Author: Richthofen, [P. W.] F. Freiherr Von
Title: Führer für Forschungsreisende. Anleitung zu Beobachtungen über Gegenstände der physischen Geographie und Geologie.
Description: Berlin, Robert Oppenheim, 1886. 8vo. xii, 745 pp., 111 text engravings. Later blind half cloth over marbled boards. = An important geomorphological explorer's guide. See DSB vol.9 p.440: "Richthofen's geomorphological studies formed part of his geology and the fundamental basis of his geography. In 1875 he contributed a paper on geology to G. von Neumayer's Anleitung zu wissenschaftlichen Beobachtungen auf Reisen. In 1886 he published a greatly enlarged version of this paper under the somewhat too comprehensive title Führer für Forschungsreisende. The first part of this guide deals with the techniques of field location and observation. The second part discusses at lenght the interrelationships of geology and surface forms, with considerable detail given to the physical processes involved. The final part contains accounts of soils, rocks, and mountain structures and classifies the main kinds of landforms (Bodenplastik) according to the process or dominant process in their formation. The genetic aspect predominates, and external forms are used as subclassificatory indices only where unavoidable. The text is illustrated by more than 100 small lineblocks and in its classification of material and approach was the first truly successful compilation of genetic geomorphology. It immediately became the standard work in Germany for the systematic treatment of landforms and strongly influenced Albrecht Penck's Morphologie der Erdoberfläche. A cheap copy, with the leaves rather age-toned, several library stamps and some annotations, but complete.

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