REPORT OF COMMISSION VII 
GVII-81 
landscape are in varying ways combined with 
environmental associations to form types of 
cultural landscape. Physiographers have 
long used the “typical formation” device in 
classifying land forms (although the term 
“type” has seldom been used) in order to 
simplify descriptions. A land form might 
be called a “coastal plain” ora “syncline” 
or a “block fault mountain,” which estab 
lished its type, making unnecessary the 
complete description of each and every 
land form in an area. Bowman broadened 
this usage to include all the elements of the 
landscape. An important feature of Bow 
man’s principle is its restriction to a given 
region, because elements which are related 
to each other in one region may be related 
to each other in different ways in another 
region. For example, ocean winds may pro 
duce rains and productive agriculture on 
one side of a mountain range, and leave a 
desert on the other. 
The third principle is the principle of 
dominant control. In each locality one geo 
graphic element, or combination of elements, 
is dominant and exercises control over man's 
use of the land. Bowman felt that the topo 
graphic type, with contributing influences 
from water supply and local climate, was 
usually the dominant element in the primi 
tive and undeveloped areas he examined. 
In the following comment (2) he uses the 
term “soil” in its broadest sense meaning 
“land”: 
“Men are rooted to the soil upon which they 
were born to a much greater degree than is 
generally believed. Not all can live in the most 
attractive places; a large part of the human 
race must struggle with its environment and 
bear the marks of the struggle; an appreciable 
part regards its home land, though a desert, as 
the part most favored by providence, and 
succumbs, if need be, rather than migrate to 
an unfamiliar land.” 
In accepting the dominant influence of 
one factor, however, Bowman never lost 
sight of the environment as a whole. There 
is not doubt that in other localities where 
control shifts from topographic to eco 
nomic or political factors his classifications 
would reflect these influences also. 
In the period following World War I 
Bowman was one of the leading geog 
raphers in the western hemisphere. His 
influence was widely felt, and his philos 
ophy can be seen in the design of many 
of the long series of land inventory and 
classification surveys conducted during 
the period between the two great wars. 
One of the first was the Michigan Eco 
nomic Land Survey which was started in 
1922, when the economic liability of 
millions of acres of cutover timberlands be 
came a tax delinquency problem of major 
proportions. Sauer, one of the men in 
volved in the survey, an early student of 
landscape types, was motivated by much 
the same view of geography as was Bow 
man. Early in the planning stage the 
Michigan survey seemed destined to be 
come little more than a soil survey. Sauer 
(12) appealed for a broader geographic 
viewpoint, and he, with other geographers 
from the University of Michigan, were 
influential in developing a study of all the 
geographic influences affecting man’s use 
of the land. The survey of soil, vegetation, 
farm use, etc., which followed resulted in 
a combination of associated features which 
was called the “natural land type,” in 
which conditions were fairly constant. 
Veatch (13) describes the results of this 
survey and the eleven land types which 
were found. They were given composite 
names such as the Lake Bed Clay Plains 
Type, the Rolling Clay Plains Type, the 
Sandy Hill Land Type, etc. These were 
used as the base for classifying land-use 
and economic influences which affected 
the inhabitants of the land type. 
During the years since the monumental 
Michigan project, it has become the proto 
type for resource management planning 
throughout the United States, notable 
among which were the various Tennessee 
Valley Authority, Resettlement Adminis 
tration and Soil Conservation Service sur 
veys. A modification of the method was 
used by Stamp (14) in the British Isles, and 
it became the basis for national land-use 
planning. Although Stamp recognized the 
physiographic provinces of Britain he 
ignored them and turned instead to ten 
selected “land types.” 
Perhaps as a reaction to the human 
geographers Atwood focused attention once 
again on physiography in 1940, but he took 
a more broadly geographic view than his 
predecessors, who largely ignored man and 
his works, by attempting to draw much 
closer correlations between human activ 
ity and geology than physiographers had 
previously done (1). 
In trying to bridge the gap between 
physiography and humanity Atwood re 
frained from following Fenneman’s over