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词条 William Morris Davis
释义

  1. Scientific career

     Meteorology  Cycle of erosion theory   Contributions to Physical Geography  

  2. Legacy

  3. Works

  4. References

  5. External links

{{for|the Pennsylvania Congressman|William Morris Davis (congressman)}}{{Infobox scientist
|name = William Morris Davis
|image = William_Morris_Davis.jpg
|nationality = United States
|fields = Geography, Geomorphology, Geology, Meteorology[1]
|known_for = cycle of erosion; peneplains; often called the "father of American geography"
|awards = Hayden Memorial Geological Award {{small|(1917)}}
Vega Medal (1920)
Penrose Medal (1931)
|birth_date = {{Birth date|1850|2|12}}
|birth_place = Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
|death_date = {{Death date and age|1934|2|5|1850|2|12}}
|death_place = Pasadena, California
|relatives = Edward M. Davis (father)
Maria Mott Davis (mother)
| influenced = Charles Cotton[2]
Jovan Cvijić[3]
Douglas Wilson Johnson[4]
Walther Penck[5]
Hans Reusch[6]
Walter Wråk[7]
}}

William Morris Davis (February 12, 1850 – February 5, 1934) was an American geographer, geologist, geomorphologist, and meteorologist, often called the "father of American geography".

He was born into a prominent Quaker family in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, son of Edward M. Davis and Maria Mott Davis (a daughter of the women's advocate Lucretia Mott). Davis studied geology and geography at Harvard's Lawrence Scientific School and then joined the Harvard sponsored geographic exploration party to the Colorado territory, led by the inaugural Sturgis-Hooper professor of geology, Josiah Dwight Whitney. Wild stories had circulated since soon after the Louisiana Purchase about Rocky Mountains peaks 18,000 feet or higher. The Harvard expedition set out to investigate, and found none, but they did find "14ers" (14,000-plus feet). He graduated from Harvard University in 1869 and received a Master of Mining Engineering in the following year.[8] Davis worked for Nathaniel Shaler as a field assistant, and was later hired to teach at Harvard.[8] Though his legacy lives on in geomorphology, he also advanced theories of scientific racism in his writings about physical geography.

After his first wife died, Davis married Mary M. Wyman from Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1914, and, after her death, he married Lucy L. Tennant from Milton, Massachusetts

in 1928, who survived him.

He died in Pasadena, California, shortly before his 84th birthday. His Cambridge home is a National Historic Landmark.

Scientific career

Meteorology

Davis initially worked in Córdoba, Argentina as a meteorologist for three years and after working as an assistant to Nathaniel Shaler, he became an instructor in geology at Harvard, in 1879. The same year he married Ellen B. Warner from Springfield, Massachusetts. While Davis never completed his PhD, he was appointed to his first full professorship in 1890 and remained in academia and teaching throughout his life.

Cycle of erosion theory

Davis was a tenacious, as well as keen observer of nature, a master of logical deduction, and a brilliant synthesizer of disparate observations and ideas.[9] From his own field observations and studies made by the original nineteenth-century surveyors of the western United States, he devised his most influential scientific contribution:the "geographical cycle". His theory first defined in his 1889 article, The Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania,[1] which was a model of how rivers erode uplifted land to base level, was inspired by the work of Erasmus and Charles Darwin and Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, and it had a strong evolutionary flavor. His cycle of erosion suggests that (larger) rivers have three main stages of development, generally divided into youthful, mature and old-age stages.[10] Each stage has distinct landforms and other properties associated with them, which can occur along the length of a river's upper, middle, and lower course.

Though the cycle of erosion was a crucial early contribution to the development of geomorphology, many of Davis' theories regarding landscape evolution, sometimes termed 'Davisian geomorphology', were heavily criticized by later geomorphologists. When Davis retired from Harvard in 1911, the study of landscape evolution was nearly monopolized by his theories. It was characteristic of Davis to react violently and disdainfully to criticism, particularly to the German criticism in the 1920s headed by Walther Penck; it was also his characteristic to choose to attack the most vulnerable points of that criticism.[11] Since that time, with a less dogmatic approach and greater knowledge, some authors note that Penck's and Davis' ideas have become more compatible and even complementary since the advent of modern tectonic theory. They claim that Davis' ideas are more applicable near active margins where tectonics are "cataclysmic", and Penck's ideas fit better in models of passive margins and continental platforms.[12]

Contributions to Physical Geography

He was a founder of the Association of American Geographers in 1904, and heavily involved with the National Geographic Society in its early years, writing a number of articles for the magazine. Davis retired from Harvard in 1911. He served as president of the Geological Society of America in 1911[13][14]. He was awarded the Patron's Gold Medal of the Royal Geographical Society in 1919.[15]

His textbook, Elemental Physical Geography, includes a chapter entitled "Geographical Aid in Human Progress", in which Davis details how the physical geography of landscapes influences "the progress of man from the savage toward the civilized state". Davis concludes that "the leading nations of [the European] race are the most advanced peoples in the world" and "few nations among [black, brown, and red] races have made important advances towards civilization."[16] This textbook chapter exemplifies how Davis promulgated theories of scientific racism, and was likely influenced by mentor and colleague Nathaniel Shaler, who published similar views on the subject.

Legacy

The valley of Davisdalen in Nathorst Land at Spitsbergen, Svalbard is named after him.[17]

Works

Books:

  • Geographical Essays (Boston: Ginn, 1909).
  • Articles:
  • "Geographic methods in geologic investigations", National Geographic Magazine 1: pp. 11–26 (1888)
  • "The Rivers and Valleys of Pennsylvania", National Geographic Magazine 1: pp. 183–253 (1889)
  • "The geographical cycle", Geographical Journal, vol. 14, pp. 481–504 (1899). [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1774538 Accessible] from JSTOR
  • "The Physical Geography of the Lands", Popular Science Monthly 2: pp. 157–170 (1900)

References

1. ^{{cite web | url = http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/histphil/test/davis.html | title = William Morris Davis | accessdate = 2010-08-18 | last = Pruyne | first = John | author2 = Jon T. Kilpinen | date = 1996-11-02 | publisher = Valparaiso University Department of Geography and Meteorology | quote = Davis' contributions cover the separate fields of geography, geology, and meteorology. | deadurl = yes | archiveurl = https://web.archive.org/web/20100828220708/http://www.valpo.edu/geomet/histphil/test/davis.html | archivedate = 2010-08-28 | df = }}
2. ^{{cite book |last1=Chorley |first1=Richard J.|last2=Beckinsale |first2=Robert P.|last3=Dunn |first3=Antony J. |title=The History of the Study of Landforms |volume=Volume Two |url= |location= | origyear = 1973 | date=2005|publisher=Taylor & Francis e-Library |chapter= Chapter Twenty-Two|page=569 |isbn= }}
3. ^{{cite journal |last1=Ford |first1=Derek |date=2007 |title=Jovan Cvijić and the founding of karst geomorphology |url= |journal=Environmental Geology |volume=51 |issue= |pages=675–684 |doi=10.1007/s00254-006-0379-x }}
4. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/johnson-douglas-w.pdf|year=1946|title=Biographical Memoir of Douglas Wilson Johnson 1878–1944|author=Walter H. Bunch|publisher=National Academy Of Sciences|accessdate=2017-09-20}}
5. ^Chorley et al. 2005, p. 614
6. ^{{cite journal |last=Gjessing |first=Just|author-link=Just Gjessing|date=1967 |title=Norway's Paleic Surface |url= |journal=Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift |volume=21 |issue=2 |pages=69–132 |doi=10.1080/00291956708621854 |access-date= }}
7. ^{{cite journal |last=Lidmar-Bergströrm |first=Karna |author-link=Karna Lidmar-Bergström|date=1996 |title=Long term morphotectonic evolution in Sweden |journal=Geomorphology |publisher=Elsevier |volume=16 |issue= |pages=33–59 |doi= }}
8. ^{{cite web |last1=Koch |first1=Philip |title=William Morris Davis: Brief live of a pioneering geomorphologist: 1850-1934 |url=https://harvardmagazine.com/2018/09/william-morris-davis-cycle-of-erosion |website=Harvard Magazine |publisher=Harvard |accessdate=16 September 2018}}
9. ^{{cite web |last1=Koch |first1=Philip |title=William Morris Davis: Brief live of a pioneering geomorphologist: 1850-1934 |url=https://harvardmagazine.com/2018/09/william-morris-davis-cycle-of-erosion |website=Harvard Magazine |publisher=Harvard |accessdate=16 September 2018}}
10. ^Robert L Bates, Julia A Jackson, ed. Dictionary of Geological Terms: Third Edition, p. 125 (1984) American Geological Institute
11. ^Chorley et al. 2005, p. 519
12. ^{{Citation| last = Saadi| first = Allaoua| title = Modelos morfogenéticos e tectônica global: Reflexőes conciliatórias| journal = Geonomos| volume = 6| issue = 2| year = 2013| pages = 55–63| language = Portuguese| url = http://igc.ufmg.br/portaldeperiodicos/index.php/geonomos/article/viewFile/170/149}}
13. ^Fairchild, Herman LeRoy, 1932, The Geololgical Society of America 1888-1930, a Chapter in Earth Science History: New York, The Geological Society of America, 232 p.
14. ^Eckel, Edwin, 1982, GSA Memoir 155, The Geological Society of America — Life History of a Learned Society: Boulder, Colorado, Geological Society of America Memoir 155, 168 p., {{ISBN|0-8137-1155-X}}.
15. ^{{cite web|url=http://www.rgs.org/NR/rdonlyres/C5962519-882A-4C67-803D-0037308C756D/0/GoldMedallists18322011.pdf| title=List of Past Gold Medal Winners|publisher= Royal Geographical Society|accessdate = 24 August 2015}}
16. ^{{Cite book|url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001272700|title=Elementary physical geography|last=Davis|first=William Morris|date=1902|publisher=Ginn|location=Boston}}
17. ^{{cite web |url=http://placenames.npolar.no/stadnamn/Davisdalen |title=Davisdalen (Svalbard) |publisher=Norwegian Polar Institute |accessdate=24 February 2015}}

External links

{{Wikisource author}}
  • Stages in the fluvial cycle of erosion (illus.)
  • National Academy of Sciences Biographical Memoir
  • {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Morris Davis |sopt=t}}
  • {{Librivox author |id=2911}}
{{Presidents of the Geological Society of America}}{{Authority control}}{{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, William Morris}}

22 : 1850 births|1934 deaths|American geographers|American geologists|American meteorologists|American geomorphologists|American male writers|Harvard University alumni|People from Pasadena, California|Scientists from Philadelphia|Penrose Medal winners|Recipients of the Cullum Geographical Medal|Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences|Members of the American Philosophical Society|Members of the French Academy of Sciences|Members of the Lincean Academy|Members of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters|Members of the Prussian Academy of Sciences|Members of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters|Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences|Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences|Presidents of the American Association of Geographers

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