Wild stories had circulated since soon after the Louisiana Purchase about Rocky Mountains peaks 18,000 feet or higher.

[4] From his own field observations and studies made by the original nineteenth-century surveyors of the western United States, he devised his most influential scientific contribution:the "geographical cycle".

[5] Each stage has distinct landforms and other properties associated with them, which can occur along the length of a river's upper, middle, and lower course.

[6] Since that time, with a less dogmatic approach and greater knowledge, some authors note that Penck's and Davis' ideas have become more compatible and even complementary since the advent of modern tectonic theory.

"[14] This textbook chapter exemplifies how Davis promulgated theories of scientific racism, and was likely influenced by mentor and colleague Nathaniel Shaler, who published similar views on the subject.

Davis borrowed from Darwinian biological concepts and applied these to physical landscapes and climates in a type of Social Darwinistic thought termed "environmental determinism".

His work influenced geographer and writer Elsworth Huntington, a student of Davis at Harvard, who attempted to explain differences in human culture by climate and geography, for example comparing communities of British descent in Canada and the Bahamas and suggesting that Anglo Bahamians are slower because of climate and proximity to black people.