Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 30, No. 2 (Apr., 1940), pp. 316-332Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/210151 .

Accessed: 09/05/2014 18:14

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

American Geographical Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toGeographical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 169.229.32.138 on Fri, 9 May 2014 18:14:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=ags

http://www.jstor.org/stable/210151?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

Soil Erosion in Karst Lands. The problem of "Soil Erosion in the Karst Lands of Kentucky"'is discussed by S. N. Dicken and H. B. Brown, Jr., of the Soil Con- servation Service (U. S. Dept. of Agric. Circular No. 490, 1938). The formerly forested but at present denuded karst lands bordering the Adriatic Sea are cited as examples of the fate the American karst lands may suffer unless agricultural practices are modified. " The most eroded parts of the Kentucky karst already approach the 'patch' cultivation" characteristic of the better parts of the Adriatic karst.

The karst landscape, however, presents peculiar obstacles to erosion control. The development of techniques cannot be guided by practices in regions of surface drainage. "In karst regions water flows only short distances over the ground, because the surface drainage lines are broken by numerous basins, sinks, and dolines through which water passes downward and enters the underground drainage system of the area. The drainage relief in the karst is measured not by the depth of dissec- tion of surface erosion as in nonkarst regions, but by the vertical distance from the uplands to these subterranean channels. The erosion potential in the karst is thus far greater than the gently rolling surface would indicate."

Cultivating fields on the contour on a land surface cut by numerous small depres- sions separated by rounded knolls necessitates frequent turning and short, crooked rows. Strip cropping faces the same obstacles. Construction of terraces is difficult.

No general conservation techniques for the karst are suggested. The landscape is too varied. "The problems of each field are different." Revegetation that involved the use of cover crops immediately following row crops was sufficient on one farm. On another farm a culvert pipe was placed vertically in a deep cistern sink with the upper end of the culvert above the sink floor to raise the level to the underground inlet. During heavy rains runoff accumulated until the pond around the inlet overflowed down the pipe. " Soil which ordinarily would have disappeared into the underground channels accumulated in the floors of the gullies [surrounding the inlet] and checked further headward erosion." Farsighted farmers have developed methods of erosion control that have been locally successful: the problem is to provide incentives for, and understanding of, soil conservation on farms where no concern about erosion is shown. HERMAN F. OTTE

Louisiana Stream Patterns. "Louisiana Stream Patterns," by R. J. Russell (Bull. Amer. Assn. of Petroleum Geologists, Vol. 23, 1939, PP. 1199--1227), offers a clarifying outline of the variations of stream pattern in Louisiana and basic reasons for their behavior. In a region where the hazards of recurring floods are a constant source of worry to the inhabitants, analysis of drainage history provides an important tool for intelligent understanding of stream behavior.

The dominant stream process in Louisiana is aggradation, and the fundamental patterns are meandering and braiding. The natural levees of central and southern Louisiana determine the occupance patterns of the flood plains; and, in spite of their relatively low altitude above the general lowland, they may even possess a climatic advantage. Along oxbows formed by recent cutoffs, levee land values will rise because of increased protection assured by geomorphic details of river history.

Meanders are more to be relied on than other features in interpreting flood-plain history. They are found to be more nearly perfectly developed in small tidal channels, where there is reversal of current. Stage difference between high and low waters is insufficient to develop good meanders in the lower Mississippi below English Turn (see F. B. Kniffen: Bayou Manchac: A Physiographic Interpreta-

3I6



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 3I7

tion, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 25, 1935, pp. 462-466). Crevasse channels leading down the slopes of natural levees are the most important type of braided stream. Rarely do they become free distributaries.

To students of river terraces, the use of dendritic-pattern development on terraces above the present flood plain of central Louisiana in differentiating the various levels is of interest, since it is commonly though not invariably true that the " branch- work" tributaries of a small stream are restricted to a single terrace.

Of special interest to the geographer is the suggested use of stream patterns in landscape classification: " Louisiana could be divided into significant physical divisions on the basis of this single criterion."

Anthropogeography of the Southwest: Some Recent Contributions. The Indian cultures of the Southwest continue to be a focus of popular and scientific interest. Most of the recent publications concerning them are essentially anthropological or archeological; but, to the extent that they are based on scientific investigations, they are important to geography also. In the recent literature one is impressed by the extent to which the Indian has always been and still is governed by ceremony and the mythical creations of his own culture. One is also impressed by the varieties of cultures or of economic adjustment that may have developed in the same region from time to time or that may exist contemporaneously.

The Southwest illustrates better than any other part of the United States the extent to which products of material techniques or domestic plants or animals are in interaction with geographical conditions. In the first place, there is great regional diversity, ranging climatically from subtropical and arid to microthermal and sub- humid and topographically from fertile lowland plain to high plateau or rugged mountains. Second, the region has seen the highest development of Indian cultures. Third, in this region the Indian cultures have been best able to withstand the shock of contact with aggressive civilization; and here, too, the Indians have persisted in greatest numbers relative to the entire population.

The present-day Pueblo Indians are mere remnants of the great Pueblo culture of the Southwest, which reached a numerical climax about II99 (according to H. H. Colton of the Northern Arizona Museum) and a cultural climax a century or two later. Since then the Pueblo peoples in Arizona have decreased to a few thousand.

The present-day phase of the Pueblos is portrayed by Ruth M. Underhill in popular style under the title " First Penthouse Dwellers of America " (J. J. Augustin, New York City, n. d.) and by Edgar L. Hewett in "Indians of the Rio Grande Valley" (by Adolph F. Bandelier and Edgar L. Hewett, Handbooks of Archaeological History, University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, I937; Part i, "The Rio Grande Pueblos Today," is by Dr. Hewett, Part 2 is Bandelier's "Documentary History of the Rio Grande Pueblos"). Dr. Hewett's treatment of the Rio Grande Pueblos follows closely that in his earlier book "Ancient Life in the American South- west" (1930). Both he and Miss Underhill enable the reader to picture the several remnants of the Pueblo culture, tenacious of their heritage but differentiated by geographical environment and according to the degree of isolation or helpless exposure to impinging cultures.

As to the reason for the development of this most complicated Indian civilization, "the answer is corn." Corn was the first plant of the western hemisphere to be artificially adapted to man's use as a dependable source of food, and the best possible cereal to serve man on a continent that had no draft animals. In a region with most of its area better suited to produce forage than anything else there was a complete absence of anything akin to pastoralism until the Spanish introduction of sheep. The people of the plateaus became farmers of corn and squash and developed a culture that has been termed a maize-squash complex.

The reluctance of the Pueblos to adopt new techniques is explained by the close tie-



3I8 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

up of the mores and ceremonial life with the material culture. The smallest change may lead to another that finally undermines an entire system. "When the maiden no longer grinds, the youth no longer plays to her on the flute. When the Corn Mother is not the chief food, there is an end of that intricate system by which trays of cornmeal are interchanged as gifts." The interlocking of all the parts that go to make the structure of their old civilization may be disrupted. Hence the Pueblos change slowly behind their wall of secrecy, but they have always changed, as every people does.

The Hopi, isolated in a desert that required days of thirsty travel to cross, developed a polite but passive resistance as their method of combating the white invaders. Unlike the Hopi villages, the villages of the Zufii, "the Seven Cities of Cibola," were the goal of the invading armies, and for a time their narrow valley was the high- way to the Rio Grande. For the Tewa, the Indians who occupied the valley of the one large river in New Mexico, to fight the Spaniards would have meant extinction and "to try evasion, like the Hopi, would have been laughable." Although the villages give the impression of having adopted the culture of their Spanish-American neighbors, actually the Tewa have kept to many of their ancient ways, fighting with the only weapon left to them, that of secrecy.

Along the eastern border the Pueblos had in addition to meet the onslaughts of the encroaching Apaches, Comanches, and other tribes. The Piro towns, along the south- western frontier, were destroyed one after another; but the Taos, below the north- western pass to the plains, too near to their enemies, did not fight all of them, as the other Pueblo peoples did, but made shaky alliances with some of them.

The Navahos, although later comers, have surrounded the Pueblos, leaving them as if stranded on islands. When first known, the Navahos were a small tribe of a culture strikingly different from that of the Pueblos. " Navaho Life of Yesterday and Today," by Katharine Luomala (U. S. Dept. of the Interior, National Park Service, Berkeley, Cal., 1938), gives a digest of source material on Navaho life, and "The Agricultural and Hunting Methods of the Navaho Indians," by W. W. Hill (Yale Univ. Publs. in Anthropology No. r8, I938), gives a more detached treatment restricted to their agricultural and hunting methods. The Navahos also made use of the domestic animals of the Spaniards, but to them it meant a greater transforma- tion: with the horse they became mobile raiders; with sheep and goats they became pastoral. " Instead of being engulfed by the new tide of European civilization sweep- ing over the Southwest in the early sixteenth century, the Navaho rode on the crest of the wave as if the world had been created for the Dene alone."

The first historical references to the Navahos mention their fine fields; but after the acquisition of domestic animals "farming appears to have become the stepchild of Navaho culture in historical times, " whereas with the Pueblos it continued to be the basis of their culture. In other words, the demands of their herds " have come to determine the course of Navaho daily and seasonal life, a life spent . . . between pastures, corrals, and hogans. "

Recent estimates of Navaho population put it at about 50,000. In 1931 their stock reached a peak of 1,370,554 head, including grown sheep, lambs, and goats. But while the people and their flocks have been increasing at a phenomenal rate the carrying power of the range has been decreasing correspondingly. Hence once again the Navahos find themselves at the crossroads. The Navaho lands are on the whole better suited to grazing than to any other use; hence, although the area of the reservation is about 25,000 square miles, it is overcrowded, and there is little hope that further areal additions will be made.

Suggestions for amelioration of the Navaho land problems have been given by the present writer (Navajo Land Problems, Econ. Geogr., Vol. 13, 1937, pp. 281-300).

These include rehabilitation of Navaho lands by checking erosion and improving the

range; reduction of Navaho flocks and improvement of breeds; better utilization of



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 319

agricultural resources and remunerative employment both on and off the reservation. Increased attention to farming seems to be the best palliative. As the Hopi, in the same type of semidesert environment, are finding it necessary to become stockmen as well as farmers, the Navahos need to become more of farmers. Hence the final adjustment of each tends to a similar economic adjustment to the area. Other phases of the culture of each must yield to the changing life: the Hopi are more and more leaving their unsanitary mesatop villages to live near their fields and grazing lands, and the Navahos are becoming more sedentary.

In "Singing for Power: The Song Magic of the Papago Indians of Southern Arizona" (Univ. of California Press, Berkeley, 1938) Miss Underhill describes the life of the Papago Indians of southern Arizona, with emphasis on "singing" as a means of solving life's problems. But it is not of love or of spring that the Papagos sing but of "the holiest of all things to the desert people, rain." To them, in a true desert environment, rain is life itself. With the Papagos, too, we find considerable tenacity for the core of the ancient life, which will remain until the old men who knew the old ways are gone, though they have put on the white man's clothing, build adobe houses, and draw water from government wells. However, the Papagos are less tenacious of their culture than the Pueblos, especially in view of the fact that they have been the most isolated large tribe in the United States. Their culture is far simpler, and they have not suffered the shocks incident to close contact with aggressive whites, as the Pueblos have. J. W. HOOVER

SOUTH AMERICA

Scientific Exploration of the Gran Sabana, Venezuela. The Venezuelan government has published, in the Revista de Fomento (No. I9, Vol. 3, 1939, pp. 50I-729), the highly interesting report of the Comision Exploradora de la Gran Sabana. This commission was sent to the southeastern plateau of Venezuela in March, 1939; its report became available in November, 1939. The report represents the results of scientific exploration of a high order looking toward a definite purpose. It answers adequately the question the Comision Exploradora had put to itself: Is the Gran Sabana a region economically and climatically so suited to white settlement that the financial outlay for road construction and other development work is justified? The report indicates in certain terms that the region is one of the most attractive still unoccupied by a civilized population.

The name, Gran Sabana, is regional in its application, referring to the entire southeastern corner of Venezuela. This is largely a sandstone upland characterized by abrupt mesas and intervening undulating grass-covered valleys with a certain amount of forest. To the north it is separated from the lowlands of the Orinoco basin by an abrupt scarp where the sandstones terminate. Water is abundant. Major streams are perennial, and the presence of heights of more than 2000 meters assures zones where condensation is regular and even the smallest streams flow throughout the year.

The vast, flat plains about the government post at Luepa (latitude 5? 42' 59" N., longitude 6I0 31' 13" W.) are 1300 meters above sea level and contain expanses of black soil suited to the cultivation of wheat; nightly temperatures as low as 6? to 8? C. are recorded regularly there during January, February, and March. The commission's agronomist, H. M. Christoffel, is of the opinion that most temperate-zone fruits and vegetables will thrive in the Luepa district.

About Santa Elena (latitude 40 36' 3" N., longitude 610 6' 52" W.) cattle do well and the soils are fertile, especially those under forest cover. The savana soils are, in the main, highly acid and sterile; some are not even capable of supporting a good growth of grass. Alluvial soils in the river valleys are generally of good quality. On the Rio Suruku'n a small group of miners working sporadically with the most primi-



320 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

tive methods have taken out nearly a half a million dollars' worth of gold and dia- monds in the past eight years.

The principal reason for the region's failure to be incorporated into the national economy lies in its remoteness from the Republic's centers of population and the extreme difficulty of access caused by the abrupt sandstone escarpment that separates the Gran Sabana from the rest of Venezuela. At present a footpath runs from El Dorado, on the Cuyuni, to Luepa. Some notion of the difficulty of using this path may be gained from the fact that at one point there is a difference of level amounting to 1200 meters in a distance of only 39 kilometers; and a ladder l0 meters high has to be used to surmount a vertical bluff. Nevertheless, it seems plain from the report of Engineer Hector Guardia that breaks occur in the face of the escarpment and will, ultimately, permit the penetration of a road suitable for motor transport.

Dr. Miguel Gonzalez Rodriguez contributes an important essay on the medical factors involved in any attempt to colonize and develop the Gran Sabana. Malaria is not endemic. In most villages he obtained a splenic rate of o; and where infec- tions were present, they always proved to be recent importations. Nevertheless, as Dr. Gonzalez Rodriguez points out, this ideal condition might not continue if care is not observed in the introduction of new population. Syphilis, amoebic dysen- tery, and tuberculosis do not occur among the aborigines of the Gran Sabana so far as the Comision Exploradora was able to determine. Bronchitis and pneumonia are common, however; and leismaniosis cutdnea occurs.

In conclusion Dr. Gonzalez remarks: "The zone of the Gran Sabana is perfectly colonizable from the sanitary point of view; it would be difficult to find in Venezuela a more healthful region. Nevertheless, it is warned that some of the colonizable areas could easily become infested with endemic diseases such as malaria. Especially do we recommend, for its climate and sanitary conditions, colonization at Santa Elena."

Dr. G. G. Simpson and Dr. H. Pittier contribute a list of plants, and Dr. Victor M. Lopez an essay on the petrography of the igneous rocks of the Gran Sabana. There is a collection of 59 photographs illustrating the various sections of the report; there are soil profiles, analyses, block diagrams, and a collection of geologic and topographic sketch maps greatly superior to anything yet published and much more extensive in scope. In fact, the preparation of the maps was one of the principal objectives of the Comision. No longer can the Gran Sabana be spoken of as unexplored or little known; by the work of the Comision Exploradora it becomes one of the best-known regions between the Orinoco and the Amazon.

DESMOND HOLDRIDGE

Studies in Brazilian Economic Life. The Centro de Estudos Economicos in Rio de Janeiro proposes to publish a series of monographs in English dealing with various aspects and problems of Brazilian economic life. The first of these monographs was published in 1939 (Josias Ledo: Mines and Minerals in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro, 1939). The work was done in the economic division of the Ministerio de Relag6es Exteriores, with the assistance of various other agencies of the federal government.

As an up-to-date source of reliable information this book fills an important need. Sr. Leao has done an admirable job of condensation, devoting space strictly in porpor- tion to the economic importance of each of Brazil's numerous mineral resources. The book is entirely free from the propaganda and the enthusiastic claims so frequently encountered in treatments of this subject. For each of the more important resources the author presents in brief text and statistical tables the facts concerning its character, the location of the important sources and of the present mining operations, the names of the mining companies, and the significant figures of trade during the five

years preceding 1938. In certain cases he also includes a translation of the codes




decreed by the present government for the regulation of mining activities or of the activities of companies exploiting the resource-such as the much discussed "Water Code," which regulates the hydroelectric developments. For the ores of less importance a brief statement of the character and present utilization is given. The geographer may regret the lack of maps (as opposed to cartograms), though the text includes the necessary data for the construction of maps.

Sr. Ledo has made no attempt to discuss the problems involved in the exploitation of Brazil's mineral resources. In a sense his book constitutes a valuable factual appendix to previous writings on problems of mining and water-power development in Brazil. For these other treatments the student could not do better than to start with the remarkably complete study by Bain and Read (H. F. Bain and T. T. Read: Ores and Industry in South America, New York and London, I934; reviewed in the Geogr. Rev., Vol. 25, I935, PP. I65-I66). More recently an important discussion of the mineral wealth of Brazil has appeared in Portuguese (S. Froes Abreu: A riqueza mineral do Brasil, Rio de Janeiro, I937), in which the history and the present problems of mineral exploitation are presented with a remarkable freedom from bias toward the point of view of either the foreign promoter or the emotional nationalist. For the student of Brazilian mineral problems this book is indispensable. Note may also be made of the reviewer's presentation of the problem of iron-ore development, which is perhaps the most important mining problem Brazil is facing today (P. E. James: Itabira Iron, Quart. Journ. of Inter-American Relations, Vol. i, No. 2,

I939, PP. 37-48). PRESTON E. JAMES

EUROPE

Lorraine. Of particular interest at this time is the careful and comprehensive work " Geographie Lorraine," prepared under the direction of Jules Blache (publiee sous les auspices de la Societe Lorraine des 1ttude Locales avec le concours de quatorze collaborateurs; 2nd edit., Berger-Levrault, Paris, I938).

Although Lorraine is well known as regards general location, it is not a natural region, nor are its limits easily or clearly defined. Its varied nature and transitional position have militated against the formation of any strong centralizing force. The encroachments of neighboring powers on parts of Lorraine territory have left it always a weak frontier region and one subject to frequent change of political status.

After a brief review of the historical position of Lorraine, the book is divided into three parts, the first of which gives a systematic account of the physical nature of the region. The Vosges offer the most rugged surface and reach the highest altitudes. In the High Vosges of the southeast a rejuvenated crystalline mass reaches altitudes of more than four thousand feet and shows both glacial and stream erosional features. The northward part of this old land mass decreases in altitude, and the crystalline core bears a covering of sandstone, in which is developed the irregular surface of the Low Vosges. In few places are altitudes greater than three thousand feet. Westward from these uplands the land becomes lower and the surface is etched in the varyingly resistant sedimentaries of the Paris Basin. The cuestas formed by the erosion of the basin structure face eastward or northward and are roughly concentric in arrangement. The most pronounced ones in Lorraine are the familiar C8tes de Moselle and the C6tes de Meuse. Of note is the activity of the eastern rivers, especially the Meurthe, at the expense of the Meuse. The elbow of capture of the Moselle by the Meurthe is at Toul. In the west both the Marne and the Aisne have diminished the basin of the Meuse. The Meuse of Lorraine was itself captured by the Meuse of Belgium near Mezieres, which is somewhat north- west of the limits laid down for Lorraine. The former drainage line led by way of the valley of the Sormonne westward to the Oise and thus to the valley of the Seine. A full account of this particular problem is included in C. Stevens' "Le relief de la Belgique" (Metmoires l'Inst. geol. de l'Univ. de Louvain, Vol. I2, I938, PP. 37-428).




Climatically Lorraine shows the continental influence more definitely than most other areas in France; and in the High Vosges the effects of altitude and exposure common to all mountain climates are well demonstrated. Beech forest is common on the limestone soils; the oak is most important on the clay soils. In the Vosges these forests give way to one dominated by conifers, largely white or Vosges pine.

The second part of the book treats of the local areas of Lorraine. In physical nature as well as in human use the many parts of Lorraine stand in marked contrast with one another. The Argonne, where forest industries dominate, differs radically from the land about Briey, where industry fills the valleys and general agriculture dominates the interfluves. The reforested mining area of the Warndt stands sharply against the clay plain to the south, where the pond (etang) plays so important a part in the utilization of the surface. The ponds are artificially maintained. For two years they are maintained as water bodies and carp are raised in them; then they are drained, and for one year the pond bottom is cropped. The individuality of the pays is brought out in great detail.

In the last part of the book agriculture, industry, communication, and population are all treated amply. Wheat and rye are the dominant grain crops, though both show a marked decrease in acreage and production since 1913. Among the root crops, potatoes are decreasing in acreage and sugar beets are increasing. Food crops are being replaced by fodder crops. Among the commercial crops, hops have nearly disappeared, and the vine has declined to about one-eighth of its former position; vegetables and fruits, notably the plum, have replaced them. Dairy farming has increased with the increase in local industrial markets. The Moselle coal basin supplied, in 1937, 14 per cent of the total output of France. The Lorraine ores furnished 93 per cent of the production of iron: the basin holds one of the world's great iron-ore deposits (see the monograph by J. Bichelonne and P. Angot: Le bassin ferrifere de Lorraine, Berger-Levrault, Nancy-Strasbourg, 1939). Metal- lurgical industries concentrated within the area have brought with them many problems, not the least of which is the high percentage of foreign labor (65 per cent), mainly Italian and Polish. Salt mining and the associated chemical industries add to the intensity of the industrial scene. Other industries are textiles (mainly cotton), glassmaking, ceramics, and brewing. The population is decreasing however, despite industrialization. Declining birth rate and emigration to other parts of France are bringing about rural depopulation everywhere except in the Vosges. In the mines and the factories foreign labor is the rule. Many of the towns have a population more than 75 per cent foreign. Industrialization is not resulting in the growth of enormous cities, but rather in concentration of small centers in the valleys of

the north and east. Well developed means of transportation offset the handicaps of peripheral dispersal. The two large centers, Nancy (121,301) and Metz (83,119),

show slow increases with the latter gaining on the former. Some supplementary "Notes de geographie lorraine" are given by Professor

Blache in the May, 1939, number of the Annales de Ge'ographie (pp. 235-25I).

HENRY MADISON KENDALL

AUSTRALASIA AND OCEANIA

Investigation of Australian Fisheries. Altough valuable work on her fisheries has been carried out by the federal and state governments, " much yet remains to be done before the industry is at all commensurate in extent with the industrial progress or consuming capacities of Australia," says the Offictal Year Book of the

Commonwealth of Australia (No. 3I, I938). This topic is the theme of two recent papers, "The Investigation of the Fishery Resources of the Australian Common- wealth," by Dr. Harold Thompson (Australian Journ. of Sci., Vol. I, I939, PP. I37- 142), and "A Review of the Scientific Investigation of the Fisheries of New South




Wales," by T. C. Roughley (Proc. Linnean Soc. of New South Wales, Vol. 64, Parts I-2, I939, pp. vi-xxvii). Of special interest is the use being made of aerial survey. "Several reasons could be advanced to explain why aerial reconnaissance of upper- water fish shoals has proved successful in Australian waters, whereas elsewhere this method of survey has met with indifferent success. Of these the high-angle incidence of the light rays, the absence of silt in the water, and the bright background so often provided by sandy bottom, seem most plausible." Current investigations are concerned with pelagic fish-tunny, Australian salmon, barracouta, pilchards, sprats, anchovies. Earlier investigations were devoted to demersal species and were followed by successful trawling operations off New South Wales. Unfortunately productivity of these fisheries suffered a sharp decline, and it is believed that no great extension of this branch of the industry is likely: the problem here is one of conservation rather than of exploitation. Dr. Thompson, however, expresses the opinion that theoreti- cally the scope of pelagic fishing is great. From the air the distribution and extent of the shoals have been clearly seen, and the aerial observations have been confirmed by the catches made by a research vessel under this guidance.

The reconnaissance work will be followed by continuing research: variations in the movements and character of the shoals must be traced, statistical and biological work pursued, and hydrological study into the physical conditions and the fundamental nutritive capacity of the waters be carried on. As W. J. Dakin said in an address on "Science and Sea Fisheries with Special Reference to Australia" (Papers & Proc. Royal Soc. of Tasmaniafor the Year 1934, I935, pp. I-39): " The fundamental problem facing the science of Sea Fisheries is everywhere the same-the valuation of the fishery stocks and the determination of what is going on when man adds his attack to the fluctuations of nature."

POLAR REGIONS

Centenary Celebration of the Wilkes Exploring Expedition and Symposium on American Polar Exploration. The United States Exploring Expedition under the command of Lieutenant Charles Wilkes was at sea from August, I838, until June, I842. During the months of January and February, I840, the expedition skirted the coast line of the Antarctic Continent for a distance of I500 miles, making landfalls at fairly regular intervals. As this was by far the most noteworthy single achievement of the entire expedition, it was fitting that the centenary of the expedition should be celebrated just a hundred years later, in February, I940. It was also peculiarly appropriate that the celebration should take the form, in large part at least, of a general symposium on American polar exploration and that it should be held on the occasion of the midwinter meeting of the American Philosophical Society at Phila- delphia, an institution which played an important part in the organization of the expedition. Interest in the meetings was doubtless increased by the fact that another exploring expedition sent out by the United States government is now actively at work in the Antarctic. The sessions, attended by a distinguished group of polar explorers, geographers, and others, were held at the house of the American Philo- sophical Society on Friday and Saturday, February 23 and 24.

The Friday-morning session, under the chairmanship of Roland S. Morris, president of the Philosophical Society, was devoted expressly to the Wilkes expedition and particularly to Wilkes himself as its organizer and commander and reporter of the results. Edwin G. Conklin, vice-president of the American Philosophical Society, and James A. G. Rehn, corresponding secretary of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, opened the session with papers on the connection of these two institutions with the expedition. Dr. Conklin read the letter from the Secretary of the Navy requesting the advice of the Society on the scientific objectives and personnel of the expedition and extracts from the elaborate report on the scientific objectives




that might be set for such an expedition prepared by a committee appointed for the purpose by the Society. Dr. Rehn's paper dealt with a similar appeal addressed to the Academy of Natural Sciences and the report prepared by the Academy. The recommendations of both institutions are of interest as indicating the importance attached by both the Navy Department and American scientific institutions to the opportunities for scientific investigation provided by the expedition and also as indicating the state of scientific knowledge at the time in a wide range of fields. Of special significance are the facts that the scientific work of the expedition closely

followed the programs proposed by these two institutions and that, although both institutions pointedly refrained from offering suggestions regarding the personnel of the scientific staff of the expedition, most of the scientists chosen were members of one or both of these institutions and consequently leaders in their subjects.

The responsibility that was placed on Wilkes as commander of the expedition and the care that he exercised in the assembling and selection of the instrumental equipment, most of which he himself collected in Europe, were brought out in a paper by Captain G. S. Bryan of the Hydrographic Office. Professor William H. Hobbs, whose devotion to the study of early American discovery and exploration in the Antarctic is well known, presented in a paper well illustrated with lantern slides of maps and sketches the results of his investigations into the claims and counterclaims with respect to the discovery of Wilkes Land and his proofs of the truth of Wilkes's original claim of having sighted the Antarctic Continent and followed its coast line for more than I500 miles.

Commander F. W. Reichelderfer, chief of the United States Weather Bureau, in a paper on Wilkes's contributions to terrestrial magnetism, gravity, and meteor- ology, discussed in further detail the instrumental equipment of the expedition and described the daily program of observations; and he showed lantern slides of a transcription of Wilkes's detailed instructions and of pages of records and graphs from the original Journal in evidence of the care with which the observational work was done and the records kept. Harley H. Bartlett, chairman of the Department of Botany at the University of Michigan, discussed the official and unofficial editions of the reports of the expedition and the work of the civilian scientific personnel: James D. Dana, mineralogist; William Rich and his assistant, William D. Bracken- ridge, botanists; Charles Pickering and Titian R. Peale, naturalists; J. P. Couthouy, conchologist; and Horatio Hale, philologist. A paper by Mary E. Cooley, instructor in geology and geography at Mount Holyoke College, was a fitting close to the section of the program dealing particularly with the work of the Wilkes expedition, as it has come to be commonly called. Miss Cooley has been engaged for some years on a life of Wilkes; and her paper, which deals with the explorations of the expedition in the Pacific, its discoveries of islands and island groups, and its contributions to the

charts of the Pacific, was a section from this work. The session of Friday afternoon, with Professor Hobbs in the chair, dealt with

American contributions to knowledge of the Antarctic. The session opened with a

paper by Lawrence Martin, chief of the Division of Maps and incumbent of the

Chair of Geography at the Library of Congress, in which he presented new evidence

from logbooks, letters, and other materials in proof of the claim that Captain Nathaniel Brown Palmer was the discoverer of Palmer Land (now more generally known as Graham Land) and hence of the Antarctic Continent.

John E. Hoffmeister, professor of geology at the University of Rochester, followed with a paper in which he characterized the studies of coral islands and volcanoes

carried out by James Dwight Dana, mineralogist of the expedition, and published in his section of the report (consisting of three volumes and two atlases) as the basis

for his subsequent monumental contributions to the study and analysis of these two

features. Of particular interest was the fact that, although Dana's observations of

coral islands were made some two years after, but independent of, those of Darwin,




his conclusion on the subsidence theory of coral-island development was published several years before Darwin's conclusions. In the remaining papers of this session Captain Harold E. Saunders of the United States Navy dealt with the contributions to knowledge of the Antarctic resulting from Byrd's flight to the pole and his exploration of Marie Byrd Land; W. L. G. Joerg, formerly research editor at the American Geographical Society and now chief of the Division of Maps and Charts at The National Archives, presented Ellsworth's observations taken on his trans-Antarctic flight and the maps constructed at the American Geographical Society from photographs also taken on this flight as demonstrating the peninsularity of Palmer Land; and Earle B. Perkins, assistant professor of zoology at Rutgers University, who was zo6logist of the Second Byrd Antarctic Expedition, presented a motion picture of animal life in the Antarctic.

On Friday evening, Laurence M. Gould, professor of geology at Carleton College, who was senior scientist and second-in-command of the First Byrd Antarctic Expedi- tion (I928-I930), gave an illustrated lecture on the "Glaciers of the Antarctic," in which he advanced the thesis that effective glacial erosion in the Antarctic must have preceded the development of the continental ice sheets of the Pleistocene by millions of years, since the conditions of low precipitation prevailing in the Antarctic "must have begun to affect the Antarctic ice masses adversely long before climatic conditions had become sufficiently severe to produce ice sheets of continental dimensions in North America and Europe."

The session on Saturday morning, at which Dr. Isaiah Bowman, president of The Johns Hopkins University, served as chairman, opened with a paper by H. W. Fowler, curator of fishes at the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. Dr. Fowler stressed the importance of the ichthyological collections and observations made by the Wilkes expedition. The remainder of the session was devoted to the Arctic regions. W. Elmer Ekblaw, who took part in MacMillan's four-year Arctic expedition and is now professor of geography at Clark University, outlined the history of the first period of American explorations in the Arctic, signalized by the expeditions of De Haven, Kane, Hayes, and Hall. Commander Edward Ellsberg read a vivid account of the De Long expedition and of the drift of the Jeannette, commenting on the fortitude of De Long and the skill and intelligence with which his expedition was organized and led. Hugh J. Lee, Peary's companion in the crossing of Greenland in I895, and Captain Robert A. Bartlett, who commanded Peary's ship Roosevelt, narrated some of their experiences with Peary and paid tributes to his memory. Vilhjalmur Stefansson showed that as exploration of the Arctic has progressed the persistent older notions of the Arctic lands and seas as regions devoid of animal and plant life have been shown to be false. His own work and later the work of Sir Hubert Wilkins and the Soviet flyers have demonstrated that there is an abundance of animal life in the Arctic Sea and that it is entirely feasible to land airplanes on the Arctic ice. Stefansson suggested that meteorological stations might well be established at various points north of Alaska.

Progress of the United States Government Expedition to the Antarctic. The activities of the expedition of the United States Antarctic Service under the command of Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd (see Geogr. Rev., Vol. 30, I940, p. I63) may be summarized as follows from the releases issued by the Navy Department of wireless messages received by the Executive Committee of the United States Antarc- tic Service. On January 24 the unloading of the North Star was completed and she started back for Valparaiso, where she was to pick up Argentine, Chilean, and United States naval observers and more equipment. Meanwhile, from the Bear, which had left the Bay of Whales on January I9, Admiral Byrd on January 22 made a flight on which he covered some 300 miles of unexplored coast east of the Bay of Whales, discovered a large new bay a few miles east of Cape Colbeck and new mountain




peaks in the vicinity of Marie Byrd Land, apparently bordering the coast of the area discovered by the First Byrd Antarctic Expedition, and found that Arthur Sulzberger Bay was much larger than it had been charted on the previous expeditions (see Geogr. Rev., Vol. 27, I937, p. 585). A second flight, of 5 hours' duration, was made on January 23 from the Bear in Arthur Sulzberger Bay. The flight started off in the direction of the Edsel Ford Range but was forced to turn northward in the vicinity of the Chester Mountains. The principal result of this flight was the discovery of an open lead by which on January 24 the Bear was able to proceed to the eastern limit of Sulzberger Bay-the culmination, as stated in Byrd's dispatch, of eleven attempts on his part since I928. A third flight was made on January 25, but no details were given in the official releases. On January 26, however, on a 3-hour flight, some 300 miles of coast east of Little America-presumably the coast sighted on the first flight-was photographed, new mountains, glaciers, and a partly snow-covered island two or three hundred feet high were discovered, and a range seen on the flight of the day before was followed eastward for about I20 miles. From the position at the end of this flight more mountains were seen 70 or 8o miles away on the horizon to the south, among them a range at least 40 miles long rising some 4000 feet above the snow.

The Bear then returned to the Bay of Whales and on February 3 sailed for the west side of the Ross Sea on the first leg of a journey expected to keep the ship away from her base for I4 months. On February 7 the Bear was in Terra Nova Bay, South Victoria Land, and from the bay she proceeded along the coast to the Dry- galski Peninsula, where she was moored to shelf ice while instruments were landed for observations on the South Magnetic Pole. It was estimated that the present position of the pole is only a few miles east of the position calculated by Mawson in 19I2 but considerably west of other previously calculated positions.

The Bear then proceeded eastward and after severe buffeting by storms and failure in a number of attempts to penetrate the ice pack reached on February 23 a position reported as latitude 70? 43' S., longitude Io80 25' W. Signs of land appeared, icebergs increased in size, sea birds became more numerous, crabeater and Weddell seals drifted by on ice pans, and the sea shallowed from the 2000 fathoms observed on the day before to I050 fathoms. On the following day Byrd was able to take off and on a flight of 3 hours and I2 minutes flew southward for an estimated I90 miles to the coast. The first hundred miles of the flight were over solid pack ice. Westward from this point a great ice-locked sea 40 miles or more wide in a north-south direction was observed; and several miles west of the line of flight and about II0 miles due south of the Bear and 8o miles from the coast an ice-covered island was sighted. Beyond a glacier-fringed coast a high range was seen extending east and west I00

miles from the position of the plane, with peaks rising to an estimated 7000 feet; behind this stretched a plateau 2000 to 3000 feet high. Reconnaissance flights for photographing and sketching were made over 200 miles of coast. On the following day a second flight was made due south for 50 miles and then, land having been sighted to the east, in a southeasterly direction for Ioo miles. Parallel ridges with many peaks rising from 3500 to 4000 feet were charted.

It is of interest to note that the position of Byrd's ship while these flights were being made was 70 40' west and 33' south of the position of the William Scoresby, from which on February I, I930, Sir Hubert Wilkins made his flight toward the coast. Wilkins' estimated position at the end of his flight in a due-south direction was on the 73rd parallel; Byrd's position when he struck the coast, based on his estimated distance of I90 miles from his ship, was about 730 28' S. This position of the coast agrees almost exactly with that plotted on the map compiled at the American Geographical Society on the basis of Wilkins' notes and published with his report in the Geographical Review (see Captain Sir Hubert Wilkins: Further Antarctic Explorations, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 20, 1930, pp. 357-388).

It is also to be noted that on his second expedition Byrd, on December 31, 1933,




in the ship Jacob Ruppert, penetrated the ice pack to 70? 5' S. close to the ii6th meridian and from a point near this, on January 3, I934, made a flight to a point given as latitude 72' 30' S., longitude I i60 35' W., where he was turned back by fog. He was thus only between i8o and 200 miles from the point where he crossed the coast line on his flight of February 24, I940, and must have been very close to the coast when he turned back. (For Byrd's position on the I934 flight see the map on p. 330, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 26, I936.)

By February 27 Byrd had moved his ship to 69' 44' S., 89' 57' W. (a position about 40 miles southeast of the southern tip of Peter I Island); and he reported from this point that on the same day from a point near the ice pack at 70? 4' 30" S., 95' I9' W., he had made a 3-hour flight. His wireless message did not give the exact position at which he struck the coast on this flight, but a "great mountain-dotted peninsula [was seen] projecting seaward I90 miles to approximately 72' 45' S." its peaks rising to 2000-3000 feet. In a large, ice-filled bay on the west side of the peninsula two islands were seen, the position of the easternmost being about 7I1 50' S., 96' W.

Meanwhile establishment of the "West Base" with a personnel of 32 men under the command of Dr. Paul A. Siple at the Bay of Whales at a point about four miles seaward from Little America was reported as practically completed on February I2.

A number of flights for photographic mapping and observations have been made from this base; and a iooo-mile land trip eastward is planned, though it is not clear from the dispatches whether this is to be made by dog sledge or with the motor snow cruiser designed by Dr. Thomas C. Poulter and specially constructed for the expedition.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

Late-Quaternary and Recent Uplift in Finland. Some of the facts resulting from investigation of late-glacial and postglacial uplift in Finland were recently outlined by Matti Sauramo (The Mode of the Land Upheaval in Fennoscandia during Late-Quaternary Time, Bull. Commission Geol. de Finlande, No. 125, I939, pp.

39-63). Geologic conditions in Fennoscandia are ideal for investigation of late-glacial problems. The varved-clay studies begun by De Geer and the pollen-statistics method of Von Post have been carried to a far higher degree of detail there than in any other part of the world.

An interesting illustration in Sauramo's article is a small map of southern Finland (Fig. 6) based on recent precise leveling by the Geodetic Survey of Finland. This shows by means of isobases an apparent rise of land during the past 40 years amounting locally to as much as 6.o millimeters a year-a far greater local differential uplift than has been interpreted for the rate of emergence of Finland during the preceding I2,000 years.

The isobases of late-glacial deformation, as shown in several diagrams, follow in general the trend of the receding ice border. In detail, however, they have not been found to be controlled by decreasing ice load and "have no definite relation to the protruding ice-lobes and incisions of the sea between them . . . The earth's crust seems to have had a limit as regards sensitiveness in the isostatic recovery in detail."

Tilting, as evidenced by the altitude of the oldest known shore line, immediately followed the retreat of the ice. Regionally equal uplift at one time during the recession is offered as explanation of a series of parallel shore lines. Tilting was slow at first but increased rapidly after the ice had melted away. Recent uplift is conceived of (in accordance with the views of R. Witting) as being very unequal in various localities, "as a broken mosaic. Every block of the earth's crust rises in fits and starts, remaining thereafter for some years in its place." Eventually, it is believed, these differential movements compensate each other.

Antevs (Ernst Antevs: Late Quaternary Upwarpings of Northeastern North




America, Journ. of Geol., Vol. 47, 1939, pp. 707-720) in a general paper reviewing recent studies of crustal upwarping in northeastern North America and suggesting a general correlation with stages of the Great Lakes and the Niagara Gorge, suggests the possibility of explaining parallel glacial-lake shores of the upper Connecticut River valley by Sauramo's hypothesis of regionally equal uplift. An equally prac- ticable explanation for these shore lines, namely stability of the land, has been offered by R. J. Lougee (Hanover Submerged, Dartmouth Alumni Mag., May, 1935, p. 6). As to the general nature of upwarping in North America, Antevs interprets it as intermittent and spasmodic, with somewhat longer periods of quiescence.

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

International Trade in Canned Fruit. Since the beginning of this century the trade in canned fruits has developed rapidly; and in 1937 the canneries of the world packed about 75,000,000 cases, exclusive of fruit juices, pulps, and jellies (the United States pack of canned fruit juices was 20,000,000 cases in 1937). Of the total world production, about one-fifth was shipped in international trade. Sta- tistics are to be found in "Fruit Canners of the World" (U. S. Bur. of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Trade Promotion Ser. No. 202, 1939) and in "A Survey of the Trade in Canned Food" (Thirty-Second Report of the Imperial Economic Committee, London, 1939).

Among the important factors in the canned-fruit trade are the preeminence of the United States as producer and exporter, a position based on the quantity, quality, and diversity of the product canned; increased production in the British Empire countries overseas, particularly Australia and Canada; the rapid development of Japanese canning of mandarin oranges and Formosan pineapples; the growing importance of the United Kingdom as a market; and the rapid development of the United States export trade in fruit juices.

One of the most interesting elements in the trade is the large proportion repre- sented by canned pineapple. If the movement of the fruit between Hawaii and the United States, the Philippines and the United States, and Formosa and Japan is included as being part of the international trade, the proportion of canned pineapple in the trade in canned fruits is more than two-thirds. If the Hawaiian, Philippine, and Formosan exports are excluded as being domestic trade, the proportion drops to one-third-still a surprisingly substantial percentage.

Hawaii is by far the most important producer of canned pineapple, furnishing three-quarters of the world pack. For the past several years the output has averaged I2,000,000 cases. The industry is an instance of the degree to which the fruit-canning processes can be mechanized. In one factory 44 processing lines trim and prepare I825 pineapples a minute and can I0 tons of fresh fruit in 2 minutes. The Hawaiian industry has achieved greater stability than other fruit-canning industries as a result of concentration in a few large undertakings, effective control of marketing, excellence of the fruit, extensive advertising, and, above all, freedom from competi- tion in the United States market, which absorbs about 96 per cent of the output.

Malaya holds second rank in the canned-pineapple industry, with a production quota for 1939 of 2,500,000 cases. Soon after the inception of the industry in i888, the few factories passed into Chinese ownership, and now the industry is almost wholly in Chinese hands. Malayan pineapple has won and maintained a position as a cheap product; and it is now necessary to guard against increased production costs resulting from improved methods of cultivation and handling. The country has the advantages that the pineapple areas are virtually on the equator and the flow of fruit to the canneries is therefore even; whereas Hawaii has one large and one small harvest during the year, making necessary factories which are large enough to accommodate the crop of the peak period but which are oversize for the rest of the




year. There is practically no local market for the fruit, and of the exports the United Kingdom takes more than 80 per cent, the United States about IO per cent.

The third ranking producer of canned pineapple is Formosa, where the industry was established as an outlet for a catch crop. At the present time production remains fairly stationary at about I,OOO,OOO cases. All Formosan pineapple was at one time sold in Japan; but within the past five years the United States has become an important market, and some quantities are also shipped to China and Manchuria.

Australia exported 82,000 cases of canned pineapple in 1938, of which about half went to the United Kingdom and more than a quarter to Canada. Pineapple is also canned for export, to a small extent, in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Martinique, South Africa, Tahiti, Mauritius, and Fiji.

Empire Migration. There has been a disharmony in the past between the migration needs of the United Kingdom and those of the British dominions. At times when the Kingdom was most willing to send emigrants to the dominions these were unable, because of economic conditions, to accept many. Now it seems that the time may well be at hand when the dominions will be desiring migration but the Kingdom will be opposed to it, or at least will not be disposed to assist citizens to this end. The change in attitude is due in part to the decline of fertility rates in the United Kingdom, indicating that unless the present trend is altered the population will soon become stationary and will then decrease.

The Oversea Settlement Board recently stated that " the Governments concerned should from now onwards bear constantly in mind the effect of migration on the population of the United Kingdom, and should examine afresh, and with the greatest care, the question whether, if the decline in that population is found to persist, it can be regarded as in the interest of the British Commonwealth as a whole that migration to the Dominions should continue to be encouraged " (" Report of the Over- sea Settlement Board, May 1938, " Cmd. 5766, London, 1938, p. 14).

The interests of both the United Kingdom and the dominions are well summarized in a report by a study group of the Royal Institute of International Affairs (see Chap- ter I9, " Population and Migration," in "The British Empire: A Report on Its Struc- ture and Problems," 2nd edit., Oxford University Press, London, etc., 1938). The conclusion is reached that the Kingdom is still able to send out emigrants, though no longer in such numbers as before the World War, but that the area of rapid ex- pansion of settlement in the dominions has come to an end and therefore their absorptive power has been reduced.

Both British and dominion authorities agree that the dominions, as relatively thinly populated countries, demand a supplementation of the natural growth of population by immigration, be it for economic or for strategic reasons. The opinions differ widely, however, over the question of the size of the migration. In the case of Australia, "academic" experts-such as Wadham and Wood, and before them Griffith Taylor-have destroyed the myth of the "vast open spaces," whereas the so-called "practical" men still speak of the "vast possibilities." Representatives of both camps present their views in "The Future of Immigration into Australia and New Zealand, " edited by W. G. K. Duncan and C. V. Janes (Angus & Robertson in conjunction with the Australian Institute of Political Science, Sydney, 1937).

The authors of "Empire Opportunities: A Survey of the Possibilities of Overseas Settlement " (Blackie & Son, London and Glasgow, 1938) are not concerned with the question of the desirability of emigration from the United Kingdom, nor do they struggle with the question of absorptive power in primary and secondary industries of the dominions. Each author surveys an individual dominion or colony and points out the advantages foreseen in his particular part of the Empire to any prospective emigrant who has not made up his mind where to go. The tone of the presentation is frequently of the promoting type. KARL J. PELZER




HISTORY OF GEOGRAPHY AND EXPLORATION

Seven Early-Fifteenth-Century Chinese Voyages in the Indian Ocean. Some time ago Mr. C. W. Bishop reviewed briefly in this journal the great maritime expeditions of the Chinese at the beginning of the fifteenth century (Chinese Voyages in the Indian Ocean in the Early Fifteenth Century, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 24, 1934, pp. 672-674). The article by Professor Paul Pelliot to which he drew attention renewed the interest of scholars all over the world in this subject, with the result that a number of corrections of, and additions to, his brilliant expose have appeared, particularly in Japan and China. These have been examined and reviewed in a fresh treatment of the question by Professor J. J. L. Duyvendak of Leiden University (The True Dates of the Chinese Maritime Expeditions in the Early Fifteenth Century, T oung Pao, Vol. 34, 1938-1939, pp. 341-412).

The two most important sources of information about the voyages of the Chinese eunuch-admiral Cheng Ho and his subordinates, unknown to Pelliot and discovered by Chinese scholars in 1935 and I937, are two inscriptions dated respectively March I4, I43I, and the Iith moon (roughly December) of I43I. These contemporary documents have the great merit of fixing precisely the dates of the various expeditions about which there had previously been some confusion. Hence the title of Duyvendak's contribution. We now know them to be as follows:

Ist voyage. To Champa, Java, Samudra, Lambri, Ceylon, and Calicut, and return (?) by way of Palembang: I405-I407.

2nd voyage. To Java, Calicut, Cochin, Siam, Aru, Cail, A-pa-po-tan, Lambri, and Koyampadi: I407-I409. Cheng Ho did not accompany this expedition.

3rd voyage. To Champa, Java, Malacca, Samudra, Ceylon, Quilon, Cochin, Calicut, and Pulu Sembilan (off the coast of Sumatra): I409-I4II. This voyage is further attested by another contemporary document, an inscription in three lan- guages, Chinese, Tamil, and Persian, dated February I5, I409, prepared in Nanking under Cheng Ho's direction and erected in Ceylon in I4II (see Perera, Spolia Zeil- anica, I9I2).

4th voyage. To Malacca, Java, Champa, Samudra, Aru, Cochin, Calicut, Lambri, Pahang, Kelantan, Cail, Ormuz, Pi-la, the Maldives, and Sun-la: I4I3-I4I5. On this voyage Cheng Ho took with him certain Mohammedan interpreters, including the well known Ma Huan (cf. J. J. L. Duyvendak: Ma Huan Re-examined, Ver- handelingen Kon. Akad. van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, Afd. Letterkunde, N. S., Vol. 32, No. 3, 1933).

5th voyage. Probably to Champa, Calicut; Java, Malacca, Sumatra, Lambri, Pahang, Ceylon, the Maldives, Aden, Melinda, Ormuz, and Cochin: I4I7-I4I9.

As the avowed object of this expedition was to escort the envoys from distant countries back to their native lands, it is assumed that the above list is correct; for ambassadors came to Nanking in I4I6 from these countries, and from Borneo and the Liu-Ch'iu Islands as well. This voyage too is attested by a contemporary inscription, in the Moslem cemetery at the then great port of Ch'uian-chou, Fukien Province, bearing a date equivalent to May 3I, I4I7.

6th voyage. Probably to Ormuz, Aden, Djofar, La-sa, Brawa, Mogadisho, Calicut, Cochin, Cail, Ceylon, the Maldives, Lambri, Sumatra, Aru, Malacca, and Coy- ampadi (?), and possibly Sulu, Bengal, Borneo, and Ku-ma-la-lang: 1421-I422.

Again it is a question of escort home of envoys to the Chinese capital. 7th voyage. To Champa, Java, Palembang, Malacca, Sumatra, Ceylon, Calicut,

and Ormuz, and return via Calicut: I43I-I433.

The reader familiar with previous accounts (see, for example, the list of dates given in Albert Herrmann: Historical and Commercial Atlas of China, Harvard-Yenching Inst. Monograph Ser., Vol. i, Cambridge, Mass., I935, p. 55) will remark particularly the omission of the alleged voyage of I424 +. This was inserted on the authority



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 33I

of the Chinese annals, which recorded the order for the expedition but were silent about its actual dispatch and return. What happened apparently was that, in the midst of fitting out the fleet, the emperor (Yung-lo) died (August I2, I424); on the day of the accession of his successor (September 7, I424) came the order for its can- cellation: "The ships (for fetching) precious stones which go to the barbarian countries of the western ocean are all stopped. If there are any that are already anchored in Fu-chien or in T'ai-tsang, they should all return to Nanking. The building of seaships for going to the barbarian (countries) should everywhere be stopped." One additional voyage did take place, and then no more.

It is naturally a matter of surprise and wonder that expeditions so valuable to China's prestige and so stimulating for her trade should have been discontinued. If they had gone on for another century, they would have met the Portuguese explorers head on, and the course of world history might well have been altered. It has also been difficult to understand the paucity of written material on what now seems a glorious, if brief, chapter in China's history. One reason for the discontinuance of the expeditions was obviously economic-opposition begun in the Yung-lo period was clearly voiced at the very start of the following reign. But this was not all. More fundamental was the deep-seated apprehension felt by the officials of the growing power of the eunuchs. It came out in about the year I479 when an influential eunuch, desirous of making an expedition to Annam, sought the court records of his predecessor Cheng Ho and it was revealed that they had been extracted from the archives and burned. Maritime expeditions were identified with eunuch control. The scholar-officials, unable to meet the eunuchs in direct conflict, frustrated their efforts by belittling such expeditions and by destroying the background data required by any commander.

It may be said in closing that the early I400's are not the only years in which the Chinese gathered a rich store of information, geographic, political, social, and economic, about the regions bordering the Indian Ocean and presented it to their court. The earliest exploits date back to the time of the emperor Wu of Han (I40-86 B.C.). In A.D. I to 6 a Chinese mission may have gone all the way across; for Wang Mang, who was to usurp the throne from A.D. 9 to 23, dispatched interpreter envoys to the farthest reaches of the ocean and welcomed ambassadors in return. Again in about 225 and in 245-250 envoys of the Chinese kingdom of Wu made extensive voyages and possibly reached the Mediterranean Orient. Fragments of one of their reports to the throne have come down to us, incorporated in somewhat later writings. These embassies in the interest of knowledge, trade, and imperial prestige show that the emperor of the Yung-lo period had good precedence for his dispatch of the Cheng Ho armadas, but never before had one been sent out with such magnificence.

L. C. GOODRICH

GEOGRAPHICAL AIDS

Technical Dictionaries and Glossaries. At some future day geographers may have satisfactory dictionaries and glossaries of their own, but until that time it is necessary to go to the related sciences for aid. Two recent and welcome additions in the field of technical bilingual dictionaries are Walther Huebner's "Geology and Allied Sciences" (Part I, German-English, Veritas Press, New York, I939) and Louis De Vries' "German-English Science Dictionary" (McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York and London, I939). The first attempts "coordinating the American and English with the German terminology" and includes terms with a geological bearing selected from a number of related sciences including botany, geomorphology, seismology, and zoology. The second, a handy, almost pocket-sized volume, designed "for students in the agricultural, biological and physical sciences," has evolved from long experience in dealing with the language problem encountered in university science departments.




A useful specialized work on ecology is J. R. Carpenter's "An Ecological Glos- sary" (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, I938), the purpose of which is "to bring together and make available the more technical and restricted usages of terms which have been and are in the ecological literature." "An attempt is made to present after each term a reference to the first use of the term or to a more available work or standard text in which the term is used or discussed."

The chapters on Rivers, Streams, Canals (2), Ports (7), Locks and Dry Docks (8), and Maritime Signals (I2) are now available in the " Illustrated Technical Diction- ary" published by the Permanent International Association of Navigation Con- gresses (see Geogr. Rev., Vol. 26, I936, p. 337). French, German, English, Spanish, Italian, and Dutch equivalents are given.

Brief but helpful glossaries of various specialized terms have been published as part of some larger work. Such are the " Vocabularies on Soil Erosion, Silt, and Re- lated Subjects, " with French-English, German-English, and Russian-English equivalents (in " Selected Bibliography on Erosion and Silt Movement, " by G. R. Williams and others, U. S. Geol. Survey Water-Supply Paper 797, I937, pp. 77-86); "A Glos- sary of Special Terms Used in the Soils Yearbook" ("Soils and Men: Yearbook of Agriculture I938," U. S. Dept. of Agriculture, pp. II62-II80); "Definitions of Sur- veying Terms " (Amer. Soc. of Civil Engineers Manuals of Engineering Practice No. 15, New York, I938); and "Glossary of Meteorological Terms" (reprint of Part 8 of U. S. Weather Bur. Circular M, " Instructions to Marine Meteorological Observers," 6th edit., I938).

OBITUARY

Almon Ernest Parkins. Almon Ernest Parkins, professor of geography at the George Peabody College for Teachers, Nashville, Tenn., died at his home in Nash- ville on January 3, I940, in his 6Ist year. Professor Parkins' quarter of a century of work in the South had its culmination in his book "The South: Its Economic- Geographic Development" (1938), a valuable contribution to the geographical literature of the United States (reviewed in the Geogr. Rev., Vol. 28, I938, pp. 693- 695). "The Antebellum South" was the theme of his presidential address to the Association of American Geographers in I930. The following quotation from its conclusion is illustrative of his geographical philosophy: "The people of every region have the right to expect interpreters of their civilization or culture to consider their behavior, their adjustments, at any given time, in the light of their past experiences as well as of their regional setting."

Professor Parkins was deeply interested in the pedagogical side of his profession- an interest recognized in the Distinguished Service Award of the National Council of Geography Teachers in I934. He was, "first and last, a great teacher," say the writers of the obituary notice in Science (Feb. i6, I940). He was joint author of the McMurry-Parkins geographies and of the Miller-Parkins textbook on North America (I928; 2nd edit., I934) He was also coeditor (with J. R. Whitaker) and coauthor of "Our Natural Resources and Their Conservation" (1936; 2nd edit., I939).



Date post:	08-Jan-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	lyliem
View:	212 times
Download:	0 times

Geographical Record

Documents