William Morris Davis

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William Morris Davis

William Morris Davis (born February 12, 1850 in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , † February 5, 1934 in Pasadena , California ) was an American scientist. During his academic career he made significant contributions in the fields of geography , geology and meteorology .

Life

He was born into a Quaker family in Philadelphia to Edward M. Davis and Maria Mott Davis (daughter of women's advocate Lucretia Mott ). He graduated from Harvard University in 1869 and then worked for three years at the Meteorological Service in Cordoba , Argentina and then as assistant to Nathaniel Shaler . Between 1884 and 1893 he published about forty papers on meteorology and climatology. He wrote a meteorological textbook that was widely recognized.

In 1879 he became a lecturer in geology at Harvard, although he never received his Ph.D. made. That year he married Ellen B. Warner of Springfield , Massachusetts .

Davis' most influential scientific work was The Erosion Cycle , first published around 1884, depicting how rivers shape the landscape. Although his work is now considered overly simplified, it was an early contribution to modeling in geomorphology . The statement that rivers essentially consist of the upper, middle and lower reaches is still valid today.

Davis founded the Association of American Geographers in 1904 and was affiliated with the National Geographic Society in its early years, during which he wrote a number of articles for the magazine. In the winter semester of 1908/1909 he was an exchange professor at the Friedrich Wilhelms University in Berlin. Davis retired from Harvard in 1910. In 1911 he was President of the Geological Society of America .

After Ellen's death, Davis remarried, first to Mary M. Wyman of Cambridge, Massachusetts (1914) and, after her death, Lucy L. Tennant of Milton, Massachusetts (1928), who survived him when he died in Pasadena, California.

Awards and honors

Davis was a member of the Académie des sciences (since 1913), the Accademia dei Lincei , since 1884 the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , the American Philosophical Society , the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences , the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, the New Zealand Institute , the Norwegian Academy of Sciences, and the Prussian Academy of Sciences . He received u. a. The American Geographical Society's Cullum Geographical Medal in 1908 , the Royal Geographical Society 's Patron's Medal in 1919 , the Swedish Society of Anthropology and Geography's Vega Medal in 1920, and the Geological Society of America's Penrose Medal in 1931 . Davis was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of the Cape of Good Hope , the Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald , the University of Oslo and the University of Melbourne .

Publications

  • Geographical Essays (Boston: Ginn , 1909)
  • The Explanatory Description of Landforms, Leipzig / Berlin 1912

items

literature

Richard J. Chorley, Robert P. Beckinsale, Antony J. Dunn : The Life and Work of William Morris Davis . In: The History of the Study of Landforms . Volume 2 . Routledge , London 1973, ISBN 978-0-416-26890-4 (English, new edition of November 12, 2009 under ISBN 978-0415567954 ).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reginald A. Daly, p. 268.
  2. ↑ WM Davis: The explanatory description of the land forms, Leipzig / Berlin 1912, dedication
  3. ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1850–1899 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 24, 2015
  4. ^ Reginald A. Daly: Biographical Memoir of William Morris Davis 1850-1934 . In: Biographical memoirs / National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . tape 23 , 1945, p. 263-303 ( PDF file ).
personal data
SURNAME Davis, William Morris
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American scientist
DATE OF BIRTH February 12, 1850
PLACE OF BIRTH Philadelphia , Pennsylvania
DATE OF DEATH February 5, 1934
Place of death Pasadena , California