Pour le cinquantenaire de la mort de Franz Schrader (1844-1924)

摘要

Franz Schrader was one of the most unconventional French geographers at the end of the nineteen century. He was a truly self-educated man. While still very young, he devoted himself to mapping the central Pyrenees and invented the orographe. Then he found himself in charge of the geographical department at the Hachette Publishing House and from 1884 to 1911 he issued an enormous Atlas Universel de Géographie as well as numerous more specialized publications. As the chairman of the French Alpine Club he created a committee of topography (Commission de Topographie) with the intention of improving on the available maps of the Alps and the Pyrenees. An enthusiastic mountainlover, a keen popularizer of geography, a talented painter and writer, Schrader has escaped succint classifications. However, he has remained apart from the geography of the Universities and the methodological renewal initiated by his contemporary Vidal de la Blache.