Beitrag
William Morris Davis — an Appraisal
Judson, Sheldon
Zeitschrift für Geomorphologie Volume 4 Issue 3-4 (1960), p. 193 - 201
41 Literaturangaben
veröffentlicht: Oct 7, 1960
ArtNo. ESP022000403001, Preis: 29.00 €
Abstract
1. William Morris Davis was dependent upon previous workers for much of the framework of the geographic cycle which he so effectively developed and elucidated. This debt to others he fully acknowledged. 2. The cycle of erosion had an almost immediate acceptance not only because of its skillful presentation but also because the geologic profession was ready for such a synthesis. Uniformitarianism, a major element in the development of the cycle, was by then almost universally accepted by geologists. Furthermore the orderly development of landforms through successive stages represented a type of non-organic evolution. This was in harmony with the exciting new ideas in organic evolution then sweeping the scientific world. 3. In America the adherence to Davis’s cycle persisted to and through the Second World War. Thereafter the concept began to lose its universal appeal among geologists, or at least among geomorphologists. The geographers were never as closely wedded to the Davisian system as were the geologists. 4. Today most geomorphologists are convinced, as was Davis before them, that landforms do have an orderly development. Today’s geomorphologist is less convinced, however, that the stages of youth, maturity and old age as envisaged by Davis have any verity in nature. 5. Having largely abandoned the cyclic concept of landscape development, American geomorphologists are turning their attention to statistical descriptions of land forms and to a study of processes as physical and chemical systems. 6. We have yet to formulate a substitute for the Davisian cycle, although the concept of “dynamic equilibrium” has been revived recently and advanced as a possible alternative.
Schlagworte
William Morris Davis