Abstract
A DEVELOPMENT in geographical research and teaching is the subject of an article in the Geographical Journal of November-December by Prof. F. Debenham, in which he describes the laboratory for physical geography which he has planned and equipped at Cambridge, even though the exigencies of the times have necessitated its temporary dismantlement. The object of the laboratory is to study field processes, usually in miniature, under conditions of close observation and control with the view of ascertaining their mechanism, stages and effect. An amazing array of apparatus has been crowded into one room barely 50 ft. long by 19 ft. broad. In the wave trough, waves are generated by various methods and ingenious devices allow the measurement of period, height, length, etc. Here also beach building with sand and shingle can be studied. The wave tank, on a smaller scale, provides, among other aims, for the study of land forms produced by long-shore drift. An even more ambitious piece of apparatus is the tidal tank in which the difficulties of producing tidal currents seem to have been overcome, and good results are expected. The stream flume or delta tank seems to work well in the study of alluvial deposition, and the stream curve apparatus is to be used for the investigation of water movement in the bed of a stream. Other problems, too, are to be studied, and the whole laboratory is a promising step in the introduction of quantitative methods in the problems of physical geography.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
A Laboratory in Physical Geography. Nature 151, 248 (1943). https://doi.org/10.1038/151248a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/151248a0