162
National Geographic Magazine.
physiographic conditions which govern this distribution, and to formulate the laws which are operative in bringing about the results we see. In other words, we are to study cause and effect in the relations of physiography to biology.
The kind of works meriting discussion in the annual report of the Vice-president of this section are such philosophic treatises as those of Humboldt, Dana, Agassiz, DeCandolle, Engler, Darwin, Huxley, Pelzeln, Sclater, Wallace, Baird, Verrill, Allen, Cope, and Gill. As it is seldom that more than one or two such works appear in any single year, there is likely to be ample opportunity for profitable discussion.
January, 1889.
