The theory of evolution, as set forth by Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace, Sir Joseph Hooker, and others in the middle of the nineteenth century, has clearly the closest relationship with the geographical theory of the control exercised by environment; it has become, indeed, its fundamental principle. Darwin accompanied the _Beagle_ surveying expedition round the world in 1831–36, and his observations during the voyage qualified him for his life-work. Wallace’s study of the distribution of animals brings at once to the mind his line of demarcation between faunal regions passing through the Malay Archipelago. Hooker was prepared for his interest in plant geography by his voyage with Ross to the Antarctic, by his travels in northern India (1847–51), and other journeys of wide range. Such men were geographers though their fame does not name them so. The application of geographical method is either essential or at least valuable in every branch of natural science; in itself it fulfils functions which the other natural sciences, taken individually, do not, and that is its justification.
A general history of geography (mainly, however, concerned with exploration and mapping) is Vivien de Saint-Martin’s _Histoire de la Géographie_ (Paris, 1873); a short historical review dealing more especially with geographical theory will be found in H. Wagner’s _Lehrbuch der Geographie_ (Leipzig, 1900). No English parallels to these works are to be cited, but reference may be made to H. R. Mill’s _International Geography_ (1897) and his article on “Geography” and E. G. Ravenstein’s on “Map” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ (eleventh edition). On the earliest period see E. H. Bunbury, _History of Ancient Geography_ (2 vols., London, 1879), and H. F. Tozer, _History of Ancient Geography_ (1897), in the Cambridge Geographical Series; on the “dark age” and down to 1460, C. R. Beazley, _Dawn of Modern Geography_ (3 vols., London, 1897–1906); the sixteenth century is principally covered by the voluminous literature on Columbus, such as Sir C. R. Markham’s _Life of Christopher Columbus_ (London, 1892), E. J. Payne’s _History of the New World called America_ (Vol. I., Oxford, 1892); on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, E. Heawood, _Geographical Discovery in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries_ (Cambridge Geographical Series, 1912). Some of the earlier theoretical works have been cited in the text; a few modern works representative of the various departments of geography may be mentioned here. Those of which the prime purpose is description are represented by E. Reclus’s _La Nouvelle Géographie Universelle_ (19 vols., Paris, 1876–95; there is an English translation) and by _Stanford’s Compendium of Geography and Travel_ (various authors.) F. Ratzel, _Anthropogeographie_ (2 vols., Stuttgart, c. 1891); Ellen C. Semple, _Influences of Geographic Environment_ (London, 1911); E. Suess, _Das Antlitz der Erde_ (translated as _The Face of the Earth_, Oxford, 1904); G. G. Chisholm, _Manual of Commercial Geography_ (1890 and later editions); and volumes of the Cambridge Geographical Series already referred to may be taken as representative of various departments of geography of which an outline has been attempted in the last chapter of this book. A. R. Clarke’s _Geodesy_, the section of the article on “Map” in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_ by the same writer, and Col. C. F. Close, for projections, and H. M. Wilson’s _Topographic Surveying_ (New York and London, 1901) are to be referred to in the department of mathematical geography, but this subject has to be pursued mainly in official publications and scientific journals. For illustrations of cartographical method it is unnecessary in order to study the highest development of large-scale mapping to go beyond the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain and (particularly as illustrating the layer system of showing relief) the reduction therefrom by Bartholomew (Edinburgh), whose cartographical methods in such special scientific applications as meteorology, the distribution of population, etc., also render it unnecessary to consider sources other than English. But for best examples of the map-making art combined with the most careful use of existing data in the compilation of topographical atlases, such a work as Stieler’s Hand Atlas (Justus Perthes, Gotha) must be studied. There are examples of cartographical work from all periods in E. A. Reeves’s _Maps and Map-making_ (London, Royal Geographical Society, 1910), a series of three lectures on the history and methods of surveying and cartography. Ancient methods may be studied in several facsimile atlases, such as A. E. Nordenskiöld’s (Stockholm, 1889).