Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Apr., 1956), pp. 263-275Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211649 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

THE BAY OF FUNDY SALT MARSHES. The economic significance of the Bay of Fundy salt marshes in the development of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick has fluctuated greatly since they were discovered in 1604. The rich marshland soils have not been fully utilized during the present century, but renewed interest in the last 1s years has led to surveys and projects designed to restore their former productivity. A complete summary of the physical geography, settlement, and recent utilization of the marshes, together with a comparison of their counterpart in Europe along the North Sea coasts of Holland and Germany, has appeared recently (Carl Schott: Die Kanadischen Marschen, Schriften des Geographischen Instituts der Universitdt Kiel, Vol. 15, No. 2, Kiel, 1955).

In eastern Canada, large areas of salt marsh are found only in the bays and inlets on the south and east sides of the Bay of Fundy. Silts and clays are carried by the strong tidal currents and deposited at the heads of the bays, until the surface of the alluvium rises above all but the highest tides. The alluvium is colonized by coarse salt grasses of which Spartina alterniflora is the most important early species. Unlike the European marshes, the Fundy marshes support little animal life and are consequently less fertile, being notably low in lime. Studies made at the experimental farm at Nappan, N. S., have shown that the addition of lime to marsh soils increased the yield of oats by 42 per cent (W. W. Baird: Report on Dykeland Reclamation, 1913 to 1952, Department of Agriculture, Experimental Farms Service, Ottawa, 1954). The relatively low nutritional value of the wild hay grasses in the Maritimes may also be due to lack of lime.

The treeless marshands were the main areas occupied by the Acadian French colonists, who constructed the first dykes and sluices shortly after 1636. The dyke used was similar to those with which the colonists were familiar in western France, and which in turn had been brought to that area from the North Sea marshes. Schott observes that whereas this form of wooden dyke was superseded in north Germany more than a century ago, the original European form is to be seen with little change in the Maritimes today.

The crops grown during the first three or four years of Acadian occupation were generally wheat or other cereals. Subsequently, as the surrounding marshes were reclaimed, hay was introduced in rotation and livestock were increased. Following the deportation of the Acadians in the middle of the eighteenth century, American and British settlers occupied the marshes (J. B. Bird: Settlement in Maritime Canada, 1687-1786, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 45, 1955, pp. 385-404), but they were unfamiliar with the special techniques of cultivation and became increasingly dependent on the newly cleared upland soils; the main marshland crop soon became hay. This shift of interest was strengthened when the upland apple industry was established after 1875. About the same time, the beef industry, which had developed with the cultivation of hay on the marshes, began to decline owing to competition from cheap western beef and the imposition of an embargo by Great Britain on imported beef. However, the marshes continued to produce valuable quantities of hay, and supplied fodder to the metropolitan areas of the eastern seaboard of the United States where transport was provided by horse-drawn vehicles.

The returns from hay increased, until in 1918 a peak price of $25 to $2.8 a ton was



264 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

reached. A rapid decrease in demand followed, and the price fell until in 193 8 it was only $6 to $7 a ton, out of which the farmer had to meet charges of $4.50 a ton for cutting, processing, and cartage. As the price of hay fell, so did the value of the land, and marshland which had previously been selling at $200 an acre brought $25 to $so an acre or less, from 1933 onwards. Moreover, the costs of dyke construction and maintenance were rising as the requisite hand labor became scarcer. The combination of these circumstances led to neglect and deterioration of the aboiteaux, dykes, and drainage channels. In time the aboiteaux collapsed, the dykes were swept out to sea, and the drainage channels were choked with mud. Many proprietors attempted to maintain their dykelands, but their efforts were useless if their neighbors did not cooperate.

In 1939 a committee was formed to investigate and report on the problems facing the marshland owners. Subsequently, in 1943, the Maritime Dykeland Rehabilitation Com- mittee was formed, and agreement was reached to share the costs of emergency repairs between the Federal and Provincial governments and the landowners, for surveys showed that by modern standards less than a quarter of the dykes could be considered safe; to put the work of reclamation on a securer basis, the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Ad- ministration was formed in 1949. Each year the Administration has published a report on its activities, and from the latest (Fifth Annual Report on Activities under the Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Act for the fiscal year ended March 31, 1954, Department of Agriculture, Maritime Marshland Rehabilitation Administration [Ottawa, 1955]) it is possible to examine progress made during the first five years. Up to March, 1954, 127

organized marsh "bodies," accounting for 55,768 acres of protected and 13,913 acres of unprotected marsh, had been incorporated. In nearly ioo projects there was either major construction or maintenance during 1053-1954. It is clear, however, that it is ultimately more efficient to deal with the large marshes as a single unit rather than as a number of separate projects, and the first of the marshes to be treated in this way is at the mouth of Shepody River. A dam is being constructed across the mouth to enclose 5500 acres of marsh, 1200 acres of which are at present being flooded. Construction is particularly difficult because of the strong tidal current (range 38.5 feet) which flows through the gap, but the dam will soon be completed. It is hoped that the success of the Shepody project will lead to similar large projects elsewhere and that the marshlands will once again become an important source of agricultural produce.-J. BRIAN BIRD

LATIN AMERICA

LAND FORMS OF THE SOUTHEAST BAHAMAS. The southeast Bahamas, lying within a 30,000 square-mile area of ocean east of Cuba and northwest of the Dominican Republic, are nearly inaccessible and of slight economic value, and as a result little has been known of their structure. Thus a recent study of the land forms of the islands, describing the physical relationships between land and sea in. an area where marginal aspects dominate, will be appreciated by geographers and geomorphologists (Edwin Doran, Jr.: Land Forms of the Southeast Bahamas, Univ. of Texas Puibl. No. 5509, Austin, 1955). Dr. Doran has done a detailed job of classifying and mapping nearly 1 loo square miles of land and ad- joining shallow waters at a scale of one inch to the mile, combining field investigation with contemporaneous interpretation of aerial photographs. The great mass of information is recorded primarily on 1 l maps which were compiled from the photographs.



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 265

The islands are composed entirely of calcareous material. They are low-lying, with elevations of less than 300 feet, and are separated from one another by 25 to 50 miles of open ocean reaching depths of 4000 to 12,000 feet. Although all the islands are believed to have been formed by the capping of submarine volcanic cones by limestones, two distinct types are found; some have low cliffed shores that rise from deep water and are higher around the edges than in the center, and others rise on the east and north sides of wide expanses of shallow water. In the latter type, the banks may extend as much as 30 miles from shore.

The large expanses of shallow water surrounding many of the islands are underlain by calcareous sand plains containing subordinate amounts of coral growth. The local irregularities of channels and tidal flats are the only features to break the monotony. Complex shifting sand bars or coral reefs occur on the open ocean sides of the banks. Occasional hurricanes blowing across the low islands are responsible for eroding new channels across them at low points, which results in the formation of new passageways for the sea. A fascinating feature of the shallow-water ocean floor are the ocean holes which are 20 to 150 feet wide, as much as 300 feet long, and reach 198 feet in depth. These may be due to limestone solution during a period of lower ocean level. The descent from the banks to the deep water is often sharp and offshore slopes probably representing Pleistocene strand lines are locally present.

The most common type of shoreline is termed "muddy." The exact position of such shorelines varies with the wind and current; they grade imperceptibly landward into low tidal flats. The detailed mapping of a sand cay before and after a four-month interval shows that rapid changes in shore positions are possible and that these changes may be related to wind directions. Sand beaches in areas protected by reefs and tombolos are common. In some areas, low cliffs slope gently upward to cobble beach ridges and are usually karstic in nature due to the solution by the water from the waves and ocean spray. Because the holes developed by chitons increase in depth at a maximum rate of only 0.5

centimeters a year. chitons are not considered to be a major factor in the destruction of shore cliffs. Corals in growth position in karstic platforms along some of the shores of nearly all the islands are evidence of a recent five-foot eustatic drop in sea level. The same type of evidence indicates an uplift of 10 to 20 feet for two of the islands.

Plains comprise the major part of the islands; some of these are occupied by lagoons and swamps, others are low mud flats, and still others are dry, vegetated karstic surfaces. Throughout the low parts of the land areas in the southeast Bahamas nearly so per cent of the surface is overgrown with mangroves. As they form sand traps, mangroves play an important role as accretionary agents. From the aerial photographs it could be shown that no appreciable spread of mangroves has occurred during the past ten years. Some low mud plains are frequently inundated during times of high tides, whereas others are inundated only during the great storms. This flooding results in the formation of small channelways across the flats. Hurricanes tend to reverse the general accretionary trend of the islands.

Most of the higher parts of the islands contain ridges which usually occur in multiple rows near the shore line. These vary greatly in size and number and range in composition from unconsolidated sand through lithified sediments to karstic limestone. Although some are modified by the wind, it is believed that most of the "arcuate ridges" have been formed by gradual accretion during normal times, with their final shape due to the wave action




during heavy storms. Some of the "straight ridges" are believed to be lithified dunes.- ROBERT A. CHRISTMAN

THE IRON AND STEEL INDUSTRY OF LATIN AMERICA. The increasing demand for heavy industries by most Latin American countries has led to the development of important iron and steel industries in Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Argentina, and to plans for such development in several other countries. Although no steel centers in Latin America have the favorable locations of Pittsburgh, Cleveland, or Birmingham, the presence of adequate supplies of high-grade iron ore in the above mentioned countries, together with their great desire to establish their own integrated iron and steel mills, has stimulated this type of industrial development in spite of limited supplies of coking coal.

With the rapid expansion of this industry, an important conference of experts was held in Bogota, Colombia, October 13-31, 1952, under the sponsorship of the Secretariat of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Technical Assistance Administra- tion of the United Nations, the published results of which add materially to our rather meager knowledge of the rapid industrialization of Latin America (A Study of the Iron and Steel Industry in Latin America, 2 vols., United Nations, 1954.ILG.3, New York, 1954). Participants at the conference, representing the leading technical men in the iron and steel industry, came from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as from the United States, Canada, France, the United Kingdom, and several other western European countries. The documents and technical papers presented at the nineteen-day meeting include many types of studies relating to the manufacture of iron and steel-for example, the treatment of coals and other fuels, the production of metallurgical coke, pig-iron production in blast furnaces using charcoal, steel making in electric furnaces, labor problems in the iron and steel industry, and iron and steel consump- tion in Latin America. But the main purpose of the meeting was the exchange of ideas and technical "know-how." To what extent it accomplished its purpose will be revealed as development takes place in the individual countries.

At present the leading iron and steel producing countries of South America are (1) Brazil, with an excellent deposit of high-grade iron ore in Minas Gerais and a medium- grade coking coal in Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul, and (2) Chile, with high-grade iron ore in the vicinity of El Tofo in the northern part of the Central Valley and good quality coal in the southern part of the valley near the city of Concepcion. In each case long and expensive overland hauls of both coal and iron ore are required to get the raw materials to the sites of the iron and steel mills. Argentina, with small deposits of iron ore in the northwestern part of the country and with its coal fields in western Patagonia, has expensive transportation costs in assembling raw materials for its iron and steel industry. Assembly costs are lower in Colombia; both coal and iron are found in the same region, but in the remote northeastern part of the country distant from consuming centers. Other countries, for example Peru and Venezuela, have unfavorable factors which would make iron and steel manufacturing almost prohibitive were it not for the fact that each country has the desire to establish its own basic heavy industries.

Of all the Latin American countries, Brazil appears to have the brightest outlook for the future. At the recently established Volta Redonda plant near Rio de Janeiro, a modern and complete steel-making center has been developed. Because of the vast deposits of high-




grade iron ore in the Orinoco Valley, a similar industry might be developed in Venezuela in the foreseeable future, though it seems likely that most of the ore will be shipped to steel mills in the United States.

In and around the cities of Monterrey and Monclova in northern Mexico is located the oldest and one of the best developed iron and steel industries in Latin America (R. A. Kennelly: The Location of the Mexican Steel Industry, Revista Geografica, Vol. 14, 1954,

pp. 51-80; Vol. 15, 1954, pp. 105-129; Vol. 16, 1955, pp. 199-213). Assembly costs for this district have been lower than those for other steel centers in Latin America, and markets have been greater. The high-grade iron ore comes from Durango, a distance of about 400 miles, but coking-coal is mined in the Sabinas Basin only a short distance from Monterrey and Monclova. Some small steel mills are found in the vicinity of Mexico City, but these are located primarily to provide steel products for the large urban market and can afford to operate even at a high production cost.-EDWINJ. FosCUE

EUROPE BUS SERVICE HINTERLANDS IN GREAT BRITAIN. Buses are the most commonly used means of transport in the United Kingdom and, except in the islands off Scotland where steamers may serve the same purpose, bus services are considered to reflect the public demand for transportation to and from local trade centers. A map of the bus route net around a center, showing the frequency of bus services in winter (preferably on market days), therefore, defines the center's local hinterland. A map recently issued by the Ord- nance Survey in their ten-mile-to-an-inch series (Local Accessibility: The Hinterlands of Towns and Other Centres as Determined by an Analysis of Bus Routes, 1: 625,000, in two sheets, 1955) shows the areas accessible by scheduled buses operating on local routes in Great Britain, and makes available for the first time in detail the maps earlier published by F. H. W. Green in "Urban Hinterlands in England and Wales: An Analysis of Bus Serv- ices" (Geogr.Journ., Vol. 116, 1950, pp. 64-88) and byJ. B. Fleming and F. H. W. Green in "Some Relations between Town and Country in Scotland" (Scottish Geogr. Mag., Vol. 68, 1952, pp. 2-12). A 1o-page explanatory text accompanies the map.

A bus service center is defined as any city, town, or village which is the terminus of at least one regular stage carrier, running only to and from places smaller than the center itself. Boundaries between the hinterlands of neighboring centers are determined by drawing lines between places having more frequent service to one or the other center. Sometimes the area focusing on a small center is not clearly distinguishable from the area served by a larger center; in such cases, the hinterland of the smaller center is recognized as subsidiary to that of the larger center which includes it. Hinterland boundaries of main centers appear as solid lines, boundaries of subsidiary centers as broken lines. In the Welsh and Scottish highlands the boundary lines are shown in a lighter tone where they pass through thinly populated areas, since the bus routes are confined mainly to the valleys and there is often no actual contact between the service areas of neighboring centers. The population of the centers and that of the hinterlands combined with the centers, according to the census of 1951 or the latest estimates available, is shown by colored proportional circles and rings. The map identifies a total of 935 centers in England, Wales, Scotland, and the nearby islands served by stage carriers licensed by the Ministry of Transport during the period 1947-1948. Of this total, 785 are main centers and 150 are subsidiary.




The usefulness of the map is apparent. If, as Arthur E. Smailes contends in "The Geography of Towns," ". . . the fundamental unit in the geographical structure of com- munity life in . . . Britain is today the town region, the area whose residents look to a particular town as their service-centre and whose life is focused there through a constant tide of comings and goings," then this map of bus service areas should be valuable as a basis for planning governmental administration and social services. Its value in the ad- vertising business has already been pointed out (see B. D. Copland: A Practical Applica- tion of the Theory of Hinterlands, Geogr. Jourti., Vol. 120, 1954, pp. 476-482), and the relative concentration of retail and service trades in urban places has been analyzed in relation to bus service areas (seeJ. B. Fleming: An Analysis of Shops and Service Trades in Scottish Towns, Scott. Geogr. Mag., Vol. 70, 1954, pp. 97-106).

Words of caution regarding interpretation of the map are given in the accompanying text, however. The boundary lines between hinterlands are not all as sharply defined as the map indicates, but often are in reality zones of transition between overlapping areas of competing centers. Some centers, particularly in northwestern Scotland, are not developed as business centers, but are merely junction points where interchange occurs between road and rail transport, road and steamer, or steamer and rail. Comparison of this map with Smailes' map of the urban hierarchy in "The Urban Mesh of England and Wales" (Inst. of British Geogrs. Puibl., 1946, pp. 85-ioi) reveals that not every center with urban facilities that would allow it to be a trade center is a bis service center. Thus, the map can be used only with qualifications as a substitute for a map of trade centers or trade areas.

It is stated in the accompanying text that the local hinterlands determined by bus services represent areas of fourth order in the urban hierarchy and that, while only the smaller centers belong in this fourth order, most of the larger centers are to be ranked in the third or higher orders. The centers of higher orders, therefore, must have larger service areas that overlap and include the service areas of the fourth-order centers. But no explanation of the classification of centers in such a hierarchy is given in the text or in Green's previouas publications. The map in the text showing second-, third-, and fourth-order centers and hinterlands in southern England covers only a limited area around Bristol. In Green's article on urban hinterlands, cited above, there is a map of a part of England lying north and northeast of London, which shows third- and fourth-order centers and hinterlands. In these two areas it is possible to correlate approximately the second order with Smailes' class of "Major City"; the third order with his "City" or "Town" classes; and the fourth order with his "Sub-Town." Thus, it is- possible to infer something about the typical urban facilities associated with each order in the hierarchy (see A. E. Smailes: The Urban Hierarchy in England and Wales, Geography, Vol. 29, 1944, pp. 41-51). But it is impossible to reconcile this classification of third- and fourth-order centers with Bracey's higher-order and lower-order centers in southern England (H. E. Bracey: A Rural Com- ponent of Centrality Applied to Six Southern Counties in the United Kingdom, Econ. Geogr., Vol. 32, 1956, pp. 38-so), or with Dickinson's four categories of urban settlement in East Anglia (R. E. Dickinson: The Distribution and Functions of the Smaller Urban Settlements of East Anglia, Geography, Vol. 17, 1932, pp. 19-31).

Aside from the discrepancies in classification of centers due to differing criteria and the difficulties inherent in mapping trade hinterlands in terms of public licensed stage carrier services, the map has considerable theoretical significance. In rough fashion it




confirms the existence of two orders of service towns in the lowland areas of rural Britain. Wherever there is close village settlement spread over the main agricultural tracts in England and Scotland, higher-order centers (large towns) with larger than average hinterlands occur at intervals of twenty miles or more while lower-order centers (small towns or large villages), spaced at approximately ten-mile intervals with small hinterlands, are grouped in clusters or belts between the hinterlands of the larger centers. In the sparsely settled highlands of northern England, Wales, and Scotland, small towns occur at intervals as great as the higher-order towns in the agricultural lowlands, and one wonders whether there are not also small trade centers of some sort at close intervals along the bus routes in the highland valleys. On the other hand, the bus service areas of the great industrial cities, such as Birmingham, Manchester, Northumberland, or Glasgow, are no larger than those of average country towns. In the major mining and manufacturing regions, as well as in the outlying suburban belt around London, there are congeries of towns and small cities with densely-populated bus service hinterlands no larger than the hinterlands of the smallest country towns. Bus service areas within Metropolitan London were not mapped because the relationships are too complex to be comparable with the other areas. The area of Metropolitan London shown on the map is smaller than the bus hinterland of the largest country towns such as Norwich or Salisbury. Actually, the daily commutation area of London by railway is much larger and has nothing to do with its bus service area.

It is to be hoped that when the results of A. E. Smailes' enquiry into urban spheres of influence, based on questionnaires sent out to every village in Great Britain, are assembled and interpreted, it will be possible to arrive at a more satisfactory map of service hinterlands and a more definitive classification of service centers. Meanwhile, the map of "Local Accessibility" (which American geographers would do well to emulate) will have served many useful purposes.-JOHN E. BRUSH

SOVIET POPULATION AND NATIONALITIES. The Soviet government has long maintained tight restrictions on the release of demographic information. Since the census of 1926, which is generally accepted as unfalsified, population data on the U.S.S.R. have been published only when and if they would create a favorable impression as to the suc- cesses of the regime. Two full census enumerations are known to have been made since, in 1937 and 1939, only the latter of which was made public, in a form carefully tailored to propaganda requirements. In this situation, our knowledge of the demography of the U.S.S.R. has had to depend on the internal criticism of Soviet materials by Western scholars, and latterly also on the information and judgments of emigre scholars from the U.S.S.R. Recent publications by V. Marchenko (New Data on the Population of the USSR, Journal of the Institute for the Study of the History and Culture of the USSR, No. 1, 1954, pp. 3-12 [in Russian]), and A. A. Zaitsov (USSR Population Dynamics in 1952,

Investigations and Materials of the Institutefor the Study of the History and Culture of the USSR, No. 4, 1953 [in Russian]) present inferences based on both official statistics and personal experience. These authors agree with Western students (for example, Robert C. Cook: Soviet Population Policy, Population Bulletin, Vol. 8, 1952, pp. 17-27) that the Soviet birth rate is declining noticeably, and that despite a drop in the death rate, the rate of natural increase of the U.S.S.R. population is also declining, though it is still high for an industrialized country. For the natural increase rate, Marchenko gives a figure of 14.1




per thousand, and Cook about 15 per thousand. Marchenko estimates the total population at the beginning of 1955 at 214 million.

The Soviet population is also changing in other respects. There is a notable pre- ponderance of females over males, due in part to the effects of the war. The proportion of females in the whole population may be as high as 53 per cent. The age distribution shows greatest percentages of the total population in the age group between 20 and 49, while the proportion of persons under 19 years of age is declining. A drift of population from the countryside to the cities continues, with a net migratory increment in urban population each year, but the rural element is still the more numerous.

An inference of great interest to geographers concerns the displacement of the center of population toward the south and east. The percentage of total population living in the Asiatic part of the country (Transcaucasia, Siberia, and Central Asia) has grown from 18.44 in 1897 to 30.98 in 1926 and 39.78 in 1939. The center of population was around Tambov in 1897, but is moving toward the center of the habitable surface of the country, which lies somewhere near Omsk. This phenomenon is connected with changes taking place in the nationality structure of the population, some of which are discussed in a recent paper by the French geographer, Pierre George (Les nationalites de l'URSS, Geographia, No. 44, May, 1955, pp. 16-21).

Nationality is a difficult concept; a classification may reflect historical, racial, linguistic, ethnographic, or administrative considerations, or some combination of these. The basic structure of the Soviet nationality classification rests ultimately on linguistic and cultural categories, but in practice the administrative factor is also important. The number of languages recognized is 152, and of nationalities i88, though the exact figures are changed from time to time. The most impressive fact about Soviet nationalities is that the Slavic- speaking people constitute three-quarters of the population, and that their relative proportion continues to increase, as it has for some centuries. Of the Soviet population, about half is Great Russian, and a quarter Ukrainian or Belorussian. The rest is composed of groups speaking Turkic, Finno-Ugric, non-Slavic Indo-European, North and South Caucasic, Tungusic, Mongolic, and "Paleo-Siberian" languages, of which the first five are numerically the most significant. Each of these categories embraces tremendous cultural diversity. Much of the growth in Asiatic population can be attributed to the settlement and increase of Slavic-speaking population, especially in Western Siberia, the Far East, and Kazakhstan. The war has even brought the "abolition" of several recognized nationalities, including the Crimean Tatars, Chechen, Ingush, Balkar, Karachai, and Kalmyk, while at least one Mongolic-speaking people, the Oirot (now "Altaitsy"), was reclassified as "of mixed origin" and renamed. It is perhaps significant that recent maps of ethnic distribution in Soviet school atlases have abandoned the use of linguistic families as a basic classification device, and now classify linguistic-cultural groups simply by geographic area-"peoples of Central Asia," "peoples of the Northwest of the European U.S.S.R.," and so on, have replaced the "Turkic peoples," "Indo-European peoples," and the like of former ethnic maps.

Just as most of the numerous peoples of Old Russia might consider themselves as "Russians" if they were Orthodox in religion and led a sedentary agricultural life, the peoples of the U.S.S.R. may be drifting toward a single ethnic identification based on Communist ideology, industrialization, urbanization, and the Russian language as the basic elements of a common culture.-PHILIP L. WAGNER



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 27I

AFRICA

THE ROLE OF ENSETE IN ETHIOPIA. Ethiopia remains in the minds of many persons today a little-known Christian kingdom isolated in the mountains of East Africa and visited largely by intrepid adventurers. That such is no longer the case, and that we have begun to view Ethiopia with new perspective, is affirmed by the number of recent scholarly works dealing with the country and its many landscapes and peoples. Perhaps the most interesting of these works for cultural geographers is W. Stiehler's "Studien zur Landwirtschafts- und Siedlungsgeographie Xthiopiens" (Erdkuinae, Vol. 2, 1948, pp. 257-

282), for it is the first serious attempt to describe and explain regional differences in agricultural geography and human settlement in the Ethiopian highland.

The Ethiopian plateau (average elevation about 7000 feet) is one of the most interesting and varied parts of the world in terms of culture and agriculture, for it is a region of transition between the Middle East and Negro Africa. In the northern highland, which is dominated by peoples with close ties with the Middle East, speaking Semitic languages such as Amharic and Tigrinya, the plow is the common implement of field cultivation and cereals (among them the tiny-seeded Ethiopian grain teff (Eragrostis teff) and legumes are the important food plants. In many parts of the southern highland, as in much of Negro Africa, the hoe and digging stick are still used to prepare the fields for planting, and root crops such as sweet potatoes, taro, and yams, and vegetatively-reproduced plants such as the false-banana, or ensete (Musa ensete or Ensete edule), are the staple food crops.

Among the interesting questions considered by Stiehler is the relation between settlement forms and types of agriculture. It is his belief that single farmsteads are characteristic of the areas of ensete culture and group settlements typical of the areas of plow-cereal farming. With the spread of Semitic influence into southern Ethiopia, plow-cereal cultivation was accepted gradually, apparently forcing a narrowing of areas of ensete cultivation and a change from single farmsteads to group settlements where grain and the plow were adopted. This change in agricultural pattern in Ethiopia seems to be closely connected with the acceptance of the cultural preferences and prejudices of the Semitic-speaking Amharas, who relish cereals but despise ensete.

Stiehler's article was based on a larger work on Ethiopia that was about to be published at Stuttgart during World War II when, as the editor put it, it "fell victim to the air war." This unfortunate event has kept us from seeing the complete results of Stiehler's many years of research and renders understandable the serious deficiency in documentation of the article and the three maps accompanying it. Indeed, the reader has no way of determin- ing Stiehler's basis for many of his statements or for his maps, and the work must remain suggestive rather than authoritative. Nevertheless, this article has already become the field companion of many of the continental cultural geographers who travel and work in Ethiopia, for it provides an excellent background sketch for observation of the cultural landscape.

In 1953-1954, the Finnish-Scandinavian Geographical Expedition to Ethiopia under- took some interesting research, especially in the country to the east of the Rift Valley in southern Ethiopia. The first results of the expedition have recently been published in a monograph by its leader, Professor Helmer Smeds of the Department of Geography at the University of Helsingfors (The Ensete Planting Culture of Eastern Sidamo, Ethiopia, Acta Geographica, Vol. 13, No. 4, 1955). This monograph deals with the curious, banana-




like, cultivated Ensete edule, which has attracted considerable attention from botanists and taxonomists since 1773, when the explorer James Bruce brought to Europe the first detailed sketches and information about the plant. The ensete however, is more than an isolated botanical curiosity; in parts of southern Ethiopia it is the mainstay of the local diet. In some areas, such as the Eastern Sidamo region studied by Professor Smeds, it forms the basis for what is almost a single-crop agriculture, though elsewhere it is only one crop among many. Unlike most of the true bananas (Musa), to which it is related, the ensete grows at altitudes where the climate is cool and not in hot, rain-forest country. In fact, as Smeds points out, the cultivated Ensete edule occurs in Ethiopia at altitudes of from about 5,000 to 10,000 feet, higher in its upper limit than most grains.

Curiously, it is not the fruit of the ensete but its false stem that is commonly eaten, either boiled as a vegetable or pounded, buried, fermented and made into a sort of "bread." The ensete flowers and fruits just once, when the plant is from three to six years old, and then dies. The fruit is dry, has little pulp, and apparently is not usually eaten.

The ensete regions of Ethiopia are among the most densely populated sections of the country, estimates of density ranging from 180 to 450 people per square mile. Three ensete plants are said to provide sufficient food for one person. Smeds describes the "circular- shaped, closely fenced plantations" of ensete as one of the most conspicuous features of the cultural landscape in parts of southern Ethiopia, and claims that ensete cultivation is superior to the northern grain farming in maintaining fertility of the soil, because manures are extensively used in the ensete areas whereas they are not important and often not used at all in the grain regions.

Professor Smeds' study is important because he has shown that the disdain the northern Ethiopians feel for ensete food cannot be justified by reason any more than most other human food prejudices can. Still, such prejudices do exist and Smeds and Stiehler have touched on a question that has broad implications for studies of human geography: of how important cultural preferences and prejudices are in bringing about particular patterns of landscape occupance and in hindering others from developing. A study of Ethiopia's cultural landscapes in terms of cultural attitudes should prove to be extremely fruitful, for there are many other things in the country that can be understood only by reference to the preferences, prejudices, and culture history of the country.-FREDERICK SIMOONS

HUMAN GEOGRAPHY

GEOGRAPHY: A DISCIPLINE IN DISTANCE. "Geography-A Discipline in Distance" is the title of J. Wreford Watson's inaugural address as successor to the late Alan G. Ogilvie in the chair of geography at Edinburgh University (Scottish Geogr. Mag., Vol. 71, 1955, pp. 1-13). Distance, as a measurable phenomenon, is "an indication of the extent to which objects have adapted themselves to, or dominated, their environment." It involves distribution not only in space but in time. The importance of the latter, the historical view, it will be remembered, was the theme of one of Professor Ogilvie's last addresses, "The Time Element in Geography" (see Geogr. Rev., Vol. 44, 1954, pp. 438- 439). The plotting of geographical distance leads to correlation with all aspects of distance. The explanation of distributions in the Arctic is given as a relatively simple illustration. When man enters the picture things become much more complicated. Here is the origi- nality of Professor Watson's address. As he puts it in his introduction, ". . . geography is




always being drawn into new distances, to discover new lands and seas-not only those made by nature, but those that form or perish within the mind of man."

The concentration on man-made distributions is one of the main lines on which geography has advanced in the last fifty years. "Distance is not related to land mass, so much as to land-man ratios; it is not set against climate, so much as against the climate of ideas." Professor Watson instances the Niagara fruit belt, declining because of social rather than physical factors. "Too often agricultural belts are taken to be matters of temperature rather than temperament . . ." He deals in several such aphorisms. In man's use of the land geographical distances are qualified by cost distances. Again he takes an example from Canada, the growth of Hamilton, Ont. "Cost distance is much more than a matter of slope. In fact, it is a good deal closer to a people's psychology of slope than to slope itself." He also cites Chauncy Harris's maps of individual states of the United States by economic proportions.

The great value of addresses such as this is the thought they leave behind. This from the peroration: ". . . geography has become the measure of man, measuring the reach of his success or the degree of his failure.... Geographical distances are, in the last resort, the distances of the human spirit itself."-G.M.W.

GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS

NEW GEOGRAPHICAL PERIODICALS. From time to time it is our custom to record in these pages new serial publications in geography and in fields of tangent interest. It may come as a surprise to many-it has to us-that in the past four years the inception of 19 geographical and 18 "extracurricular" serials has been noted.

All four of the geographical periodicals currently at hand originate outside the United States. From Australia comes Cartography (Vol. 1, No. 1, December, 1954), published biannually by the Australian Institute of Cartographers, Kelvin Hall, 5s Collins Place, Melbourne, at a price of 1 o/6 per copy or ?1/i/- per year. The contents of Cartography are arranged in three sections: the "Bulletin," containing news of Institute affairs and of cartography in general; the "Journal," comprising original articles that contribute to the science of cartography, and "Abstracts" of cartographic literature and of Institute lectures and discussions. Format and type are pleasing and the illustrations, comprising half tones, black-and-white diagrams, and, in the first issue, a portion in color of the topographic map of the Northern Territory, 1 2,000,000, are nicely reproduced. The major article of the issue, on the "Application of Shoran to Australian Mapping," is indicative of the worthwhile contribution that the magazine has to offer in the realm of cartographic techniques, and the "news" features will no doubt be welcomed by cartographers every- where. Contributions are not limited to members of the Institute.

Trautsmondia, a monthly jouirnal devoted to transportation, is published by Chaix, 20 rue Bergere, Paris 9e (No. 1, October, 1954; annual subscription in France, 1600 frs., in foreign countries 1950 frs.). As indicated by its subtitle, "La revue de tous les transports," Transmnondia contains articles on railroads, highways, airlines, shipping, ports, and the like, and the contents are amply illustrated with maps, diagrams, sketches, and photographs, many of them in color. In the first issue, two articles may be mentioned as being of particular interest to geographers-"Transports de notre Afrique" and "L'energie atomique et les transports." Brief sections of informative "notes" and short review articles




dealing with specific areas or subjects (for example, "De l'Arctique a l'Antarctique," "L'essence des transports") are occasionally included.

The Institute of Indian Geographers, recently established "to encourage and facilitate the study of geography principally of India and neighbouring countries," issued its Publication No. 1 in November 1954 .(distributed through the Writers Bureau, P.B. No. 63, Patna; annual subscription Rs 4/-, U.K., 15s., U. S., $2.00). In this series, of which the frequency of issue is not given, the Institute proposes to publish "articles of scholarly quality not only by professional geographers but by authorities in related fields, both Indian and foreign." The first number comprises four articles, three by Indian authors and one by an American geographer.

In England, the Department of Geography of King's College in the University of Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne, has initiated a Research Series (No. l, October, 1954) to serve as an outlet for the "geographical investigation of problems of the region within which the University of Durham lies." The first issue is devoted wholly to the results of a study made by Mr. J. W. House on certain aspects of population growth and distribution in northeastern England since the nineteenth century. The inclusion of numerous black and white maps, diagrams, and tables add to the value of the publication and promise well for future issues. Presumably these will appear irregularly as opportunity offers. The series is varityped. Copies of the first number are available at a cost of 5 /- from The Secretary, Department of Geography, 1/2 Sydenham Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne.

A publication of general, though perhaps less immediate, interest to geographers may also be mentioned. The Wenner-Gren Foundation has inaugurated a new series with the appearance of its Yearbook of Anthropology, under the editorship of William L. Thomas, Jr. Vol. 1 in this series, which was published in July, 1955, was privately distributed in a limited edition by the Foundation; an abridged edition, for student use, is shortly to be issued by the University of Chicago Press at a cost of $3.50 a copy. In initiating the Yearbook, it is the intention of the Foundation "to bring into existence a publication devoted solely to summarizing recent scholarly achievements [in anthropology] through articles of wide scope accompanied by extensive, selected bibliographies."-W.B.F.

GEOGRAPHICAL GAZETTEERS AND THE BOARD ON GEOGRAPHIC NAMES. Where can one find an authoritative answer to the vexing problem of geographic place names? Is the name that appears on a specific map the correct one or merely one of several variants shown on other, but apparently equally "official," maps? Answers in four areas of the world at least have now become available, through a series of gazetteers initiated by the Board on Geographic Names. Volumes on British East Africa (Gazeteer No. l, C. 24,700 entries), Madagascar, Reunion, and the Comoro Islands (No. 2, c. 20,000

entries), Jordan (No. 3, c. 1,0ooo entries), and Bolivia (No. 4, c. 18,8oo entries) were published during 1955 (available from the Superintendent of Documents, United States Government Printing Office, Washington 25, D.C.; No. 1, $2.75; No. 2, $2.50; No. 3, $i.5o; No. 4, $1.25). Nine additional gazetteers in the series are scheduled to appear in the near future, ranging in scope from Albania, with 5250 entries, to Indonesia, with 50,000

entries. Eventual world-wide coverage is planned. Several years ago an article summarizing the organization of the then United States

Board on Geographical Names appeared in this journal (M. F. Burrill: Reorganization




of the United States Board on Geographical Names, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 35, 1945, pp. 647-652). It traced the changes in structure and in concepts of the function of the Board from its early beginnings under an executive order in 1890 to the date of the article's publication. Since 1945 other changes have occurred. Currently the Board is operating under Public Law 242, 8oth Congress, 1st Session, 1947. This law charges the Board and the Secretary of the Interior conjointly with the determination of geographic place names, both in the United States and abroad, for use by all federal agencies. As the result of this law, and of earlier Board activity, years of painstaking geographic and linguistic research have been applied to a systematic treatment of place names all over the world. The results of this research have been available to government agencies. In general, however, except for the published decisions of the Board, they have not been readily available to the public until the present series of gazetteers was initiated.

Types of research)required for place-name standardization vary greatly from one part of the world to another. For example, in countries using the Roman alphabet, after authoritative sources have been determined, it is often necessary to resolve variants of spell- ing. When a sovereign country decides to alter its policy on language, as the Union of South Africa did in its shift of emphasis from English to Afrikaans, the ruling of the Board must reflect this change. Likewise, the decision of the sovereign nation to rename certain features of its terrain must be reflected in the Board's findings.

In countries using a non-Roman alphabet the problem is even more complex. Where it is determined that a country has an adequate alphabet, a system of transliteration is established. Although this requires an accurate linguistic analysis of the ranges of distinctive sounds, tones, accent patterns, and other significant features, the end sought is a letter for letter relationship between the non-Roman and the Roman alphabet. In certain countries transcription is necessary, and a system designed to produce in Roman-letter symbols the equivalent foreign sounds is the basic aim. Transcription must be used in the case of non- alphabet writing systems (for example, Chinese and Japanese), in the case of languages not reduced to writing (for example, certain Pacific Island groups), and in cases where too great a discrepancy exists between the spoken and the written languages (for example, Siamese).

The work of the Board is by no means completely unknown to the general public. From time to time the Department of the Interior has issued "Decisions on Names"' for specified countries or areas, but these, in essence, represent only the knottier problems of geographic nomenclature-those names not covered by previous Board policy and those that serve to illustrate revisions of policy. It is believed that the currently issued and planned gazetteers with their larger coverage of place names will be much more generally useful. -H. THOMPSON STRAW

OBITUARIES

MALCOLM JARVIS PROUDFOOT. Malcolm Jarvis Proudfoot, associate professor of geography at Northwestern University, died suddenly on November 21, 1955, in Oxford, England, at the age of 48. He was on a year's leave of absence as a Guggenheim Fellow, engaged in research on wartime and postwar migration into the United Kingdom. As a result of his death, geography has lost an energetic and devoted disciple, and colleagues and students have lost a penetrating critic, sincere friend, and keen advisor.



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