot be denied. It is evident to the
eye of every one who has had an opportunity of comparing
the condition of geographical knowledge at the present day
with that of half a century ago ; that is, before and after the
period of the activity and controlling influence of Humboldt
and of Ritter. But what seems less evident, less distinctly
established in the minds of many, is the character of the
peculiar element of progress contributed to geographical science
by each of these two great Reformers.

The brilliant services, so recently discussed before you,
rendered to the science of Terrestrial Physics by Humboldt
the geographer and geologist, by Humboldt the physicist and
meteorologist, by Humboldt the botanist and zoologist, by
Humboldt the scientific discoverer of the New World and the
experienced scientific traveller in Central Asia, by Humboldt
the author of the Cosmos, are present to the minds of all.
The physics of the Globe, that noble science, last born, but
not least, among her sister sciences, owes him, as I have said
elsewhere, its present shape and its best results. This remains
his chief, his most glorious title to the gratitude of the scien-
tific, and his labors mark the beginning of a new era, from
which the knowledge of our physical globe, as a grand harmo-
nious whole, will have to date its future steps in the career of
progress.

How warmly Ritter acknowledged the high merit and
admired the researches of Humboldt, bow fully he appreci-
ated their value, and joyfully hailed every new result obtained
by his ingenuity, appears, among others, in a page of the
Introduction to his great book, the “Zirdkunde,” especially
devoted to Humboldt’s labors, and in which he declares that
without such a foundation as that furnished by the works of

Guyot on Carl Ritter. Q7

Humboldt, his own work would have been impossible. But
that very declaration shows that the work that he himself con-
ceived and virtually performed, was still another than that
attempted by Humboldt. For him the full knowledge of the
physical globe, grand as it is in itself, is but a means, not an
end. Our planet is a living organization which comprises the
life of mankind. ‘The central idea of the ‘“Hrdkunde,” there-
fore, the inward principle upon which it rests, the principle of
order which binds together all its parts, is that of a vital union
of nature and of man into an organic unity. Its main task
is the study of the unceasing, ever-renewed, and varied mutual
action of these two factors. That idea must be clearly appre-
hended and well defined ; it must be seized in its fruitful
applications, in its rich consequences, before one can justly
appreciate its full value, and understand the profound revolu-
tion that it has effected. Such a true appreciation alone will
account for the vast influence that Ritter exerted upon his
age, and for the fact that all thinking Germany dates, from the
appearance of the ‘‘Hrdkunde,” the emancipation of Geogra-
phy as an independent science, in the high sense of the term,
possessed since of a principle of its own, and which takes its
yank side by side with its sister science, the Philosophy of
History.

You will agree with me, gentlemen, when I say that, great
and well deserved as is Ritter’s reputation in this country, it
is—as all great reputations, indeed, but perhaps more so than
usual—one resting upon authority. It is, if I may be allowed
the expression, an imported one ; and this, indeed, is not sur-
prising; and we could scarcely speak otherwise of England,
and still more of France. Ritter’s theoretical ideas and
methods are to be taken from a few academic memoirs, but
more especially from his great work itself. There we find
them realized in the rich, concrete forms of life. They never
have been reduced by him into a regular abstract system or
doctrine, a form altogether uncongenial to a mind which was
so thoroughly filled with the vivid images of nature. These
channels, together with his suggestive lectures to thousands of
students during the long period of his public teaching, were
sufficient to spread his spirit in Germany. But they are not
so for foreign countries. The original memoirs just mentioned,
though since published separately, are not of easy access.
The very bulk of his main work has prevented, thus far, a
translation of it into foreign languages, except, strange to say,
one into the Russian, and a very partial one into the French.

28 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

How many, in this busy world of America, will attempt the
careful reading of the nineteen volumes, the twenty thousand
pages of close text, which compose the portion of the ‘‘ Lrd-
kunde” now published ; and that, too, in that rich, beautiful,
but by no means easy tongue of Germany. These, I con-
fess, are real obstacles much to be regretted, but which
ought to be overcome, and ought not to be allowed to cut
us off from the abundant stores of knowledge accumulated by

that great scholar. .
ou have honored me, gentlemen, with a request to

address you upon this occasion on the life and the works of
Carl Ritter. I thank you for this privilege, for such I feel it
to be. I responded to the call, however, with no small degree
of diffidence. But aroused in my University days, by the
teachings of that venerable and much beloved friend, to the
study of his favorite science, which soon became mine; guided
in further steps by his kind, affectionate, and ever-ready
advice ; cheered on at every stage of my scientific career by
his deep sympathy, and the spontaneous expression of an
unqualified approval—the last of which, traced a few days
before the cold hand of death took the pen from his hand, has
for me the solemn significance of his scientific will ;—loaded
with such favors on his part, I felt that no personal considera-
tion could justify me in declining the opportunity thus offered
publicly to express the feelings of deep gratitude, and almost
filial affection, which bind me to that great man, and at least
to attempt to do justice before you to his claim to the grati-
tude of cultivated mankind. The task, however, as the
nature of the subject may soon prove to you, is not an easy
one, and it is in all sincerity, and more for his memory than
for myself, that I must beg your indulgence for my willing,
but perhaps inadequate, efforts.

The life of Ritter offers no great or stirring events. It is
modest and serene, like himself. But it derives a peculiar
interest from the circumstances by which a watchful Provi-
dence afforded, contrary to human expectation, the means best
appropriate to a full development of the faculties with which
he was endowed, and from his readiness eagerly and faithfully
vo improve every opportunity thus offered to him.

Carl Ritter was born on the 7th of August, 1779, in the
~ city of Quedlinburg, the birthplace of the great poet, Klop-
stock, in the mountainous region of the Harz, in Prussian
Saxony. He thus belongs, by the first twenty years of his
life, so decisive for the character of every man in after life, to

Guyor on Carl Ritter. 29

the end of the eighteenth century, that remarkable era which
can be called emphatically the mother of the present age.

There are, indeed, in the life of mankind, as in all that
lives, critical times, in which it seems as if the fountains of
life are stirred up to their very depths, and in which the forces
of life are aroused to bring forth new productions more abun-
dant and more beautiful. Such a stirring age was the end of
the eighteenth century. It severs itself from the traditions of
the past, which fetter instead of fostering human progress. It
returns to the depth of human consciousness, in order to place
itself on a basis at once more true and more solid. It turns
its eyes, with the most sanguine hopes, towards an unknown
future. A noble, sincere enthusiasm, ready for all sacrifices,
selzes upon every soul, and imparts to the whole movement
a dignity which its worst excess can mar, but not efface. It
is truly a time of youthful renovation of the elements of
human civilization, a creative age to which we may trace the
beginning of all the progress of which our age can boast.

In every direction a host of noble pioneers strike new paths
in the old, desolate fields, as well as in the new, untrodden
ones, with the hopeful daring and vigor of youth, unaware of
coming dangers, unmindful of difficulties. The French and
American Revolutions in social science, Kant in philosophy,
Schiller and Goethe in literature, Lavoisier in chemistry, Volta,
Oerstedt in physics, Herschell in astronomy, Werner and Von
Buch in geology, Humboldt in terrestrial physics, De Jussieu
and De Candolle in botany, Cuvier in zoology, Ritter, at last,
in geography, all begin, in each of these grand departments of
human culture, a new era, the era in which we live ; and it is
on the foundation laid down by these glorious sons of the great
moventent of the eighteenth century, that we rear the splen-
did edifice which is the glory of the nineteenth.

The birth of Ritter, in such a time and such an atmos-
phere, can fitly be termed, in view of his future calling, a
providential event.

Ritter’s father was a physician, much esteemed for his
skill and the noble qualities of his mind and heart. He died
young, and Ritter’s mother, a highly educated woman,
remained a widow with five children, without any means to
educate them. But help soon came, as providential help al-
ways does, from the quarter from which it could least be
expected. The Prince of Bernburg took charge of the eldest
son, ten years old. A distinguished, enthusiastic educator,
Salzman, previously unacquainted with the family, requested

30 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

the mother to intrust to him her young Carl, then five years
old ; and Carl became the first pupil of the just opened and
since celebrated school at Schnepfenthal, near Gotha, in Sax-
ony, which still glories in having reared that great scholar.
Under the enlightened guidance and loving care of Salzman
and his associate, the noble-hearted Gutsmuths, the former
family instructor of Dr. Ritter’s children, and a system of
education, the object of which was to develop and invigorate
the body as well as the mind and heart, the child grew to a
happy, amiable, pure-minded young man. In that lovely
valley, which Ritter always considered as his true home, at the
foot of the Thuringian forest, far from the artificial life of
cities, but surrounded by a charming and most varied scenery,
he formed, at an early age, that intimate acquaintance with
nature, and imbibed that love for the beauties of God’s cre-
ation, which breathes in all his works. At the age of sev-
enteen, when the question of his immediate future began to be-
come an earnest one, Providence again provided for him. A rich
merchant from Frankfort-on-the-Main, Mr. Hollweg, a partner
in the large firm of Bethman, visited the school, and became
so much interested in the young Ritter that he offered to send
him for two years to the University, on condition that he
would, after that time, take charge, in his own house, of the
instruction of his children. The offer was accepted, and Ritter
became, in November, 1796, a student at the University of Halle.

In 1798, he entered upon his duties in Mr. Hollweg’s house
in Frankfort, and with his characteristic, upright earnestness,
devoted to the work before him his best energies. The most
signal success crowned his efforts, and the strong ties of mu-
tual affection which were formed between him and his pupils
and lasted to the day of his death, a just and sweet reward for
his devotion, honor both the pupils and the instructor. Of the
two sons of Mr. Hollweg the elder died in his youth; the
other, a worthy pupil of such a teacher, is now the Minister of
Public Instruction and Worship in Prussia, the noble-minded
Von Bethman-Hollweg, the representative, in this high and
influential position, of the liberal and enlightened tendencies
of our age. In the education of a third pupil, the son of the
celebrated 8. Th. Soemmering, he met with equal success.

The situation of Ritter in Frankfort, and his connec-
tion with that wealthy and highly cultivated family, had a
great influence on his life and his general development,
Opportunities for improvement, rarely enjoyed to an equal
degree by one placed in his early circumstances, opportu

Guyor on Carl Ritter. 31

nities eagerly embraced by his ready and conscientious mind,
were now offered to him. The qualities of his mind and
heart had soon won for him in the family the position
of an esteemed and affectionate friend. As such, and as an
inmate of the house, he came in contact with the most re-
fined society, and many of the most distinguished men of the
age, who repaired to the house of Hollweg as to a common
centre. Here was begun his acquaintance with such men as
Humboldt, as the great geologist, Leopold von Buch, with the
suggestive, truly philosophical 8. Th. Soemmering, to whom
he modestly refers, in the Introduction to the “ Erdkunde,” the
merit of having especially called his attention to the laws of
the geographical relationship of all animated nature. In
Frankfort, also, he formed an intimate friendship with Ebel,
the genial author of “The Structure of the Earth in the
Alps” and other works on Switzerland, from whom he re-
ceived a fresh impulse to the study of the Globe. Mean-
while, urged on by his duties towards his pupils, he embraced
in his activity the most varied studies. History and the an-
cient languages received from him a particular attention. He
read with his friends, the eminent philologists, Matthiae and
Grotefend, the prominent authors of Greece and Rome. He
thus diligently accumulated from all quarters, the treasures of
that vast erudition without which his future work would have
been impossible.

His predilection for Geography, however, becomes already
apparent by the publication, in 1806, of six ‘charts of Europe,
followed afterwards, in 1811, by a Geography of Europe in two
volumes, In these works the author of the “ Krdkunde” is
predicted, but not yet fully manifested. One element is to be
added to his previous preparation, and this is a more direct
acquaintance with the grand typical forms of nature and with
the marvellous products of human culture. Ritter must see
Switzerland and Italy—contemplate the wonders of nature and
history in their very sanctuaries. That precious gift also was
in store for him. From the year 1807, he repeatedly visited,
with his pupils, Switzerland and Italy. The last journey,
which commenced in 1811, extended over several years, and
allowed him a sojourn of over a year in Geneva, and a pro-
longed stay at Rome and in Italy, which he visited to its

southern extremity.

What a rich source of instruction these travels have been
for a mind so eager to drink from the very fountains of knowl-
edge, and so well prepared and matured by assiduous study

32 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

and labor, may be easily conceived. Switzerland and the
gigantic fabric of the Alps, which he visited again and again
until a few years before his death, furnished to his plastic
and vivid imagination the most accomplished type of moun-
tain scenery, with which to compare all the other grand sys-
tems of our Globe. The careful study of Italy and Rome,
that classical soil of history and of art, clothed with the truth-
fulness of life his conceptions of the past ages, and gave
him a deep intuition of the adaptedness of the beautiful cli-
inate, of the admirable nature, and the remarkable structure of
the peninsular lands which surround the Mediterranean Sea
for developing the brilliant flower of the civilization of the an-
cient world. Without these rich intuitions derived directly
from Nature, says Ritter himself in the Introduction to his
“ Erdkunde,” his work would not have been undertaken, as
without Humboldt’s labors, it could not have been performed.
This remark clearly tells the high value that he attached to
these personal experiences,

In every country that he visited he formed an intimate
acquaintance with the leading minds of the time. During his
protracted stay in Geneva, that scientific metropolis of Switzer-
land, he enjoyed familiar intercourse with the most eminent
men of that school. De Saussure, the model scientific travel-
ler and physicist of European fame, had just died, but A.
Pictet, De Candolle, and many others remained. The inti-
mate and fruitful friendship which soon united him to the first,
no doubt contributed, together with the natural beauties of
that privileged country, to cause Ritter to look upon his so-
journ in Geneva as a bright spot in his life.

But of all men with whom Ritter met at this period of his
life, none seems to have made a deeper, a more lasting impres-
sion upon him than Pestalozzi, the far-famed reformer of pop-
ular education. Ritter went to visit him for a few hours in
1807, in Yverdun, at that time the place of his residence, and
remained there for months. Pestalozzi’s sympathetic nature
found in Ritter’s soul a full response. Ritter’s letters to him
copies of some of which happen to be in my possession, are full
of expressions of gratitude and of the tender regard of a son for
a respected and beloved father, and of admiration for the fun-
damental idea on which rests his method of teaching. His
life-size portrait stood in Ritter’s lbrary. To him and to
Gutsmuths, his fatherly teachers, as he calls them, and not to
some high patron, he inscribes the first volume of his Genera]
Geography, asa token of his reverence and heartfelt gratitude,

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 33

In Rome he met with that triad of pure-minded artists,
Thorwaldsen, Overbeck, and Cornelius, whose genius raised
German art so high, and whose friendly intercourse gave him
an enlarged view of art and a deeper insight into its nature.
By the careful study of the topography of that most remarka-
ble of all historical spots and its monuments, Ritter gathered
copious materials for one of his most popular courses of lec-
tures at the University of Berlin.

The period of preparation is now over for Ritter. Eighteen
years have elapsed since the close of his first education in
Schnepfenthal ; eighteen years of assiduous labor in nearly all
the domains of human knowledge, and of large experience in
the world of nature and of man. He returns home, loaded
with these new treasures, with matured views, and a clear per-
ception of the grand idea, which he so gradually evolved from
the depth of his rich nature, and which is to establish the sci-
ence cf the globe on a new foundation and breathe into it a
new spirit.

But it is not enough for that great architect to have con-
ceived and matured the plan, to have collected the materials
for the edifice; he must rear it, realize his conception, and
give it the tangible form of life. He soon sets himself at work
and devotes all his energies to the performance of that arduous
task that he now feels to be the work of his life. In the year
1814, he went to Geettingen with his two pupils now ripe for
University studies. During two years he devoted bis new leis-
ure to a faithful use of that vast University library of Goettingen,
then, perhaps, the richest among the rich ones which are gath-
ered in so great numbers in Germany, on that classical soil of
learning. Like Humboldt, a few years later, Ritter, then, could
have been seen, a man of ripe years and known already by
his vast acquirements, modestly sitting among the crowd of
young students, listening to courses of lectures delivered at the
University on topics most varied. Here also, as elsewhere, he
soon gained the esteem of those who represented the intellec-
tual progress of the day in that old centre of learning; and
. he enjoyed the benefit of private intercourse with most men
of literary and scientific eminence at that time attached to the
University. Among the last, particular mention must be
made of the celebrated geologist Hausmann, with whom he
remained united to the end of his days by the bonds of an in-
timate friendship, and who himself died a few weeks since, in
December, 1859, but a few months after the departure of his
old friend.

34 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

In 1816, Ritter went to Berlin, where he remained one
year, busily engaged in finishing and putting to press the first
edition of his General Geography, the first volume of which was
published in that city by Reimer, in 1817, under the title of
Die Erdkunde im Verhdltniss zur Natur und zur Geschichte
des Menschen, oder Allgemeine Vergletchende Geographie, als
sichere Grundelage des Studium und Unterrichts in physical-
ischen und historischen Wissenschaften; ‘The Science of
the Earth in its relation to Nature and to the History of
Man, or General Comparative Geography as a safe foun-
dation for studying and teaching Physical and Historical
Sciences.” In the spring of 1817, he returned to Geettingen,
where he terminated the second volume of the work, which ap-
peared in 1818. j

These two volumes comprised only the continents of Africa
and Asia, three Books out of twelve, which were to complete
the whole work. But they revealed Ritter to the world, and
were sufficient to place him in the high scientific position that
he has since so successfully sustained, and so usefully occupied.
In a masterly Introduction, he unfolds the views which he has
so gradually matured, and which are to regenerate geography
and to elevate it to the rank of the science of the Globe con-
sidered as a living organism. In the work itself, he practical-
ly illustrates the method, at once comparative and natural, or
objective, as he terms it, which is commended by the lofty
stand-point at which he places himself, and from which em-
bracing the totality of his subject, he tries to master all its
details, to grasp their beautiful arrangement, and to reproduce
it in a truthful picture before the eyes of the reader.

But I beg your permission to leave for a moment all
further considerations of that work, the merit and scientific in-
fluence of which I shall have soon to discuss, and to say a few
more words on Ritter’s life and activity subsequent to that
important step in his career.

Ritter’s merit was soon appreciated. The year which fol-
lowed the publication of the second volume of the “‘ Erdkunde’”’
he received a call as Professor of History in the Gymnasium at
Frankfort, which he accepted. In the autumn of the same
year he was married, at the age of forty, to the accomplished
woman who, for so many years, was the faithful and much
beloved companion of his lite.

In 1820, another call, the most honorable that he could
receive, brought him to Berlin as Professor of Geography both
at the Royal Military School and at the University, where that

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 35

chair, the first, it is believed, devoted to that special branch of
knowledge in any German University, was created for him ; a
public acknowledgment both of Ritter’s merit and of the
svientific character that had been imparted to Geography by
his labors. This appointment was due to the enlightened and
far-seeing Minister of Public Instruction, William von Hum-
boldt, the highly gifted brother of Alexander, and to his suc-
cessor, Von Altenstein, and reflects no little credit on the wis-
dom of these distinguished men, to the liberal and discrimi-
nating patronage of whom the cause of learning in Prussia is
otherwise so much indebted.

Ritter has now found the appropriate scene of action and
of further progress ; the field prepared for him by Providence,
as he often gratefully acknowledged, for doing the work to
which he felt called. Here, in the largest of the Universities
of Germany, surrounded by a crowd of young men eager for
knowledge and ready for every new light, for every new ad-
vance, he met with a most welcome opportunity for an appli-
cation on a grand scale of the plenteous stores of learning and
of scientific experience which he had been so long accumulat-
ing. To impart to minds thus prepared the new truths that
he possessed, was to him not only a duty, but a delight.
Moreover, living in the midst of an intellectual atmosphere in
which reigned a most intense life, one of the first and blessed
fruits of returning peace after the long disturbed condition of
Burope ; a member by his very position, and by his universal-
ly acknowledged merit, of that circle of highly cultivated men,
the élite of intellectual Germany, gathered in Berlin, his rich
powers expanded to their natural limits, and the fruits of that
long and laborious period of preparation which had preceded,
came to full maturity. We may say that after the first ten
years of his residence in Berlin, in the midst of such favorable
circumstances, Ritter’s mind had grown to its full stature, and
his scientific views had taken that definite form which they
preserved to the end of his life. These constituted, indeed,
the noble share of light allotted to him. Nearly thirty years
more were found too short to execute the grand conception
that was before him as the goal to be attained.

Ritter entered upon his new duties with his usual ardoz
and cheerfulness, He was bent at the same time with no less
earnestness on the continuance of his publications. In the
same year, 1820, he had published a volume under the title,
Vorhalle Huropaeischer Voelkergeschichten vor Herodotus am
Kaukasus und an den Gestaden des Pontus, or Vestibule to

36 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

the history of European nations before Herodotus, around the
Caucasus and on the shores of the Black Sea”—a_ subject
which had grown under his pen when writing the second vol-
ume of his General Geography on Western Asia. The first
edition of the Lrdkunde being exhausted, the following year,
1821, was devoted to the preparation of a second, much en-
larged edition, the first volume of which, containing Africa only,
appeared in January, 1822, thus beginning the new series of
volumes which compose the work we now possess. That first
fruit of his literary activity in Berlin, as he calls it himself,
was followed by a long interval of full ten years, during which
he issued only two papers read before the Academy of Sciences,
a very graphic and interesting description of India in the
Berlin Almanac for 1824, and several smaller contributions.
But that period was none the less one of intense activity
for him and of paramount usefulness for the rising generation.
The claims upon his talents as an academic teacher, became
more and more numerous. In addition to his previous duties
he took charge, from 1822, of the chair of history at the military
school, left vacant by the death of his friend Woltmann. In
1825, he was intrusted with the direction of the studies of
the corps of cadets. He was honored with a call to instruct
in history Prince Albert of Prussia, a duty which he performed
during several years. The Crown-Prince of Prussia, now Fred-
erick William IV., whose taste for historical studies and bril-
liant attainments in that department of knowledge are well
known, held Ritter in particular esteem, and the modest
scholar was not unfrequently invited, during the winter
months, to deliver discourses on subjects connected with
Geography and history, before a select and private circle as-
sembled in the royal palace. These marks of high favor and
of trust, and the growing popularity of Ritter’s lectures at the
University, cheered him on in the work of diffusing, by oral
teaching and by personal influence, the new views and methods
in geographical science which he believed to be more conso-
nant with nature itself, and helped, no doubt, the reform
movement which originated with him and now began to spread
itself. His lectures in the halls of the University were soon
regarded as such as all students interested in true humanitary
culture should hear. While a large number of officers of
the Prussian army were trained by him every year, or studied
under his immediate direction and influence, hundreds of stu-
dents left the University, carrying with them into all parts
of Germany and into all stations of life, the remembrances

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 37

of his suggestive instructions, and the conviction that a new
and better era had begun for the science of the Globe. Thus
was prepared that renovation of Geography in the University
and in the school which was demanded by the progress of the
natural and historical sciences, but which awaited the genius of
Ritter to assume its shape, and his guidance and spirit to
produce its full effect, as it now has throughout Germany,

As one who had the privilege of listening, during a period
of five years (from 1830 to 1835), to nearly all his courses of
lectures, I may be allowed to add my humble testimony to
that of so many of his hearers who remember his teachings
with delight. Ritter, indeed, as an academic teacher, during
his long University career of thirty-seven years, achieved a suc-
cess rarely equalled. Few can boast of a more constant pop-
ularity. He came to Berlin almost unknown to the students,
as was indeed the science itself that he was called upon to
expound. <A few sessions sufficed to increase the number of
his hearers so as to fill the largest halls in the University. Not
by any effort of striking eloquence of words or manner, did he
secure a willing ear from his pupils, but by offering to their eyes
a thorough, substantial, and yet pleasant picture of the vivid
images and ideas which filled his own mind. His eloquence was
not an impetuous mountain-torrent, with its brilliant cascades,
its misty clouds, and tinted rainbows ; it was a majestic stream
gently rolling its mighty but peaceful waters, now amidst the
green forest yet untouched by the hand of man, now among
the rich fields, the flowery lawns, and populous cities born on
its banks ; never destroying, ever fertilizing all that it touches.
Thus was Ritter’s manner dignified, but always unassuming,
simple, and natural, The tone of his full and harmonious
voice breathed with kindness, and exerted, (I may be permittted
to give at least my personal impression), a peculiar attraction.
His words were always instructive and suggestive. The
hearer could not help being impressed with the fulness and
thoroughness of knowledge, the perfect mastery and love of his
subject evinced by the lecturer, while at the same time he
was charmed by the happy selection of the facts presented,
which left before his mind, in clear outlines, the most essential
traits of the subject. The drawings that he traced on the
blackboard with the graceful ease of a skilful and practised
hand, rendered his descriptions still more effective.

Another cause of his success is to be sought in the noble
impulses of his moral nature. Ritter loved and pursued the
truth for itself, but he loved man too. He was unwilling to

38 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

keep for himself the gift that he had received. He loved to
teach ; he was happy in imparting to others the results of his
discoveries ; his hearers felt it. Having been trained to be-
come a teacher, his attention was constantly directed theoreti-
cally and practically towards finding the best method of train-
ing the young up to that high standard of knowledge which
was before his mind. This explains the vast influence that he
exerted, not only on science in general, but on the school
system, and on the method of teaching his favorite science.

Of the regular courses of lectures that he used to deliver in
the University, that on general comparative Geography (Allge-
meine Erdkunde) gathered usually the greatest number of
hearers. Those on Asia and on Europe, the historical con-
tinents par excellence, were not less interesting. But the
most popular of all were the free courses (publicums), which he
used to deliver twice a week, ordinarily in the winter session, on
one or another of the most classical among the historical regions
of our globe, Greece, Rome, and Palestine. Theologians, philol-
ogists, lawyers, men of intelligence of all classes, flocked there
with the same eagerness, to hear from the lips of such a man
the authentic and life-like description of these hallowed spots,
these geographical centres of human activity, a description of
which, in the mouth of Ritter, became a most graphic and in-
structive commentary on those historical events which have
left the deepest mark in the annals of mankind.

The foundation of the Geographical Society of Berlin, in
1828, by Ritter, together with some friends of a kindred spirit,
is another fruit of that period of his activity. Humboldt had
just returned to Berlin, and delivered his celebrated course of
sixty-one lectures on the Cosmos, which had swelled higher
still the tide of popular taste in favor of the science of nature
and Physical Geography in particular. This society soon be-
came a welcome centre, not only for new geographical informa-
tion, but also for communications on all kindred sciences, as
well as for a social intercourse of the most pleasant kind among
scientific men. Ritter was the soul of it, and much of that
social kindness and of those liberal and enlarged views for
which that society is distinguished may, doubtless, be attributed,
in a great measure, to his influence. Admirably seconded by
such men as Prof, W. Dove, the eminent physicist and mete-
orologist, and others, he abundantly contributed to the last to
preserve its high scientific character by numerous communi-
cations drawn from his own studies, from his journeys in vayi-

ous parts of Europe, and_from_mnch new information sent

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 39

to him from all parts of the globe. It is well known to all in

this audience that one of the two best geographical journals of

Germany, the “ Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Erdkunde,” is

ee under the auspices of the Geographical Society of
erlin.

While so usefully engaged Ritter did not lose sight of the
work which it was the object of his life to perform. Thanks
to the ever renewed freshness of his mind and to his excellent
health, he had thus far found time for continuing his studies ;
but he now longs for greater leisure, which may permit him to
resume the interrupted publication of his General Geography.
By the influence of the Crown-Prince, who fully understood the
high importance for science of a speedy termination of that
classical work, he was enabled in 1831, with the consent of
the Ministry of Public Instruction, to lay aside all business and
duties not immediately connected with his studies. The result
was not long in manifesting itself. In 1832, the second vol-
ume of his “ Erdkunde,” the first of Asia, a volume of nearly
twelve hundred pages, was published, and inscribed by the au-
thor to the Crown-Prince, as a token of gratitude for the pre-
cious leisure granted to him. From that time until 1838, six
other volumes of equal size, or one volumea year, were issued,
and give evidence of the amazing industry of that great schol-
ar ; and in the twenty-one years following, that is, to the end of
his life, eleven volumes more, or one volume every other year,
tell of his ceaseless: activity, notwithstanding his advancing
age. The last, and nineteenth volume, which nearly termi-
nates Asia, was issued but a tew weeks before his death.

During these long and assiduous labors the only interrup-
tions that he allowed himself, were the journeys that he used
to take nearly every year in the long autumn vacation. But
even then it was only changing the scene of his studies. Not-
withstanding the prodigious erudition evinced in his work,
which would seem to suppose a life entirely spent among books
in the stillness of the closet, Ritter never, at any period of his
long career, gave up that familiar intercourse with nature
from which he had derived, as from a pure source, his best and
deepest instructions. When came the hot summer days, shak-
ing off the dust of the libraries, he went to visit his old and
true friend again. Selecting one of the regions of his favorite
continent of Europe, as an object of new study, he would live
for months, now amidst the grandeurs of the Alps or of the
Pyrenees, now under the happy sky, among the monuments
and the people of Italy, or again amid the stern landscapes and

40 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

hospitable inhabitants of Scandinavia. He returned with an
invigorated body, and with a mind refreshed and ready for
new labors. He thus visited successively the most interesting
countries of Europe. Central and Southern Germany, and the
system of the Alps were the objects of a repeated and thorough
examination, each time with a special object in view. Thus
also Switzerland, that he loved above all, and Northern Italy,
the Pyrenees, the South and the West of France, with the
central plateau of Auvergne and its extinct volcanoes, Bel-
gium, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, were, one
after the other, drawn into the yearly extending circle of his
excursions. A long journey in the south-east of Europe made
him acquainted with Hungary, the table-land of Transylvania,
as remarkable for the variety of its races and nations as for
the interest presented by its geographical structure ; with the
extensive plains of Wallachia and Bulgaria, Constantinople,
and at last with the classical soil of Greece, that he knew so
well how to describe. He never saw, however, Palestine, which
had been on his part the object of so minute a study; and still
every spot of it had become so familiar to him, that when he
was lecturing on the Holy Land, his hearers could scarcely help
believing that he was giving them a narrative of bis own travels.
It is said that when asked why he did not visit a country
which was for him one of so deep interest— What new in-
formation,” said he, smiling, ‘could I derive from a visit to
Palestine ? I know every corner of it.” None, assuredly, had
more right to speak so than he who had seen so much of the
land of promise by the eyes of a host of skilful observers. But
I believe I am not mistaken when I regard that answer, if he
really gave it, as a word not of boast, but of self-consolation.
To know more than he did on Palestine, would have required
an amount of time and means which were not at his disposal.
But if the opportunities which we now have to see, in the course
of a short season, the land of the patriarchs, and the theatre of
the life and of the death of the Saviour of the world, had existed
in the days of his strength, I venture to say that Ritter would
have seen the Holy Land. He knew too well the paramount
value of personal observations, even of a rapid glance at such
a country, to esteem as of little account the privilege of storing
his mind with truthful, life-like pictures from nature, instead
of the unavoidably imperfect images traced by the slow pencil
of a laborious study of absent objects.

The importance of these travels for Ritter, was great in
every respect. Not to speak of the much needed relaxation

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 41

that they afforded to his mind, the accumulation of a larger
number of new observations on most of the countries of the
continent of Europe, towards which all his studies seemed to
gavitate as towards a natural centre, was in itself a great gain.
To these direct impressions from nature also, we may trace
the source of that freshness of imagination and of style which
he kept through life, that truthfulness and vividness of de-
scription which betrays the man fully conversant with na-
ture.

But an advantage of a still more substantial character re-
sulted to Ritter, from that acquaintance with nature so faith-
fully kept up. Nowhere more than in Europe do we find
gathered within a small compass such a variety of natural
regions, each with well-defined characters of land and people.
They offer, indeed, to the observer specimens, as it were, on a
diminished scale, of the most characteristic physical regions
which compose the other continents. In the gigantic system
of the Alps and of the Pyrenees, with their snowy peaks, their
hardy and energetic races, we see the Caucasus and the Hima-
laya. In the fertile plains of Lombardy, that lovely garden of
Italy, with its streams, its delta, its lagunes, we study the
great plains of the Ganges, encompassed by the high wall of the
Himalaya and the moderate heights of Deccan, as the plains of
the Po by the Alps and the Apennines, Germany from the
foot of the Alps to the sandy plains of the Baltic, gives us a
perfect model of these lands of terraces, these forms of transi-
tion, as Ritter calls them, which gradually descend towards
the low lands, and traversed by secondary chains of mountains
form the grand steps through which the Alpine streams have
to find their way to the ocean. Towards the Hast the course
of the Danube, cutting through the high barriers which sepa-
rate that series of continental basins, the plains of Bavaria,
Austria, Hungaria, and pouring its waters into the open and
maritime plains of Valachia, forcibly reminds us of the great
Chinese streams descending by long steps through similar ob-
stacles to the rich plains which border the ocean. The mas-
siveness of the Scandinavian chain, with its broad and flat
tops, its scattered and isolated peaks, its chasm-like valleys,
is not without analogy with the most characteristic portion of
the Andes, while its deep fiords,with those of Scotland,scarcely
find elsewhere their equal, and remain the most remarkable
type of that phenomenon.

In the races and nations of Europe the variety is scarcely
less striking. On one side of the Alps we meet with the quiet

42 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

but deep nature of the man of the North, exhibited by the
Scandinavian and the German ; on the other with the impul-
sive and passionate nature of the man of the South, so mani-
fest in the inhabitants of the Mediterranean shores. In the
West, the nations Jead the chariot of human civilization ; in
the East, semi-barbarian races scarcely follow it with Asiatic
sluggishness, or are only forcibly drawn into the whirl of mod-
ern progress.

It cannot be admitted that a growing familiarity during
half a century with geographical and ethnographical types so
varied and so instructive, should not have exerted a deep in-
fluence on Ritter’s mind and labors. Such a study, indeed,
could not help increasing the marvellous power that he pos-
sessed by nature, to construct from imperfect, often contradic-
tory documents, the grand traits of structure of the continents,
and to establish the true character of the natural regions of our
Globe that he could not visit. His innate tact in the selection
of the materials to be received, ripened thus into an almost
unfailing power of judging of the value of the various sources
of information which he had to use. Moreover, during these .
excursions he paid frequent visits to the great centres of civil-
ization—Paris, London, Vienna—in search of scientific docu-
ments, that he could not find elsewhere. He was received
everywhere with marks of the highest esteem, and thus found
welcome opportunities to form a personal acquaintance with
the men most eminent in the various departments of study
embraced in his own labors.

Ritter’s reputation was soon established in Germany, though
the new element of culture that he has developed is essentially
cosmopolitan, and was demanded by the progress of our age, the
form in which it was presented by him, his mode of thought, as
well as his style, are so thoroughly German, that it is there that
he found an immediate and full response. There he was under-
stood and appreciated. German writers often speak of him as
“our Litter,” thus expressing feelings not only of an affectionate
reverence for him, but of a just national pride in him, and of a
full identification with the man whom they thus honor, Abroad,
the knowing ones acknowledged his value and gave him nu-
merous tokens of high esteem. His royal master, as well as a
number of other sovereigns, bestowed upon him the honor of
various orders of merit. From 1822, a member of the Acade-
my of Sciences of Berlin, he was successively elected a member
of most of the learned societies in Europe and in this country,
the long list of which he placed on the title-page of the

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 43

“Erdkunde,” not from a feeling of a vain boast, of which he
was utterly incapable, but of grateful acknowledgment of the
honor thus conferred upon him.

Thanks to a scientific position so eminent and so univer-
sally conceded, and to the lively interest which he took in all
progress, Ritter became more and more, like Humboldt, one or
the most important céntres for geographical and ethnographi-
cal science, and a ready helper and considerate adviser for
all those disposed to collect new information in all parts of the
world.

When men who have wielded a vast influence for the good
of mankind appear before posterity, the world first inquires
about the work that they have achieved and the intellectual and
moral powers by which they have accomplished it. It judges
them as instruments, as parts of the great social organism,
and determines its estimates by the importance of the func-
tions performed by them. But human sympathy craves a more
personal acquaintance with these prominent representatives of
human nature. We want to know something of the deeper-
seated qualities of mind and heart, which manifest their
moral nature in their personal intercourse with their fellow-
men, and reveal them as, on earth, citizens of a higher world.
I may, therefore, be pardoned if I yield to the temptation of
adding some words on the person and private character of Rit-
ter. The task, indeed, is an inviting one. For if in him we
admire the savant, we love and admire still more the man.

Ritter’s personal appearance was full of serene dignity, one
might say of antique repose. His tall and erect stature, his
strong, broad-chested frame, his firm but quiet step, his well-
marked features, his high forehead and intelligent eyes, gave
him an imposing look, which, however, was tempered by a
benevolent smile, an unassuming and kind manner, and an
expression of goodness and candor which at once inspired con-
fidence. The portrait, by Kriiger, which is before your eyes,
gives a perfect likeness of Ritter when about fifty-four years
of age. He was then at the height of his popularity in the
University of Berlin. Complying with the request of hundreds
of his admiring students, he consented to have his likeness
taken by the excellent artist just named, and the very success-
ful original drawing was presented to him by the one who now
addresses you, as a member of a committee of three, acting in
behalf of their fellow-students.

Ritter’s peculiar turn of mind was more intuitive than
logical, more synthetical than analytical, more objective than

44 Guyor on Carl Ritter.

subjective. His deeply receptive soul, always ready for new
impressions, was a pure mirror in which nature was reflected
not only in its details, but in its totality. When after having
worked out these impressions into a clear perception by a care-
ful study, he tries by speech or pen, to convey them to others,
it is still in that objective, concrete form which is before
his mind that ‘he does it, without attempting to draw on the
picture the sharp and well-defined lines that a purely sub-
jective, logical method requires, but that nature itself has not
traced. While, therefore, his views and his method are en-
tirely original, we seek in vain in his works for a formal sys-
tem, an absolute idea rigorously carried out. His unflinching
loyalty to the truth as he sees it, not as he infers it to be,
seems to render such a systematization uncongenial to his
mind. He shrinks, indeed, from all cold, formal, and empty
definitions. Even his most characteristic conceptions, those
which constitute the spirit of his method, preserved much of
the nature of deep intuitions, the expression of which is
always highly suggestive, but often lacks that clear, logical
shape, which would make them easy to define, and would give
them immediate currency. With a mind essentially construct-
ive, he descends, nevertheless, with the most scrupulous care,
into the study of the details, and it is upon the well-secured
base of facts alone, and with a sense of the true, sometimes
amounting almost to divination, that he builds up his broadest
generalizations. From what precedes it can already be in-
ferred that Ritter possessed, in a high degree, that noble facul-
ty so prominent in all great students of nature, in a Humboldt,
an Agassiz, that plastic imagination which gives us the power
to keep before the mind the true and vivid images of natural
objects, whether in their isolation, or by a synthetic view in
their natural associations, as in one great picture, and thus en-
ables us to perceive the relations which bind together the most
distant parts, more easily and surely than a simple analytical
process could ever do,

Of those moral excellences which adorn man’s inmost na-
ture, Ritter possessed also more than the usual share. His
perfect purity of mind, his amiability, his unwearied kindness,
won him the high esteem and the good will of all. His mild-
ness of temper, the peace of mind which pervaded his whole
nature, his loving disposition, spread around him an atmos-
phere of peaceful happiness, which exercised a sympathetic
influence on those who came in close contact with him, and
secured him their deep affection. He was a warm and most

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 45

faithful friend ; in the circle of his family most tender-hearted
and affectionate. Himself childless, he was a father to many
of the children of his immediate relatives, and others less near
to him. He never knew any feeling of egotism. His modesty
was as sincere as unaffected. He was always ready to ascribe
his own progress to the influence and suggestions of other
master-minds from whom he was conscious of having received
new impulses; as if a rich soil was not as necessary as the
seed itself to the luxuriant growth of a noble plant into perfect
beauty and richness of fruits. To give a public expression of
his gratitude to such men as Pestalozzi, Soemmering, Ebel,
Humboldt, was for him a delight.

With regard to the last, of whom he had become a rival in
glory, no other feelings ever found room in his heart than
those of affectionate reverence and of deep gratitude for the
services rendered to science, by one whom he used to call
“our great master.” A more heartfelt and discriminating ac-
knowledgment of the merits’ of Humboldt cannot be found than
Ritter’s address to him, in behalf of the Academy of Sciences
of Berlin,* when that distinguished body, on the 4th of Au-
gust, 1844, celebrated, by a congratulating deputation, and a
banquet on the next day, the anniversary of the safe return,
forty years before, of the great traveller from his memorable
journey in tropical America. The answer of Humboldt is not
less characteristic of his own modesty and feelings; and well
may we rejoice at so noble an example and take heed to a lesson
from so high a source. For this was not a simple exchange of
politeness for the occasion. The life of both assures us that it
was the expression of true feelings. Humboldt’s death had no
more sincere mourner than Ritter. Indeed, his last strength
was used in writing numerous letters, four of which were di-
rected to America, to urge, in warm terms, upon the sympathy
of all cultivated nations, and especially of those in the Western
Hemisphere, the claims of the “‘ Humboldt-Stiftung” of that
Institution, the object of which, now well known to you, is
to perpetuate in a manner congenial to Humboldt’s spirit,
the memory of his name. Ritter hailed with equal delight
every new advance arising out of the mighty impulse which
started from him, and which seemed, in some manner, to go one
step beyond his own results. He only rejoiced that his own
labors had been instrumental in preparing it, thus proving that

* See Zeitschrift fiir Allgemeine Hrdkunde, Neue Folge, vi. 318. Mai, 1859.

46 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

his most earnest desire was the promotion of knowledge and
not of his own name.

But if all these noble gifts bestowed upon him by nature,
were brought to the fulness of a harmonious and normal de-
velopment, it is only by drawing new sap from a still deeper
source of excellence, from a strong and living Christian faith.
Ritter never spoke much on this subject ; nor are there found
in his writings any formal, uncalled for, expressions of his
religious convictions. He was not the zealous, polemic, criti-
cal partisan of any particular intellectual formula of the
Christian faith ; but his life and his teachings breathed that
meek, trusting, and loving spirit by which we recognize the
true disciple of our great model. Here, as in his scientific
efforts, the living substance prevails over the dead form. In
that sphere also, we can follow the phases of a gradual, but
sure progress, which led him to the aim. Brought up by
Salzman under the rationalistic influences then prevailing in
Germany, but in an atmosphere of great moral purity, his lov-
ing heart and scrupulous conscience soon led him further. In
the second period of his life the feeling of his indebtedness to
a kind Providence grew every day stronger, and increased the
sense of his moral obligations towards his Heavenly Father.
In the third period, which begins with his first sojourn in Ber-
lin, his Christian convictions assumed a more definite shape.
His friendly intercourse with that modest and living Christian,
the Baron von Kotwitz, who was a blessing to so many in
Berlin during a whole generation, doubtless exercised a happy
influence upon him. Later in life we find in Ritter the sin-
cere, humble, and joyful Christian, grown to his full stature,
who reveals himself by that oneness of mind and heart, that
harmony of thought and action, which can flow only from a
perfect and willing obedience in love to his heavenly Master.
But let his own words bear testimony to his deep convictions.

When his students requested of him a motto to be placed
at the bottom of the portrait just alluded to, he gave them
that sentence that you read in the autograph which is before
you: “ Our earth is a star among the stars ; and should not
we, who are on it, prepare ourselves by it for the contempla-
tion of the Universe and its Author ?” Truly, the expression
of the spirit of his instructions and of his “‘ Erdkunde !”

In the last letter that it was my privilege to receive
from him, Ritter, alluding, without the shadow of a murmur,
however, to his advanced age, his declining strength, his ap-
proaching departure, speaks also of that work, the object of hig

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 47

life, which he was obliged to leave unfinished, a mere fragment
of his whole conception ; ‘ but,” he adds, “ we live according
to the higher calling which guides us, (and quoting Paul,
Rom. xiv. 8,) for whether we live, we live unto the Lord ; and
whether we die, we die unto the Lord ; and whether we live,
therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.” A touching testimony
to his Christian resignation !

The following words from his private journal, found after
his death, are more explicit still, and so well reveal his whole
soul that I cannot forego the pleasure of making them known
to you. I quote them from the translation of the excellent
memorial by Dr. Kramer : “ Although at present, while prepar-
ing for a journey to the western part of France and the Pyrenees,
I am healthy and well, life nevertheless lies in the hand of
God, whose mercy and grace have guided my fate so wonder-
fully and gloriously, that I cannot but sing to Him, the All-
good, praise, and glory with all my power, in all my thoughts
and actions. Should it not please Him to let me return to my
beloved family and to my calling, but should he assign me
another place in his heavenly kingdom, that I may obtain hap-
piness, a happiness which already here sometimes has moved me
to tears of joy, then I ask my friends not to grieve over my going
home, for all that the Lord does is done well. My eternal fate
my Saviour in his great mercy will decide. In deep acknowl-
edgment of my infirmities and sins, I am still full of trust
and confidence, since I know that my Redeemer lives, who will
make his people partakers of the mercy of the Eternal and Just
one.” A glorious utterance, indeed, of his Christian hopes !

We believe in the word of Him, who said to the trusting
petitioners, “according to your faith be it unto you.” Carl
Ritter has now entered the heavenly mansions, and is admitted
to the contemplation of the wonders of the universe and the
adoration of its Author, for which he was so well prepared. He
left this earth, the theatre of his long labors, in profound peace,
after a short illness, on the 28th of September, 1859. On the
1st of October his mortal remains were placed by the side of
those of his wife, who preceded him by nineteen years. His
immortal soul has gone to its long-desired home.

Such was the lite of Carl Ritter. It flowed like a peaceful
and fertilizing stream through the long period of two genera-
tions. With the steadiness of a healthy growth, atid that
harmonious use of all his powers of mind and heart, with
that honesty of purpose, without which true wisdom cannot
be attained, he pursued his lofty aspirations undisturbed by

48 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

the storms of the revolutions and of the wars, in the midst
of which he spent the first half of his life.

The fruit of his labors he left to us, as a rich heritage,
bestowed upon civilized mankind, and ready for all those who
wish to have a part in it. It remains for us to examine in
what it consists, and in doing it we shall soon perceive that the
more intimate acquaintance that we have made with Ritter’s
character, is not without value for the right appreciation of
his scientific labors.

Ritter, indeed, declares himself, in the Introduction to the
“¢ Erdkunde,” that the fundamental idea which underlies all his
work, and. furnishes him a new principle for arranging the well-
digested materials of the science of the globe, has its deep root
in the domain of faith. This idea, he adds, was derived from
an inward intuition which gradually grew out of his life in na-
ture and among men, and could not be, beforehand, sharply
defined and limited, but should shine, as it were, through the
work, and become fully manifested by the completion of the
edifice itself. That noble edifice is now before us. Unfinished
though it be, it reveals the whole plan, and allows us clearly to
perceive that fundamental idea on which it rests. Itis a strong
faith that our globe, like the totality of creation, is a great
organism, the work of an all-wise Divine Intelligence, an ad-
mirable structure, all the parts of which are purposely shaped
and arranged, are mutually dependent, and by the will of the
Maker fulfil, like organs, specific functions which combine
themselves into a common life.

But for Ritter, that organism of the globe comprises not
nature only, it includes man, and with man the moral and in-
tellectual life. If the idea of a great Kosmos, as applied to
the universe, or to our physical globe, is not new, nay, is as
old as the primitive cosmogonies of the past ages, it is the
merit of Ritter to have made a special and most happy appli-
cation of it to the geographical studies. None before him
perceived so clearly the hidden, but strong, ties which mutu-
ally bind man and nature ; these close and truitful relations be-
tween man and his dwelling-place, between a continent and its
inhabitants, between a country and the people which holds
it as its share, these influences which stamp the races and na-
tions each with a character of their own, never to be effaced
during the long period of their existence. In this common
life, however, man, the nobler element, is the ruling power,
If, in the period of his infancy, nature is for man a fostering
mother, in the days of his youth a loving sister, exercising on

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 49

him a shaping influence, in the time of his full growth and
manful activity, it becomes in his practised hands, and under
the guidance of his commanding mind, an instrumentality
for higher purposes and for the performance of that work of in-
tellectual and moral development to which mankind is called,
and which is the normal end of this earthly economy. Con-
sidered under this new aspect, every portion of our globe,
stamped by nature with a peculiar character, assumes a new
meaning and a new importance. As the body is made for the
soul, so is the physical globe made for mankind. In an or-
ganic body the disposition of the parts, the structure of the
organs, cannot be accounted for except by the functions which
they are destined to perform. So in the globe, the geographi-
cal forms, the size, the peculiarities of structure, of climate, the
natural associations of plants and animals which characterize
each of the continents, and of the well-defined physical re-
gions of our planet, have no intelligible meaning, no obvious
reason of existing in that particular shape, unless their final
object is revealed by their powerful influence in shaping the de-
velopment of the races and nations which live within their
bounds, and by the use that those nations made of them as in-
struments of their activity in the common life of mankind.
This organic idea, if you will allow me the expression, is
the new principle which is to substitute order for confusion, in
that overwhelming mass of geographical, physical, and ethno-
graphical details of which Geography then consisted. To the
necessity of such a principle Ritter, doubtless, alludes, when
selecting for the epigraph of the “‘ Erdkunde,” this word ofthe
reformer of modern science, Lord Bacon, “Citius emergit
veritas ex errore quam ex confusione.” This organic idea
substitutes beautiful, intelligible symmetry, for unmeaning,
casual arrangement ; law for accident ; relations of cause and
effect for disconnectedness ; unity for isolation. It gives us a
criterion for judging of the value of each detail, and of the rel-
ative importance of each order of facts, which can only be
determined by their relation to the whole. Fully carried out,
it would give us a clear picture, and the true measure of the
powerful influence of that constant factor of nature in the
ever-changing life and relations of human societies through all
historical ages. Nay, when casting a glance at that vast
scene prepared by Providence for the moving drama of his-
tory, and seeing so many compartments, admirably arranged
and ready, it seems, for any emergency, in which as yet no
performance EBS taken place, are we not justified in believing

50 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

that the great geographical arrangements of our planet are
foreshadowing the future destinies of mankind ?

One feels that to treat Geography from such a point of
view and in such a spirit, is to begin a new science. It is the
science of the living globe, it is physiological Geography. The
old walks will not do any more, With a firm and trusting step
we must boldly enter the new path which has been opened by
the hand of genius, for that path alone will lead us to the tem-
ple of knowledge.

This view was the normal synthesis required by the rapid
progress of physical, ethnological, and historical sciences, which,
since the beginning of this century, have shed so much light on
the deeper nature of the physical world and of human society.
It was that harmonic unity of elements, diverse and yet akin,
craved by every philosophic mind conversant with the results of
scientific inquiry. The philosophy of history, that science of
modern times, hails now, with joy, the birth of a still younger
sister, the Philosophy of Geography, the one a help to the oth-
er ; both forever as inseparable as man is from nature.

Ritter not only laid down the principle of a new science,
but he attempted to carry it out. He succeeded beyond
expectation, for the task that he thus assumed was great, and
seemed to exceed the strength of one individual man. It
implied a careful and critical re-examination, under a new
light, of the original sources of our geographical knowledge,
and of the historical data connected with it, and a new method
of investigation, of combination, and of exposition of the re-
sults, His predecessors in Geography could be of little avail
to him. If Eratosthenes, says he, wrote the first astronomical
Geography, Herodotus and Strabo the first geographical his-
tory and historical Geography, Bergmann the first geographi-
cal physics, Buesching the first geographical statistics ; these
works, excellent though they were for their special purpose,
could do little more than prepare materials for the one contem-
plated. Each of them lacks the principle of unity, which alone
can place the geographical element in its proper light, and give
to it its full value.

But among his distinguished contemporaries, none was to
him of so much help as Alexander von Humboldt, who summed
up in himself the progress of the age in the physical and natu-
ral sciences, as applied to the science of the globe. I have
said how gratefully Ritter acknowledged his indebtedness to
Humboldt’s labors, which furnished him the indispensable
foundation for his own edifice. His investigations of the gen-

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 51

eral laws of distribution of heat, represented by his system of
isothermal lines, of the distribution of plants, as depending
upon the two main elements of climate, heat and moisture,
of the marine currents as modifyers of climate in similar lati-
tudes, were of general application to all parts of the globe.
His admirable labors on the tropical regions of the Western
Hemisphere had revealed to the scientific world the true na-
ture of that massive structure of the Andes, and of the vast
table lands of Mexico, so gigantic in their proportions and still
so simple when compared with the system of the Himalaya,
the Alps, and thu complicated nature of the plateau of Iran.
He had shown the decided preponderance of these huge eleva-
tions in mass of large portions of the earth crust over the nar-
row chains of mountains in shaping the characteristic structure
of the continents. He had demonstrated the intimate connec-
tion of these grand plastic forms with the rapid changes in the
climate, the plants, and the animal life, which are observed at
every step, when ascending their slopes, and delineated, in
vivid outlines, the various zones of ever-changing vegetation,
through which the traveller gradually passes from the luxuri-
ant forests and stifling atmosphere of the plains of the Amazon ,
to the bare or snow-clad paramos of the Andes. Instead of
the unmeaning uniformity suggested before Humboldt, by a
glance at the map of tropical America, we now see rising be-
fore our minds a series of richly colored pictures, a series of
physical regions, of well-defined geographical types. We see
how they owe their existence and their special characters to
these fundamental traits of the structure of the continent, and
to the powerful influence which that structure exercises on the
climatic conditions, and through them, on animated nature
and man himself. Here the boundless Llanos of the Orinoco,
alternately a burnt, dusty, and lifeless desert and a sea of
verdure, teeming with temporary life: there the Selvas of the
Amazon with their endless, impenetrable forests, their luxuri-
ant solitudes, as yet untamed by civilized man, too powerful
in their exuberance of nature life, for the few scattered sav-
ages, the only tenants of these rich wastes, At mid-height
in the Andes, the happy regions around Ibague, Popayan,
Loxa, with their everlasting spring, their murmuring brooks,
their shady forests, and evergreen foliage ; on the broad sum-
mit of the Andes, between a double row of the highest volca-
noes of our planet, the cool, but healthy valleys of old Peru,
with their invigorating air, their open and cultivated plains,
their extensive lakes, their ancient civilized people of the In-

52 Guyor on Carl Ritter.

cas, who from this lofty abode, as from a high throne, exer-
cised a beneficent power on the surrounding slopes down to the
shores of the ocean. In delineating, with a master hand, all
these natural types so strongly marked with distinctive char-
acteristics, these sharp contrasts between sister countries of the
same landmass, and that variety of natural aspects, Humboldt
actually revealed for the first time the true nature of the con-
tinent. He did more, for he clearly traced the close connec-
tion and the mutual dependence of all those orders of natural
phenomena, and taught the true method by which such an
investigation should be conducted in every other portion of the
lobe.

Such a knowledge, Ritter felt, was to be acquired of every
other continent, and above all, of the historical continents.
That alone could be a safe basis for the further study of the
influence of those distinct natural regions on man’s character
and peculiar development, and on the special functions per-
formed in the civilization of mankind, by the nations which
occupied them during the periods of their growth and activity.
Applying to the study of Geography the objective and com--
parative method to which the natural sciences owe their rapid
progress and a deeper understanding of the system of organized
beings, Ritter carried out a series of investigations which led
him to results which are acquired forever to geographical
science, and are, or soon will be, universally regarded as funda-
mental truths. I beg leave briefly to mention those which
have exercised the greatest influence on the recent progress of
Geography, and are more characteristic of his method.

Every one of the great landmasses raised above the ocean
is a geographical individual, which differs from all the others
by its size, by its form, horizontal and vertical, by the ar-
rangements of its parts or its internal structure, by its climate,
by the peculiar association of plants and animals which be-
longs to it, and by the character of the race of men which
occupies it. The continents are the primary organs in the
great organism of our planet. Their specific characteristics
have to be determined by a careful study of all their elements,
and a close comparison of their analogies and differences.
Their relative situation, the arrangements which bind them
into a connected whole, and their peculiar position with re-
gard to the great zones of climate, or their physical situation,
as we might call it. “ Raumliche Anordnung und Weltstel-
lung,” in Ritter’s style, should not receive a less share of at-
tention ; for those general relations, combined with those

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 53

specific characters, are the fundamental causes which de-
termine their special functions in the life of nature and of
mankind. Ritter discussed each of these topics in a series of
five papers which were read before the Acadamy of Science of
Berlin, between 1826 and 1856, and which have since been
reprinted separately in a small volume, to which I have allud-
ed, together with the introduction to the “ Erdkunde,” under
the title of “Memoirs to serve as a foundation for a more scien-
tific treatment of Geography,” ‘ Abhandlungen zur Begriin-
dung eine mehr wissenschaftlichen Behandlung der Erd-
kunde.”

In treating of the configuration of the continents, Ritter
considers both their horizontal dimensions, or the size and the
contours, and their vertical dimensions, or the absolute and
relative elevations of their mass which constitute their relief.
To the study of this last element, which act so powerfully on
the climate, and through it on all animated nature, and which
has been nevertheless so long neglected, Ritter gives a decided
prominence. A continent is not the flat surface that maps
seem to indicate ; it is a solid body, the plastic forms of which
have to be carefully delineated. Ritter distinguishes the ex-
tensive low-lands, maritime and continental, from the massive
elevations of the table-lands or plateaux, and these again from
the linear elevations of the mountain chains. To the table-
lands, or elevated surfaces, he assigns, like Humboldt, the
most important part in these vast structures. He showed
that every continent has for its centre a large intumescence
which makes, as it were, its main trunk, and around which are
grouped as many secondary organs, its various physical re-
gions. From that high central mass, and from the mountain
chains which often mark its borders, the main streams of the
continent descend towards the low-lands and the ocean,
through a series of terraces or mountainous districts full of
fertile valleys, which connect, as transition forms, the central
highlands of the low, maritime plains of culture which sur-
round them, Still beyond, far projecting into the domain of
the ocean, rich peninsulas, as in Asia and Europe, form a third
circle, and with large islands, true fragments of the continent
scattered along its shores, surround the whole structure with
aseries of most useful appendages, as with a garland of bril-
lant flowers.

When compared under this aspect, the three continents of
the Old World, not to speak of the others, show striking dif-
ferences. Africa has one large and uniform plateau filling the

54 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

Southern half of the continent, and descending on three sides
by terraces destitute of low-lands, to the shores of the ocean.
The Northern half, comparatively low and uniform, is a burn-
ing desert, separated from the main plateau by the fertile ter-
races and the plains of Soudan, and from the Mediterranean
Sea by the long and Isolated mountainous plateau of the Atlas,
and the small plateau of Barca. Simplicity and uniformity
of structure is thus the share of Africa. Asia, on the con-
trary, has two central plateaux, one in the Hast, the other in
the West, both with lofty mountain chains, broad terraces,
extensive low-lands, and projecting peninsulas ; it is a double
continent ; the land of huge forms, of extremes, and of the
most striking contrasts. In Europe another type still prevails.
The central table-land on which the Alpine system rests,
loses its primary importance in the presence of the gigantic
mass of the Alps and the mountain form, more broken, more
articulated, as it were, becomes typical of the continent.

The contrast between the various continents is not less
remarkable, when we compare the horizontal forms of contour
which are themselves but the consequences of the variety of
plastic forms just mentioned. Africa isa compact mass, shut up
in itself, almost inaccessible to the influences coming from the
ocean, deprived of these deep indentations, and projecting pen-
insulas, which abound in Asiaand Europe. Even the corners of
the triangle which seems to be the fundamental shape of every
continent, are all rounded off, and the shape of Africa ap-
proaches that of an ellipse. The line of contact of land and
water is reduced, as it were, to a minimum; and that uni-
formity of outlines betrays the simplicity of its internal con-
figuration.

Asia, on ihe contrary, is deeply indented, and its gulfs and
peninsulas present themselves on a scale commensurate with
the magnitude of that king among the continents. Innumer-
able continental islands, and among them the largest to be
found amid the oceans, surround it, and add to it an amount
of land almost equivalent to anotber small continent, while
Africa can only boast of Madagascar.

Europe again, tbat peninsular continent of the Old World,
is still more indented. Here the mixture of land and water is
carried to an extreme, The line of shores of that smallest of
these continents, surpass by one-half that of the large mass
of Africa. One-third of its whole surface is cut off in peninsu-
las. If Africa is a vast trunk without members, Europe is the

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 55

most articulated, and, in its smallness, the most perfectly or-
ganized of all the continents. :

Ritter traces the vast influence of these individualized por-
tions of the landmasses which surround the main body of a conti-
nent, on civilization. Climates are diversified, the formation of
distinct nations favored, a greater variety of human faculties
called into action, mutual relations and reciprocal influences
increased, which, in the indented continents, unfold the hid-
den powers of man to a degree unknown in the continents less
favored in this respect. The coincidence between the unciv-
ilized state of the nations which possess Africa, and the im-
penetrability of that continent, between the briiliant develop-
ment of mankind in Asia, and above all in Europe, and the
variety and perfection of their geographical organization, is too
striking to be called a fortuitous one. It forces us to acknowl-
edge, in that remarkable peculiarity of structure, one of the
causes which have determined so great a difference of functions
in these three mainlands of the Eastern Hemisphere.

The views to which I thus briefly allude, are among those
which have acted most immediately on the reform of the geo-
graphical method used in the schools. The valuable works of
Roon, Voelter, Kloeden, and a host of others in Germany, the
highly suggestive manuals of such genial writers as F. de
Rougemont in Switzerland, derive their special excellence
from the application of these principles to geographical teach-
ing. The whole system of school cartography had to be
changed, and accommodated to the new wants thus created.
As Berghaus’ Physical Atlas, the only original foundation for
all the others, which have appeared under different names, was
called forth by Humboldt’s labors in Physical Geography, so
the crowd of the new German school atlases and wall maps,
which seek by the best possible method, still to be found, to
make clear to the eye, by drawing, by colors, or otherwise, the
main features of the relief of the continents, were called into
existence by the wants suggested by Ritter’s method.

The relative situation of the contineats and their climatic
position, gives them a distinct historical character. For man-
kind Asia is the land of the rising sun, as also the cradle
of rising humanity. It is the Orient par excellence. Europe
is the land of the setting sun, the Occident, the land towards
which the brilliant orb advances, Africa is the burning South,
the Soudan of the earth, as Ritter calls it, the land of the mid-
day sun. In Asia the nations look backward towards a lu-
minous past. Traditions, carefully preserved, of glories gone

56 Guyot on Cari Ritter.

by, keep their eyes turned towards that golden age from which
they derive their wisdom, leave them without the hope of ever
attaining a higher blessing, and thus stop their progress. In
Europe men look forward, their faces turned towards the ad-
vancing sun, following it in its march and longing to plunge
with it into the ocean of a mysterious future. Africa, the land
of the meridian sun, equally unmindful of the past and the fu-
ture, is sunk in an inactive, unmeaning present. These three
continents again are grouped into an Eastern Hemisphere,
which is to become the Orient for the new Occident, for the
New World of the Western Hemisphere, which, in its turn,
represents the land of future progress, contrasted with that of
the old traditions of the past.
By the historical element in Geography, Ritter means not
a certain amount of historical facts connected with a geographi-
cal spot, but the variety of functions performed by the same
geographical elements, or the same natural regions, in the dif-
ferent ages of civilization. These functions are necessarily
variable, since they depend upon the power of the cultivated
nations to make use of these elements furnished by nature, as
instruments for the particular work which these nations are
called upon to perform in history. At the beginning of civili-
zation, when the first, the most urgent want, was the possi-
bility of gathering together, within a moderate compass, a
large number of men, and thus to establish the social and polit-
ical relations, without which human progress is impossible, the
large plains of culture fertilized by the main streams of the
continents were of paramount, of almost exclusive importance,
The rich valleys of the Nile, of the Euphrates, of the Ganges,
of the Chinese streams, are the prominent geographical centres
formankind. The broad ocean, the Mediterranean even, lie
then forgotten and without use. When the great historical
work in progress was the education of the mental faculties of
man by Greek civilization, how prominent was the value of
every geographical feature of that little peninsula of Greece, of
its mountains and valleys, of its indented shores, of its genial
climate, of its situation between the lands of the old oriental
civilization, and the Western peninsulas which awaited culture
from her. How different again when Rome began the great
social work of the Roman empire, which was to gather under
one powerful sceptre, the scattered civilizations of antiquity.
The land of Greece sunk into insignificance, but the central
position of Italy, in the midst of the Mediterranean world,
thus far without value, made Rome the natural heart of that

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 57

great organism. ‘I'he Mediterranean, so neglected by old Egypt
and Assyria, became the common arena and the bond of union
of the extensive domains of Rome, and the high road of civil-
ized nations. The open ocean, then the dreaded insuperable
obstacle to a further extension of mankind, had no function
in the development of man. But now that by the progress of
astronomical science and the art of navigation, man has mas~-
tered that redoubtable abyss, and knows how to oppose the wind
and waves by the power of steam, the ocean in its turn
has become the highway of commerce and intercourse between
the most advanced nations of the Earth. To its shores they
flock feeling,as by a secret instinct, that the power and wealth
of a nation, in this age of universal interchange of gifts, de-
pend upon the free access to that great door which opens for
it the richest lands of the inhabitable globe. Thus the rela-
tive value of every one of the geographical elements, is con-
stantly changing for man with the development of his own
powers and the progress of history.

It only remains for us to see how Ritter applied these vari-
ous principles in his “Erdkunde.” After what has been said, a
brief review of the plan and the method pursued in it will suffice.

The intention of Ritter, as he informs us, was to treat of
the whole globe in twelve books. This number-was no arbi-
trary one. It is easy to perceive that the idea of a great
organism to be studied and described according to divisions
marked out by nature itself, and their actual relations, was con-
stantly before his mind. Each book was to contain one of the
primary geographical individuals, a continent, for instance.
The first book was devoted to Africa, the second to Eastern
Asia, which is almost a continent by itself, the third to Western
Asia. These are the only ones which be has written. What
the other books would have contained, we are not told, The
continent of Africa is the most uniform in its outlines, in its
structure, its natural features in every respect ; that of Europe
is the most varied, the most highly organized. The order
pursued, therefore, is from the simple to the more compli-
cated ; from the lower organism to the higher.

In describing a continent, Ritter, as I have remarked,
looks upon it as an individual structure, the controlling feat-
ure of which is a central plateau. Around that central
mass, as around a main trunk, are spread the lowlands, and
from its high margins descend stepwise, in every direction,
long terraces with their valleys and other streams towards
the low plains, or sometimes reach uninterrupted to the sea-

58 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

shore. It is, therefore, in that order that he describes the
various parts of such a connected mass of land. Beginning
with the central highland, continuing by its terraces and
lowlands, he terminates by the peninsular appendages and
the islands which belong to it. A first bird’s-eye view, traced
with master-hand, gives the general features, the plan of
structure, as it were, of the continent, and indicates the
arrangements and the relations of all its parts. Then en-
tering upon the detailed description, and proceeding from the
cold and less favored regions to the warmer and richer climes,
he characterizes every natural division, treats of its physical
condition, of its people, of its present and historical functions,
and usually terminates by a retrospective view, in which he
gives to the mind, enriched by the specific knowledge acquired,
a still more complete and precise view of the whole organism
and of its distinctive characteristics.

A rapid view of the application of this method of descrip
tion to the continents of Africa and Asia, may substantiate
this short statement, and serve as a key to the arrangement
of the matters contained in the “ Erdkunde,” which appears
to many rather intricated, perhaps because unusual. The first
book, Africa, contains four divisions, Abtheilungen: High
Africa, or the main table-land ; the transition forms to the
lowlands, with their terraces and their water-courses descend-
ing from the highland ; the isolated plateaux of the Atlas and
of Barca, and the lowland of North Africa, or the Sahara.

The large divisions are subdivided into sections and again into
chapters (Abschnitte and Kapitel), which equally correspond
to so many physical regions, but of less extent and importance.
In the first division, which treats of the central highland, the
first section is devoted to the South margin, and its terraces
descending towards the Cape of Good Hope, with three chapters
describing the high table-land of the Orange River and its
race of men ; the middle terrace of the Karroos ; the lower ter-
race or the shore region. The second section comprises the
Eastern border of the highlands and its terraces down to the
shores of the Indian Ocean, with the two chapters treating of
the Kafir coast, and of the coast of Sofala and Mozambique.
In the third section we are led to the North margin of
High Africa, in which we find, in four chapters, the descrip-
tion of the high terrace of Kaffa and Narea, of the table-land
of Abyssinia in general, the plateau of Abyssinia proper, and
the terraces which descend from that Alpine land towards the
sea and the lowland of North Africa. The fourth section com-

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 59

prises the Western margin of the continent with four chap-
ters, giving successively a review of the South-western coast
of Africa from Cape Negro to Cape Gonzalés ; of the regions
on the Zaire River, in Congo ; of the highland of the Ambos,
and of high Soudan on the North. A fifth and last section 1s
devoted to that almost isolated member of the continent, the
Western half, or prolongation of, the North Margin, contain-
ing, in two chapters, the description of the table-land of the
Mandingos, the region of the sources of the Senegal, Gambia,
Niger, and the Kong mountains. ;

“Having thus completed a first systematic review of the cen-
tral highland, Ritter, in a second division, takes up the transi-
tion forms from the highland to the lowland, that is the great
river systems and their neighboring regions, which are always
the connecting links, the great highways between the two for
the people and commerce. One section is devoted to the
Orange river, the characteristic stream of South Africa.
Another, in two chapters, to the terraces and streams of Mid-
dle Africa, the Senegal and Gambia, and the mysterious Niger
with East Soudan. The master stream, Nile, follows next, in
six chapters ; one for the region of its sources, and the upper
course, two for the middle course in Sennaar and Nubia, three
for the lower course, upper, middle, and lower Egypt, or the
Delta Lands. ;

Now the attention of the reader is directed in a third di-
vision, to the isolated highlands of the Atlas and of Barca,
which, detached from the main trunk of the continent, border
it along the Mediterranean Sea and the ocean. The Atlas
plateau with its mountain chains, its surrounding border
regions, along the sea~shore and towards the Sahara, with the
races which occupy it, and the small table-land of Barca, fill
each one of three chapters.

The fourth and last division, the low-land of Africa, com-
prises two sections, the Hastern and the Western half of the
great desert of Sahara and Sahel. In the first section, three
chapters describe first the Eastern shore of that land ocean,
and its entrances from Egypt; then its Northern shores, and
a third treats of the Oases and of their influence on the de-
velopment of the neighboring nations of the desert. In the
second section the description of Western Sahara and Sahel,
and the tribes of the desert, occupies the last two chapters.
A retrospective view of the whole continent of Africa closes
the book.

The continent has thus been methodically divided into its

60 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

grand natural districts ; each has been described, and the mu-
tual dependence and subordination of each of these physical
regions, their arrangement into a grand organic structure, as
it were, is constantly kept in view. |

Nor does even that organic division, if I may call it s0,
stop with the larger geographical districts which correspond
to the chapter. In nearly each of them we find a series
of explanatory paragraphs, Erlduterungen, which make as
many minor groups, or treat of special subjects which belong
to regions described in the chapter. As an instance, we
find in the chapters treating of the Delta the following
Erliéuterungen : on the two main arms of the Nile and the
history of their changes; on the inundations of the Nile, its
freshets, its alluvial deposit, the foundation of cities on its
banks in ancient times; the history of the formation of the
Delta of the Nile ; the valley of the Wandering, the Natron
Lakes ; and a retrospective view of the Nile stream and
its influence on history. Still more special discussions form
separate paragraphs under the name of ‘“ Remarks,” Anmer-
kungen. In all, the sources of information are carefully com-
pared, weighed, and referred to in numerous quotations.

The same method of description, at once so exhaustive and
so thorough, has been followed in the two books and eighteen
volumes devoted to Asia. But here the extent of that mass
of land, the variety of the physical structure, the high histori-
cal importance of almost every spot of that old parent conti-
nent, explain the necessity for the distinction of a much larger
number of natural regions. It would be useless to mention
here more than the grand divisions and the order in which
they are treated.

I have already said that Asia being, as it were, a double
continent with two central table-lands, forms two books. Af-
ter an admirable introduction which gives a general view of the
whole continent, Ritter begins with the central Highlands of
Eastern Asia. The Hast and North margin and the central re-
gions, the South borders, or the Himalaya system, are described
in as many sections. Next, the transition forms and the great
water-courses descending from the heights of the table-land,
are considered ; the Eastern group, or China and its mighty
streams ; the South-eastern, or Indo-China; the Southern,
or India proper, with the system of the Ganges, terminates
the second book.

The third book, or Western Asia, is far more voluminous.
Evidently when reaching the true historical regions, the work

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 61

grew under the pen of its author much beyond his expecta-
tion. One division, nay, one section alone fills one or more
volumes. Western Asia, which begins with the seventh volume
of the whole work, scarcely terminates with the nineteenth.
The first division describes the Jands which Ritter calls the
transition forms between Eastern and Western Asia. The
system of the Indus, with the Punjaub, Cashmere, and the
high valleys of the Himalaya, the Hindo-Khu, the high table-
land of Turkestan and the massive chain of the Bolor, down to
the low-lands of the Caspian Sea, fill the volume. The Iranian
World, or the central plateau of Western Asia, and the sur-
rounding countries connected with it, begins properly the
second half of the Asiatic continent and the second divi-
sion. A full introduction, giving a synopsis of the plateau or
Iran under its physical, archeological, and ethnological aspects,
precedes, and gives the general features which secure for the
Tranian world an individual character. The Eastern mass, or
Afghanistan, the North and South margin, along the low-
lands of Turan and the Persian Gulf; the Western mass,
or Persia, and Aderbidschan, form as many large sections, and
occupy two volumes. In the third division the transition
forms, or the great water-courses are considered, the twin sys-
tem of the Euphrates and Tigris filling two volumes. The
fourth division begins the description of the isolated members
of Western Asia. The Peninsula of Arabia to the South,
occupies two volumes. The fifth division, in two sections,
covers the Peninsula of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria, the first
with one, the other with two volumes. The last division is
devoted to Asia Minor the natural end, toward the West, of
the plateau of Iran, and is treated in two volumes.

It is easy to see by the gradually greater extent given by
Ritter to the latter part of his work, that besides the reason
just assigned for it, namely, the increasing interest attached to
those regions which have been, from the highest antiquity, the
scene of history, the plan of the author underwent a slight modi-
fication. Ritter’s habit of thoroughness and the abundance
of new materials accumulating every day, give this latter part
of the “‘ Erdkunde” the form of a series of monographs, which
may be considered as standard works on each of the countries
thus described, and as embodying about the sum total of our
knowledge up to the date of their publication. Among the
most new, we may name the volume of Eastern Asia, contain-
ing a digested account of all the English and other labors on
India and the system of the Himalaya ; and again, the two

62 Guyot on Carl Ritter.

volumes on Arabia, which are entirely unique of their kind.
The monographs of Sinai, Palestine, and Syria, belong, it will be
conceded on all hands, to the most thorough which exist. A
series of monographs of another nature, treating of the his-
tory, the geographical extension, and influence on civilization
of several plants of culture and of domesticated animals, such
as of cotton, coffee, of the camel, and others, are interspersed
among the volumes of the Erdkunde, and remain models of
the kind. In questions of that order Ritter seeks the laws,
and one of his academical memoirs is devoted to an essay on
the principles of a Geography of the natural productions useful
to man,

The picture that I have just attempted of Ritter’s ideas,
method, and labors, sufficiently defines, if I err not, the part
performed in geographical science by that faithful and gifted
scholar, from that achieved by Humboldt. Humboldt seeks
to determine the general laws of the physical world. Ritter
seizes them as applied, and in their concrete and actual connec-
tion in every given country and in the whole globe, and consid-
ers nature in its totality as an element in the development
of mankind, from which alone these natural forms and influ-
ences receive their true and final significance.

At the moment these faithful guides leave us to ourselves,
when their voice will utter no more words of wisdom, it may be
well for us to ask ourselves how far they led us in the high
road of science, and what is the task which is still before us.
Humboldt, with a surpassing richness of knowledge, attempted
to give us a connected picture of the totality of the physical
universe ; but admirable as is the Cosmos, after having read its
eloquent pages, we pause and involuntarily ask for the final
object of the Creator in building up that marvellous structure ;
we ask for a tie which connects it with Him, at least that por-
tion of the creation in which we dwell ; for a voice which rises
from it as a word of praise, and we find it not. Far from me
even the idea of casting a blame upon the great and good phi-
losopher ; I am fully aware that his plan was purposely lim-
ited to the material world which is his theme. I only wish to
remark that we cannot stop there.

It is, indeed, a universal law of all that exists, as I have else-
where said, not to have in itself either the reason or the en-
tire aim of its existence. very order of facts, like every indi-
vidual being, forms but a portion of a greater organization,
the plan and the idea of which go infinitely beyond it, and in
which it is destined to play a part. The reagon of its exist-

Guyot on Carl Ritter. 63

ence, therefore, is not in itself, but out of it; not below, but
above it. The explanation of the beautiful but often mys-
terlous arrangements of the physical globe is to be found not
in it, but in the higher moral and intellectual sphere of man
for whom they were made, in order to be there the means of
accomplishing a more exalted end than their mere material
existence. The key which opens for us the mysteries of the
evolutions of history, is to be sought in that future perfect
economy which is its end, and towards which, under God’s
guidance, human progress is advancing with a steady step. A
science of the globe which excludes the spirit-world represented
by man, is a beautiful body without a soul. Ritter, as I trust
Ihave abundantly shown, put a soul into that body. This
will make his memory live forever in the grateful remembrance
of all lovers of true science,

Let us, therefore, continue in the footsteps of these mas-
ters in science. Humboldt furnishes the means; Ritter marks
the goal. Like Humboldt, let us study nature in a truth-loving
and devoted spirit, and, with combined forces, perfect that edi-
fice which he has already reared so high. Like Ritter, let us,
with scrupulous care and a pure mind, pursue in all parts of
our earthly domain the investigation of these wondrous harmo-
nies of nature and history, of which he has traced the great
outlines. With the lofty ideal which was before his mind, let
us try to realize his conception, which still needs a further
erowth to unfold all its beauty ; and we shall have a right to
look with hope towards a future science and a future Cosmos,
which will be the full and adequate expression of the wisdom
and goodness displayed in God’s plan of the material and
moral creation, which will satisfy all the legitimate craving of
the human mind for knowledge, and which by its very utter-
ance shall be, according to Ritter’s own words, man’s song of
praise and of adoration to the divine Author of the universe.