After the Great Age of Discovery, two leading German scholars i.e., Alexander Von Humboldt and Carl Ritter made valuable contribution in the field of geography.
Alexander Von Humboldt. Alexander Von Humboldt led the way in the expansion of geography in and outside of Germany. He traveled about 40,000 miles with modern equipment and made multitude observations. Traversing the Andes southward, the explorers reached Lima. On the coast of Peru-guana bird droppings were observed which have great manurial value. Moreover, the cold water current of Peru was also observed and recorded for the first time. The temperature and velocity of this current were measured. In March 1803, the expedition sailed from Guayaquil to the Mexico Port, namely, Acapulco. He traveled in the different parts of Mexico and observed the impact of landforms on the cultural landscape. Staying for a short period at Philadelphia and Washington the expedition returned to France in 1804.
The adventurous nature of Humboldt did not permit him to stay at one pipe and therefore in 1806 he made a visit to Vesuvius volcano (Italy). After the completion he wrote his experiences and observation in thirty volumes in French language, which was subsequently translated in a number of foreign languages. This encouraged many young scientists to investigate the geography of unexplored areas of the world. In his writings Humboldt explained the cause of prosperity of the inhabitants of Mexico to their better utilization of land resources. The idea of digging a canal across the Isthmus was also put forward by him.
In 1829, Humboldt was invited by the Russian Czar at the city of Petersburg (Leningrad) and he was entrusted to explore the virgin lands of Siberia across the Ural Mountains. Throughout the Siberian expedition a regular record of temperature, and pressure was kept. On the basis of these observations a result was inferred that temperature on the same latitude varies moving inward from the coast. It was on his advice that a number of meteorological stations were established by Czar in different parts of Russia. It was after this expedition that a world map showing isotherm was prepared for the first time. The concept of continentality was also established by Humboldt. Moreover, the term of permafrost was coined to explain the frozen characteristics of the Siberian soils. It was after this venture that 'climatology' word appeared in the geographical literature, which deals with all variations of atmosphere, temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, winds, atmospheric purity and the degree of visibility.
In 1845, the monumental work Kosmos of Humboldt was published, which was acknowledged the entire world over and was translated in a number of foreign languages. Kosmos a comprehensive account of the travels and expeditions of Humboldt was written with the following fourfold objectives:
(i) the first is the definition and limitation of physical description of the world as a special and separate branch of knowledge;
(ii) the second is the objective content, which is the actual and empirical aspect of nature's entity in the scientific form of a portrait of nature;
(iii) the action of nature on the imaginative and emotion becomes an incentive to nature studies through media of travel description, poetry, landscape, painting and the display of contrasting group of exotic plants;
(iv) lastly the history of natural philosophy and the gradual concept pertaining to cosmos as an organic unit are dealt with.
While dealing with the subject matter of geography, Humboldt coined a term 'cosmography' and divided it into Uranography and geography. In his opinion Urnography is the descriptive astronomy, which deals with the celestial bodies. Geography on the other hand was confined to physical geography, which deals with the terrestrial part. geography, according to him is the description of the earth, which deals with the interrelationship of phenomena that exist together in an area.
Humboldt believed in the inductive method and emphasized the importance of empirical method of research. He also made comparative study of the different geographical regions especially that of the steppes and the deserts. He gave importance to the geographical representation of data on maps and the utility of maps for geographical studies. He believed in the unity of nature and accepted the idea of inherent casualty (casual connection).Humboldt believed that all the races of man had a common origin and that no race is superior or inferior to others. Moreover, he stressed the need of casual observations of nature in the field and for the careful measurement of observations. It was an approach towards theory building and model making. In brief Humboldt sought answers to a great variety of specific questions. For example, he attempted to develop a general picture of the distribution of average temperatures in the world in relation to the distribution of continents and oceans. The influence of altitude in the tropical-areas of plants, animals and human life was also attempted by him. Humboldt concentrated largely though not exclusively on physical features, climate and vegetation. It was because of these contributions that he is considered as the founder of plant-geography, and climatology as well as the founder of the modern geography.
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