Review of the digitized book Fundamentals of mathematical and physical geography by Pavle Vujevic


Nadežda Pejović, Žarko Mijajlović


The book Fundamentals of Mathematical and Physical Geography is one of the first university textbooks on geography written in Serbian. The author of the book is Pavle Vujevic (1881-1966), a notorious Serbian climatologist, Professor at the Belgrade University and member of the Serbian Academy of Science and Arts. The book consists of two volumes and it was printed several years after the First World War. For many generations of students of geography this textbook was an entering point into mathematical and physical geography and astronomy. This book is rather comprehensive; it consists of 815 pages and four sections. The first volume is made up of two sections, Mathematical Geography and Physical Geography, while the second volume covers The atmosphere and Oceans. The first book is in fact an introduction into astronomy. It covers in details all basic notions and facts of this science known at the time when the book was written. In the second volume there are explanations of the chemical composition of the Earth's atmosphere, climate types and their secular changes, then composition and physical characteristics of World oceans, the ebb-tide phenomena and the characteristics of the seabed. The book is digitized and it is included into the NCD Virtual library (http://elib.matf.bg.ac.yu:8080/virlib/). We present the contents of the book, also some interesting facts related to the book, including changes in terminology and definitions in this area since the book was published.