ABSTRACT
France shared in the intellectual ferment of the late eighteenth century and Paris was an outstanding centre in which many great scholars assembled, with whom Humboldt freely associated for some twenty years after his return from Central America. Several trends may be briefty noted. Remarkable advances in cartography were made in the eighteenth century, especially in the mapping of the world and in geodetic measurement, and the geodetic survey of France was completed in the 1890's on ascale of 1 : 80,000, so that base maps were available for geographer's research in thc ensuing decades. A cartographer to the King, Philippe Buaehe postulated in the mid-eighteenth century that the earth could be systematically divided into a hierarchy of units on the basis of drainage areas and their surrounding watersheds~a speculation based on the slenderest geographieal knowledge, for the greater part of the continentalland masses were both unexplored and unmapped. This suggestion of 'natural' units, distinet from the imposed and ehangeable political units initiated discussions among French and German seholars over the next hundred years, that today, with ace urate knowledge and maps of the whole surface of the earth, remains a basic responsibility of tbe geographer. Comprehensive taxonomie classifications (e.g. of plants, animals and men) and philosophieal speeulations of human behaviour and history also appeared in the eighteenth century, and none was more significant than Count Buffon's enormous survey of 'natural history' (pp. 11-14).
