The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to present a methodology that is systematic, yet flexible, for the descriptive assessment of landscapes, and second, to develop a minimal set of basic dimensions or scales that are invariant across observers and places described. The Landscape Adjective Check List (LACL), first developed by Kenneth Craik (1971), and modeled after the Gough Adjective Check List (1960) used for personality assessment, was administered to a group of 150 college students. Each was instructed to rate a series of natural scenes by marking off those adjectives they felt were descriptive of the particular scene they were viewing. The major results of a principal components factor analysis suggested that, within the range of scenes used, there are approximately twenty dimensions which people use in their descriptive assessments of natural scenery. The first factor, termed General Positive Evaluation, appeared consistently throughout the literature on both environmental and landscape perception and assessment. Other dimensions appearing both in the factor analysis and the literature included Ruggedness, Potency, Spaciousness, Barrenness, and Cultivation/Vegetation. A comparison was made between the factor analytic scales and a set of scales which had initially been hypothesized to be relevant to variations among landscapes. These dimensions consisted of two sets of scales which had been generated in different ways. First, a set of dimensions was proposed based upon a content analysis of the Landscape Adjective Check List. A second set of dimensions was developed based upon an analysis of the research literature. In general, the findings indicated a moderate to high degree of convergence between the factor analytic scales and the two sets of hypothesized scales. Before generalizing any further, however, it will be necessary to obtain comparable results from other persons (besides college students) and a wider range of scenery, as stimuli. / M.S.