Mountain Geography - A Critique and Field Study

Klappentext This antiquarian book contains a comprehensive critique and field study of mountain geography. Complete with a wealth of tables! diagrams! photographs! and interesting information! this is a text that will greatly appeal to anyone with an interest in the subject of geography! or mountains more specifically. The chapters of this book include: 'Mountain Temperatures'; 'Humidity and Precipitation'; 'Winds! Clouds! and Sun'; 'Vegetation Zones and The Height Limits of Fields'; 'Forests and Their Significance'; 'Alpine Pastures and Alpine Economy'; 'Land Utilization and Economics'; etcetera. Many antiquarian books such as this are becoming increasingly hard-to-come-by and expensive! and it is with this in mind that we are republishing this book in an affordable! modern edition - complete with a specially commissioned new biography of the author.

Klappentext
MOUNTAIN GEOGRAPHY A Critique and Field Study BY RODERICK PEATTIE PROFESSOR OF GEOGRAPHY, OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY Cambridge, Massachusetts HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS COPYRIGHT, 1936 BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE PRINTED AT THE HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A. To MARGARET RHODES PEATTIE WHO SHARED WITH ME THE SACRIFICES NECESSARY TO CARRY ON THE STUDY AS WELL AS THE PLEASURES OF VOYAGING AND RESEARCH PREFACE A MAN may live a lifetime in a group of mountains and not complete the study of that single group. So much is there to know in geology, morphology, climate, plant ecology, and human responses and economies, that for one volume to treat of the geography of the mountains of the world may seem presump tuous. Also the writers experience is, alas, more limited than he could wish. In America he has had experience or definite field work in the Laurentide and Notre Dame Mountains of Canada, and the Green and Taconic Mountains, the Blue Ridge, Ozarks, Rockies, and Sierra Nevadas of the United States. Most of his serious field study has been in Europe. There he has visited or studied the Sierra Nevada, the Sierra de Guadarrama, the Pyr enees, the French Alps in Provence, Dauphine, and Savoy, and the Jura in Switzerland the Valais, the Bernese Oberland, the St. Gotthard massif, Grisons, and Engadine in Austria the Tirol, particularly the Stubaier Alps, the Salzburgkammer, the Tauren Alps, and the Karawankens of Carinthia the Dalmatian Alps of Yugoslavia the Trentino Sud Tirol, the Apennines, and the Sicilian upland in Italy the Bavarian Alps and the Black Forest. Many lesser ranges, as the Scottish Highlands, the Julian Alps, and the Albanian Mountains, he hasseen sufficiently to judge their character. This book is a personal field study and also a review of the present knowledge of mountains. The European studies in the field are many. Not only are mountains interesting to geogra phers because of the varied factors which present themselves within small areas, but love of mountains has called many scien tists to highlands for vacation sojourns. With a few exceptions the European studies have a regional point of view. There is to date little in the way of a general critical summary. 1 The present is an attempt at this. The volume is, however, meant less for the use of Europeans than for that of Americans who have had little contact with the well populated mountains and who lack con venient access to much of the mountain literature. The writer has spent time in the libraries of the Sorbonne, 1 The recent study by Jules Blache, Uhomme et la montagne, is a notable exception. viii PREFACE Heidelberg, and Munich. The University of Grenoble, where Raoul Blanchard maintains the Institut de Geographic Alpine, offered great assistance. A second institute of this type has re cently been founded at the University of Innsbruck. The writer has had the advantage of reading and conferences at both these institutions. He has also visited the special library on mountain geography, the Bibliotheque Raymond at Bagneres-de-Bigorre. The library of the Geographical Society at Madrid gave access to the material on Spain. He had the advantage of conferences with courteous scientists at Montpellier, Zurich, and Florence. The assistance which was freely given to a stranger at each of these places has made possible this study and has demonstrated the universalbrotherhood of men interested in science. The writer would hesitate to weigh the mountain studies of others if he had not pursued at one time or another many of the type problems which have been investigated. He began his physio graphic studies in mountains as a student with W. W. Atwood in the San Juan Range in 1911. His first climatic study of mountains was made under the late Robert DeCourcy Ward at Harvard University in 1916. In 1927-28 and 1931-32 he made a number of personal field studies in Sicily, Spain, France, Switzerland, and Austria...