Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
their relationships in space. Mapmakers sought to depict this
quality, driven by the rigours of their scientifi c method, but the
users and perhaps commissioners of maps were alive to their
power to shape the Earth's surface.
Another moment in time that reveals the essence of geography
is provided by the Mormons' 1,300-mile pioneer trail across
the United States led by Brigham Young in 1847. After months
of hardship, the lead group came through a gap in the Wasatch
Mountains and looked down upon Great Salt Lake. A monument
marks the point where Brigham Young reached this view, looked
down, and said, 'This is the place'. It became the place for the site
of Salt Lake City, the title of Utah's state song, and the founding of
the Mormon cultural region; a place endowed with meaning and
symbolism. The signifi cance of such a place, which varies through
time depending on the people who see, interpret, and use it, is as
much a part of geography as the factual descriptions of the Earth's
surface that cartographers seek to portray.
A further important dimension of the essence of geography was
highlighted by the geographer George Perkins Marsh:
There are parts of Asia Minor, of North Africa, of Greece, and even
of Alpine Europe, where the operation of causes set in action by
man has brought the face of the Earth to a desolation almost as
complete as that of the Moon. … The Earth is fast becoming an unfi t
home for its noblest inhabitant.
George Perkins Marsh,
Man and Nature
(1864)
His quotation points to an abiding concern of geography with
the natural environments of the Earth's surface and with the
modifi cations brought about by human actions. Both positive
and negative human impacts have always been a feature of the
exploitation of resources, particularly through the use of fi re
and other types of technology. It is important to realize that the
negative impacts are not merely the inadvertent ones associated
