Abstract
BY the death of Pierre Emile Levasseur both geography and economic science in France have sustained a severe loss. Born on December 8, 1828, Prof. Levasseur devoted his energies during a long life to demonstrating the importance of a right appreciation of geography in its application to man and of economic science. As early as 1863 he published a “Précis d'Histoire de France” and a “Précis de Géographie,” and throughout many years of active work in economic geography he always aimed at the highest precision in his studies with the view of building up a truly scientific type of geography and insisting upon the educational value of the subject when so treated. He especially directed his efforts towards a thorough understanding of the economic geography of France, but he also travelled widely in order to study economic conditions occurring in other lands; a journey to the United States in 1853 resulted in an important work, “L'Ouvrier Américain,” and the same line of investigation, followed up both historically and economically, produced important studies on the working classes in'France up to the time of the Revolution, and a later work dealt with their condition under the Third Empire. Working in such fields, his attention was early directed to statistics, and in his important work “La Population Frangaise” he not only treats of the geographical aspects of the question, but deals with it statistically and points out the importance of the proper use of statistics in all questions of applied geography. In all that relates to human geography, the definiteness which we meet in physical geography is only attained with difficulty, and by the careful and prudent use of the best statistical material available. In this direction Levasseur's work furnishes many examples of the highest value as giving a truly scientific form to investigations which, from the numerous factors involved, are too often treated superficially.
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L., H. Pierre emile Levasseur . Nature 87, 351–352 (1911). https://doi.org/10.1038/087351b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/087351b0