"VIDAL DE LA BLACHE (1845-1918), French geographer, was born at Pezenas, Herault, Jan. 22 1845. He was educated at the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and entered upon the study of geography by way of that of history. The relations between geographical causes and historical effects were with him the subject of a life-study, the results of which are seen in one of his best-known works, the Tableau General de la Geographic de France prefixed to Lavisse's Histoire de France (1903) and later republished separately; but he always refrained from pressing the theory of geographical " control " to an extreme. He joined the French school at Athens in 1867, and was thus enabled to travel extensively in Mediterranean lands. From 1872 to 1877 he was in charge, latterly as professor, of the department of history and geography at Nancy; from 1877 to 1898 he taught geography in the higher grades at the Ecole Normale Superieure, and from 1898 to 1909 he held the chair of geography in the Faculte des Lettres at Paris. He lectured widely, and among his publications is the monumental Atlas General: Histoire et Geographic, first published in 1894; he founded in 1891 and edited until his death the periodical Annales de Geographic, and contributed constantly to its pages. He died at Tamaris-sur-mer (Var) on April 5 1918.