Abstract
From time to time scattered allusions to geographic, physiographic, and geologic influences in the Philippine Islands have appeared in the writings of Quatrefages, Gannett, Ratzel, Semple, and others, among whom the writer is included; but so far as the writer is aware no article has appeared which is devoted entirely to this most interesting field of research. The present paper is an attempt not adequately to supply the demand for this information, but simply to point out some of the most patent examples which it is hoped will serve to stimulate some one on the ground to follow up the subject with a comprehensive exposition. Perhaps too great a familiarity with the country—ten years spent in travel and study in the islands, working “mainly along economic lines—has caused to be overlooked here many important things which would occur to the trained geographer studying the problem for the first . . .