Physical Geography

A synthesis of the natural sciences from 1848, presenting an overview of current understanding of the natural world.

Mary Somerville (Author)

9781108005210, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

296 pages
21.6 x 1.7 x 14 cm, 0.38 kg

Mary Somerville (1780–1872) would have been a remarkable woman in any age, but as an acknowledged leading mathematician and astronomer at a time when the education of most women was extremely restricted, her achievement was extraordinary. Laplace famously told her that 'There have been only three women who have understood me. These are yourself, Mrs Somerville, Caroline Herschel and a Mrs Greig of whom I know nothing.' Mary Somerville was in fact Mrs Greig. After (as she herself said) translating Laplace's work 'from algebra into common language', she wrote On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences (1834), also reissued in this series. Her next book, the two-volume Physical Geography (1848), was a synthesis of geography, geology, botany, astronomy and zoology, drawing on the most recent discoveries in all these fields to present an overview of current understanding of the natural world and the Earth's place in the universe.

18. River systems of North America
19. Lakes
20. The atmosphere
21. Vegetation
22. Vegetation of the Great Continent
23. Flora of Tropical Asia
24. African flora
25. American vegetation
26. Distribution of insects
27. Distribution of fishes and of the marine mammalia, phocae, dolphins and whales
28. Distribution of reptiles
29. Distribution of birds in the Arctic Regions
30. Distribution of mammalia throughout the Earth
31. The distribution, condition and future prospects of the human race.

Subject Areas: Evolution [PSAJ]