the definition and organization of its material must evolve gradually,
after long years and many efforts of many workers in the field. The
eternal flux of Nature runs through anthropo-geography, and warns
against precipitate or rigid conclusions. But its laws are none the less
well founded because they do not lend themselves to mathematical
finality of statement. For this reason the writer speaks of geographic
factors and influences, shuns the word geographic determinant, and
speaks with extreme caution of geographic control.

The present volume is offered to the public with a deep sense of its
inadequacy; with the realization that some of its principles may have to
be modified or their emphasis altered after wider research; but also
with the hope that this effort may make the way easier for the scholar
who shall some day write the ideal treatise on anthropo-geography.

In my work on this book I have only one person to thank, the great
master who was my teacher and friend during his life, and after his
death my inspiration.

ELLEN CHURCHILL SEMPLE.
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY,
_January_, 1911.




CONTENTS


PREFACE