Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 43, No. 3 (Jul., 1953), pp. 410-423Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211757 .

Accessed: 09/05/2014 00:06

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 169.229.32.137 on Fri, 9 May 2014 00:06:59 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

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

http://www.jstor.org/stable/211757?origin=JSTOR-pdf

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


GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

FLUORIDATION CENSUS. Should fluorine be added to our public water supplies in an effort to reduce the incidence of dental caries? This question is being vigorously discussed in many parts of the country, and almost 300 communities have answered it in the affirmative. As recently as I945 the first fluoridation systems were installed, in Grand Rapids, Mich., Southbury State Training School in Connecticut, and Newburgh, N. Y.; the total population served was about 200,000. Six more systems were installed in I946,

but only two in each of the following two years. By the end of I948 not quite 500,000

people were affected. Then interest increased more rapidly. Fourteen systems were added in I949, 36 in I950, and I09 in I95I, making a total of I72 systems in 37 states, serving 240 communities with a total population of 4,4I0,079. These figures were compiled for the American Water Works Association by its Committee on Fluoridation Materials and Methods (Natural and Applied Fluoridation Census, lotirn. Amer. Water Works Assn., Vol. 44, I952, pp. 553-559 and 943-946). Forty-two additional installations, not reported in the census, are known to have been completed in the first quarter of I952. Data are not available to show whether this rapid increase has continued, or whether the movement has slowed down as a result of the work of the Delaney Committee to Investigate Chemicals in Food. In the summer of I952 this Congressional committee recommended a con- servative attitude toward the fluoridation of water supplies, and such an attitude has been reflected in some recent newspaper and magazine articles (see, for example, James Rorty: Go Slow on Fluoridation! Harper's Mag., Vol. 206, I953, pp. 66-70).

Although the fluoridation of water supplies has thus increased rapidly in the last two or three years, it must be remembered that most United States communities have not yet even considered it, and that the present installations affect less than 2.5 per cent of our total

population. In community interest, Wisconsin is the leading state, with 65 fluoridation plants. Michigan follows with i8, Texas with 9, Minnesota with 8, and Kentucky and

Indiana with 5 each; the other 3I states represented have one to four plants (I4 have only one each). In numbers of people served there is likewise a notable concentration. The ten leading states (with affected populations given to the nearest thousand) are: Michigan

(678,000), Wisconsin (676,ooo), Indiana (597,000), Kentucky (358,000), Maryland (353,ooo), Texas (256,000), North Carolina (245,000), Arkansas (I64,000), New York

(I57,000), and Georgia (I38,000). In no other state wcre there as many as ioo,ooo people affected at the close of I95I. Only in the first two states, and especially in Wisconsin, was

any significant number of small communities represented; in the other states listed, the

greater part of the population affected is in a few relatively large cities. Thus most of the people in the United States are still dependent, for good or for ill,

on the fluorine naturally present in their water supplies (Anastasia Van Burkalow: Fluorine in United States Water Supplies, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 36, I946, pp. I77-I93). No complete census of natural fluorine content has yet been compiled. However, the American Water

Works Association reports that in at least IO,5o6 water systems, serving nearly 88 million

people-more than half of our total population-the natural fluorine content is less than

o.69 parts per million. According to the United States Public Health Service, this amount



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 4II

is too little to give adequate protection against dental caries: in this agency's opinion, maximum protection requires I.0 to I.4 ppm.

All the water systems now adding fluorine have a natural content of less than o.69 ppm. In a number of cities where the fluoridation systems have been in operation long enough, there has been a significant reduction in the incidence of dental caries in children. The va- lidity of this result has in several cases been checked by observations in control cities with about the same population and low natural fluorine content where fluoridation systems have not been installed. In these control cities, the rate of incidence of dental caries has remained unchanged. In spite of such results the Delaney Committee and many individuals still believe that too little is known about the possible effects of fluorine on other parts of the body, such as kidneys, heart, and bones, and even on the teeth themselves, and about the varying reactions of individuals to it, to warrant its use in programs of mass medication through the medium of public water supplies. To gather the needed information will require many years of careful observation of numerous health factors in communities using artificially fluoridated water, and comparison of these observations with similar ones made where the water has either a naturally high or a naturally low fluorine content. -ANASTASIA VAN BURKALOW

BOTANY IN ALASKA. Recently botanists have shown increased interest in Alaska. This is particularly true in the field of plant ecology as related to permafrost, glacier variation, and postglacial history. In the short time during which such studies have been conducted, significant information has been collected. Botanical workers are, in addition, pursuing new studies in other branches of plant science, such as physiology, morphology, cytology, and taxonomy. This renewed concern has been in part a result of the completion of floras of Alaskan higher plants by Dr. Eric Hulten and the late Dr. Jacob Anderson. Given such tools for comprehensive research, botanists in Alaska should make important contributions to science.

Another such tool would be an Alaskan science journal. The Arctic Institute of North America has helped meet ths need in its publication "Science in Alaska: Selected Papers of the [First] Alaskan Science Conference . . ., Washington, November 9-II, I950 (Washington, i952). Two of the papers presented deal with plant science: "Botanical Research in Alaska," by William C. Steere of Stanford University, and "The Future of Botanical Research in Alaska," by Ira L. Wiggins, scientific director of the Arctic Research Laboratory at Point Barrow.

Dr. Steere stresses the need for integration and coordination of botanical work through publication of a journal, which would offer not only complete papers but also reviews, abstracts, bibliographical lists, and general news of current Alaskan studies. Dr. Steere also emphasizes the necessity for establishing research and information centers, both in Alaska and in the United States. The Arctic Research Laboratory, operated by the Office of Naval Research, is a base for study above the Arctic Circle, and the University of Alaska, near Fairbanks, is well situated for work in the interior. Research centers should, however, be organized on the Pacific coast in such localities as Anchorage and Juneau.

Dr. Wiggins in his paper presents a resume of botanical history. Since I74I, when plants were first studied in the Territory by the naturalist Steller, emphasis has been placed on the recording of the total assemblage of species. This is the prime requisite in the con-



4I2 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

struction of a botanical framework in a new region. The two existing floras of the higher plant groups now available permit most of the natural populations to be identified. There is, however, no complete taxonomic treatise of the lower plants such as mosses and fungi. Dr. Wiggins indicates the need for trained personnel and financial support of research projects in Alaska.

The Alaskan Science Conference has done much to stimulate individuals and sup- porting agencies to take part in enriching our knowledge of the region. The continuation of studies by plant workers is of greater importance now than ever before. The position of Alaska among the countries of the Northern Hemisphere that border the strategic Arctic compels increased interest by research botanists.-CALVIN J. HEUSSER

MANUFACTURING AND AGRICULTURAL SELF-SUFFICIENCY IN CUBA. High sugar prices and expanding cane acreage in Cuba during the past decade have re- versed earlier trends toward increased self-sufficiency in foodstuffs; at the same time, it has seemed doubtful whether industrial production has kept pace with population growth. The precariousness of the underpinnings of Cuba's economy has been underscored in a 105o-page document, "Report on Cuba: Findings and Recommendations of an Economic and Technical Mission Organized by the International Bank for Reconstruction and De- velopment in Collaboration with the Government of Cuba in I950" (Francis Adams Truslow, Chief of Mission, Washington, I95I).

The chronic lack of confidence in Cuba's future, which has deterred Cuban and foreign capitalists alike from investment in new island industries, is traced directly to the highly volatile world price of sugar. The very dominance of sugar (it accounted for 87.5 per cent of Cuba's exports in 1951) itself discourages both industrial and agricultural diversification; for when the price of sugar is high, nothing is so profitable, but when it is low, nothing is profitable. In recent years, in the face of unrealistically low price ceilings placed on virtually all agricultural commodities except sugar, the centrales have been re- quired to pay the high sugar-industry wage rates to workers in other crops as well, so that agricultural diversification has been made economically unprofitable on most large landholdings. As a result, one of the most fertile countries on earth was in I95I still im- porting 45 per cent of its food calories. Relative to requirements, imports of beef, eggs, fats and oils, potatoes, beans, and condensed milk (but not rice) were all larger than in

the prewar period. Yet in Cuba labor is a glut on the market, even during the sugar harvest. The National Association of Cuban Insustrialists estimates that employment in man-

ufacturing industries other than sugar at the end of I95I was about II3,000, of whom

go per cent were employed in legally organized, tax-paying companies, the remainder in

small, clandestine operations. The strong seasonality of employment in the cane fields and sugar centrales, where perhaps soo,ooo Cubans find their chief source of livelihood, is inevitably reflected in retail trade and consumers' goods manufacturing industries. With such a premium on jobs, there has developed a highly vocal and effective opposition to mechanization and cost-reducing innovations in industry. The discharge of employees for legitimate causes has been made difficult if not impossible, and, with hourly wages high even by United States standards, the growing power and influence wielded by labor

unions appear to be seriously jeopardizing Cuba's economic development. Columbus was impressed by the quantities of cotton he saw in Cuba, and as recently

as 1840 the island was exporting the fiber to Spain; yet today Cuba's cotton textile industry



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 4I3

operates exclusively on imported cotton. The industry, employing at capacity some I2,000

persons, has grown up entirely since the First World War and has substantially expanded during the past decade, so that its equipment is much more modern and efficient than that in most other Latin-American countries. In most of the mills, located in Habana and in the smaller towns within a 50-mile radius, the operators are men. The island's 87,000 spindles produce about one-third of the yarn consumed in Cuba, and its knit-goods and woven-goods industries produce 40-45 per cent of average requirements, chiefly un- printed, coarse goods. A high protective tariff on fabrics, including finer shirtings and print goods not made in Cuba, has led to extensive contraband trade by both plane and ship. The large, 25oo-employee Ariguanabo mill at Bauta manufactures the bulk of the yarn and yard goods. Recently the management plowed back most of its wartime profits into a modern, 20-million-dollar viscose-rayon mill at Matanzas, which uses imported fuel oil, dissolving wood pulp, caustic soda, and other chemicals (including sulphur for the adjacent sulphuric acid plant) hauled by truck or rail the 70 miles from the port of Habana. Although the Matanzas location seems to have been chosen in part because of fresh-water requirements, local port facilities should eventually be developed. Cia. Rayonera Cubana de Matanzas, employing I200 female operators, supplies the greater part of the rayon used by Cuba's highly protected clothing industry, but the profitable export market for tire cord has been expanded at the expense of filament, staple, and fabric production. Because rayon manufacture was entirely new to Cuba, it met no re- sistance to the use of labor-saving machinery and no pressure to hire extra workers, so that the resultant unit cost of production is said to be considerably lower than for the average United States viscose plant.

The other major consumers' goods industries of Cuba-clothing, shoes, bread and pastries, pharmaceuticals and perfumes-are all characterized by many small units and hand methods, though in the shoe industry half the total output is believed to come from IO large plants that together employ scarcely 5 per cent of the I4,000 workers in the industry. Cigar export has declined in recent years, and the majority of the I3,000 cigar workers are producing for the domestic market. By law, machine-made cigars can supply no more than 20 per cent of the domestic market, but machinery has replaced the laborious hand rolling in the export manufacturing.

Except for the big cotton and rayon mills, foreign capital has been relatively un- important in Cuban industry; even in the sugar industry Cuban capital now controls more than 54 per cent. However, branch plants of large United States ccrporations account for most of the tire, cement, flour milling, soap, paint, metal container, and kerosene production. The overwhelming majority of the larger industrial plants are in or near Habana, with Matanzas a secondary center. In the provinces there are railway shops at Camagiiey, cement mills in Pinar del Rio and Oriente, and breweries at Santiago and Santa Clara. Rum and alcohol manufacture, which employs some 3000 workers, is for the most part associated with the sugar centrales.

Through the offer of duty-free import of machinery and raw materials, numerous tax exemptions, and the privilege of fast amortization of plant investment, the government has recently attempted to encourage new industry, but the results have not been impressive. For heavy industry, the lack of the traditional fuels and the limited market will always be major deterrents, though both bagasse and sugar-derived alcohol ease the energy problem. Increased production of food crops, of kenaf and cotton fibers, of molasses-fed livestock,



4I4 THE GEOGRAPHIC AL REVIEW

bagasse paper, and sugar-cane wax still seems a logical point of attack against the evils of sugar monoculture and at the same time would permit full advantage to be taken of Cuba's exceptional combination of soil and climate.-JAMES J. PARSONS

EUROPE

THE URBAN HIERARCHY IN EUROPE. Recent geographical research in Germany, Britain, Scandinavia, and Switzerland is making clearer the fundamental nature of the urban hierarchy and providing new methods of measuring the zones of urban influence. Christaller has been the most vigorous proponent of theoretical analysis of the urban hierarchy. The chief weakness of his "law of central places," first postulated in 1933

(Walter Christaller: Die zentralen Orte in Siiddeutschland [Jena, I933]; summarized by Robert E. Dickinson in "City Region and Regionalism" [London, I947]), is his insistence on the hexagonal pattern of service areas in a uniformly populated territory. Christaller does note that a linear arrangement of centers along a route of long-distance transport causes lateral elongation of tributary areas (Comptes Rendus Congr. Itnternatl. de Geogr., Amsterdam, 1938, Vol. 2, Sect. IIIa, Leiden, I938, pp. I23-I38). He also recognizes the agglomerating power of large-scale factory industry. In his latest monograph (Das Grund- geriist der raumlichen Ordnung in Europa, Frankftirter Geogr. Hefte, Vol. 24, No. I, I950)

he sets forth another location principle: administrative coordination requires all subsidiary centers to be within the administrative territory of higher centers. Yet he discounts the control exercised by all except the service-area principle, and his ratios of population, rank, and service areas seem to be derived from a priori assumptions rather than from empirical eviderce.

In Germany, Christaller has been criticized recently on the basis of empirical data. Ernst Neef finds neither the geometric scheme of spacing nor the regular order, or rank- ing, of central places in Saxony (Das Problem der zentralen Orte, Petermanns Geogr. Mitt., Vol. 94, I950, pp. 6-I7). The absence of such a system, which Neef thinks may have once been partly developed, is due to industrialization and the accompanying agglomeration of urban settlements. Evidence from 40 German cities and their service areas assembled by Joachim H. Schultze (Zur Anwendbarkeit der Theorie der zentralen Orte, ibid., Vol. 95, I95I, pp. io6-iio) and his co-workers shows that the exceptions outweigh Christaller's ratios. Schultze reports, however, that there is correspondence between the percentage of population engaged in central services and the relative size of urban hinterlands.

In Britain both central services and hinterlands have been examined. Arthur E. Smailes finds five grades of urban centers, defined and ranked in terms of functional criteria (The Urban Hierarchy in England and Wales, Geography, Vol. 29, I944, pp. 4I-

sI). His maps of the location and spacing of these five grades of centers in England and Wales display no evidence of Christaller's hexagonal scheme (The Urban Mesh of England and Wales, Inst. of British Geogrs. Puibl. No. 11, I946, pp. 85-IOI). Smailes treats briefly the question of access to urban services and suggests some methods for delimiting what he calls "urban fields," that is, urban spheres of influence (The Analysis and Delimitation of Urban Fields, Geography, Vol. 32, I947, pp. I 5i-i6i). F. H. W. Green finds that by mapping local bus routes and the frequency of bus services on these routes he is able to determine satisfactorily the hinterlands of nearly all urban centers in Great Britain and




Northern Ireland, but not in Eire (Motor-Bus Centres in South-West England Considered in Relation to Population and Shopping Facilities, Inst. of British Geogrs. Publ. No. 14, I949,

PP. 57-68; Town and Country in Northern Ireland, Geography, Vol. 34, I949, pp. 89-96; Urban Hinterlands in England and Wales: An Analysis of Bus Services, Geogr. Journ., Vol. ii6, I950, pp. 64-88; Bus Services as an Index to Changing Urban Hinterlands, with Particular Reference to Somerset, Town Planning Rev., Vol. 22, I95I-I952, pp. 345-356; [with J. B. Fleming] Some Relations between Country and Town in Scotland, Scottish Geogr. Mag., Vol. 68, I952, pp. 2-I2). Like Smailes, Green finds five orders of urban centers in Great Britain. His method allows delineation of hinterlands in which functions typical of the smallest centers are significant. On this basis Green arrives at generalizations concerning the ratio of tributary areas to population and services in the centers.

Investigations of Skane, Sweden, by Sven Godlund are also based on analysis of bus services (Bus Services, Hinterlands, and the Location of Urban Settlements in Sweden, Specially in Scania, Ltind Studies in Geogr., Ser. B, Human Geography, No. 3, I951, pp. I4-

24). The boundary between the bus traffic area of one center and those of its neighbors is a transition zone rather than a sharp line. Where a large center competes with a smaller center, the boundary between them is displaced toward the smaller center. Godlund recognizes four grades of centers in this part of Sweden, distinguished by progressive increase in the variety of retailing trading establishments and by progressively higher indices of centralization. By means of his index of centralization it is possible not only to determine a center's rank in the hierarchy but also to determine whether or not a settlement is developed as a trade center. Edgar Kant puts forward some interesting observations on the significance of centralized regions in rural-urban migration, banking, wholesale trade, and political spheres of influence, with examples from Estonia and Hungary (Umland Studies and Sector Analysis, ibid., pp. 3-I3).

Oiva Tuominen's exhaustive study of Turku and its competing centers (Das Ein- flussgebiet der Stadt Turku im System der Einflussgebiete SW-Finnlands, Fennia, Vol. 7I, No. 5, Helsinki, I949) analyzes the areas of retail trade, agricultural collecting, professional services, and newspaper circulation from answers to questionnaires obtained from 2 to 3 per cent of the rural households in the study region. His originality lies in his deri- vation of the relatives Einfluissgebiet (relative area of influence), whose boundaries are the limits within which there are relatively more relationships with one center than with any of the competing cmters. The position of the "relative" boundary between two trade centers (A and B) he expresses as a percentage:

(Distance from A to boundary) x iOO Proportional range Total distance from A to B - (Reichweitenverhaltnis) of

influence of A (as compared to B).

Tuominen is able to correlate the range of influence with the square root of the number of retail stores in each of the centers. Accordingly, the position of the boundary between two other centers (C and D) may be predicted according to the formula:

- Retail stores in C x iOO Proportional range of influence of C (as com-

-J Retail stores in C + i Retail stores in D pared to D).

He recognizes eight classes of settlements, including two of no importance as trade centers.




The Swiss geographer Hans Carol, on the basis of his findings in Canton Zurich and the Karroo region of South Africa, holds that there is a universal gradation of central places in seven main orders (Das agrargeographische Betrachtungssystem, Geographica Helvetica, Vol. 7, I952, pp. I7-67). The two lowest orders are types of central places engaged in agricultural production from the surrounding fields; hence it is more accurate to say that Carol believes there are five universal orders of trade centers. Each of the main orders is subdivided three times, creating 2I suborders in the hierarchy. In Switzerland, Carol finds only three main orders represented; in South Africa, perhaps four.

So far, research has been concerned primarily with northern, or Germanic, Europe. The discernment of functional gradations among trade centers and the mapping of hinterlands in southern Europe and in the regions of overseas expansion of European settlement, as well as in regions of non-European cultures, will test the value of these preliminary conclusions and shed new light on the spatial organization of man's activities on the earth. -JOHN E. BRUSH

AFRICA

INTERNAL COLONIZATION IN NIGERIA. One of the most striking features cf the Nigerian population map is its extreme patchiness, the result mainly of past slave raiding and internal wars, which brought about a defensive concentration of population in and around the walled cities of the Sudan zone, in the shelter of the southern rain forest, and on the boulder-littered hilltops of the Middle Belt and the Cameroons. With the establishment of British control the importance of the security factor has declined, and the old pattern of population is breaking down: settlers are leaving the northern towns and establishing farms in the empty bush; the pagan farmers of the Middle Belt are moving down from their hill settlements into the more responsive lowlands; and the Ibo are diffusing throughout the South as farmers and white-collar workers. The redistribution of population has given rise to problems of land tenure, problems of disease control resulting from increased man-tsetse contact in newly settled bush, and, not least, problems of land use arising from the replacement of old conservational systems of farming by uncontrolled shifting cultivation.

In a discussion of land settlement in the Nigerian Middle Belt, "An Experiment in Resettlement" (Government Printer, Kaduna, I95I), E. 0. W. Hunt points out that there are in Nigeria two main schools of thought regarding settlement. The first is based on the conviction that men cannot be permanently helped by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves; and in settlement schemes thus motivated, only the absolute minimum (construction of roads, provision of water supplies and of food during the first season) is done for the settler. Emphasis in the second school of thought is on heavy capitalization, which makes possible rapid results and high profits, so that the settler can discharge his debt within a few years.

The first approach is represented by the Shendam Agricultural Development and Resettlement Scheme, which aims at the control of the downhill migration of pagan farmers and the agricultural development of the thinly peopled Shendam area in southern Plateau Province (Annual Report of the Northern Regional Production Development Board, I950-I [Kaduna, I95I]). The progressive establishment of groups of villages to

which migrants can be directed, across the main lines of advance, is helping to achieve this




objective. These villages are established by communal self-help and will accommodate between 40 and 70 settlers with their families; each settler will receive about 20 acres of land, of which a third will be used for food crops and two-thirds for cash crops. Each settlement has its own grazing land and communal forest area, on the basis of 40 acres to a settler. Sleeping sickness is a problem, but health in the interim period is being watched over by the Sleeping Sickness Service. Cropping is based on a system of rotation and manuring drawn up by the Agricultural Department, and erosion control is ensured by grass strips along the contour. Small areas offadama (seasonal swamp) hold potentialities for rice growing, and almost one-fourth of the cropland of Sabon Gida village, the first one established, was under rice in I949; in the Shemankar Valley, on the western fringe of the settlement area, rice is grown on a larger scale by the use of machinery. Improve- ment of communications has been an essential part of the Shendam Scheme.

The Kontagora Native Authority Land Settlement Scheme, initiated in I948 with the aim of opening up underpopulated areas in Kontagora Emirate in Niger Province, repre- sents an application of the second approach to settlement. It is planned that I 5 settlements will be established by 1954, each of 20 farmers. Holdings will average 35 acres, of which half will be fallow; they will be cultivated with plow and cattle, and the main crops will be Guinea corn and groundnuts, with the possibility of irrigated production of sugar cane and vegetables on alluvial streamside land. The scheme is financed by the Kontagora Native Authority, which is advancing ?250 to each settler for the clearing of the land by paid labor and for the purchase of stock and equipment. In addition, ?86oo has been advanced by the Regional Production Development Board for buildings and the development of mixed farming. The first hamlet was established in I949.

A more ambitious scheme of planned development in this same area is the Niger Agricultural Project, reported in the Commonwvealth Survey of October I3, I950, which hopes to combine modern methods of farming with the traditional system of peasant landholding. The Niger Project aims at the development of 65,ooo acres of empty savanna country under a system of tenant mixed farming; it is managed by an operating company in which the Nigerian government and the Colonial Development Corporation hold equal shares. The project, to be spread over seven years, will establish ten villages, each consisting of eighty 48-acre peasant holdings. Mechanized equipment is being used in clearing, and the ultimate aim is to establish a large cultivated area, cropped by scientific methods, where each settler can retain his village community life. ByJanuary, I952, some 7000 acres had been cleared and the first village established. Yields from the first year's crops were low, but the loss was not unexpected in this initial stage (Colonial Develop- ment Corporation: Report and Accounts for I95I [London, I952]). A six-year, three- course rotation scheme has been planned, and livestock will be integrated into the system. Cooperation between settlers and management has been good.

In contrast with these schemes, based on cultivation of annual crops in areas of open savanna woodland, is the Bamenda-Cross River-Calabar (B.C.C.) Scheme, a project of planned settlement based on perennial tree crops in the southern forest zone. The scheme was designed to test the possibilities of planned redistribution of population between the overpopulated areas of Iboland and the empty forest country in eastern Calabar Province. The main settlement was to accommodate 200 families; its economy was to be based on a iooo-acre plantation of oil palms and on the cultivation of the basic food crops. Each




settler was to receive I7 acres: 2 acres for his house and compound, io acres for food crops, and 5 acres of oil palms, the palms to be maintained by the settler and leased to him when the trees began to bear, after their fourth year. Provision was made for cash advances up to ?60 to assist settlers to establish themselves. Rent was fixed at 5 per cent of the capital value of the land, and the settlers were expected to cultivate in accordance with the instructions of the Planning Authority. Unfortunately, the scheme has been only moderately successful, and in I950 a radical modification was decided upon (Second Annual Report of the Eastern Regional Production Development Board [London and Enugu, I95I]). The scheme is now divided into two parts: an Eastern area, where II5

settlers have been established, which will remain under the control of the B.C.C. Author- ity; and a Western area, of some 3000 acres, which was leased to the Regional Production Development Board for development as a palm-oil plantation. The reasons for the slight success of the venture include rising costs, inadequate supervision, the failure of the settlers to maintain the palms, and the opportunism of many settlers "anxious to get rich quickly ... and keen to stay on the scheme only so long as cash advances were made to them."

The importance of these schemes lies not in the acreages or in the numbers of settlers -it will be clear from the foregoing account that these are small-but in the information the projects can yield on the potentialities of new techniques and new forms of settlement in the pioneer-fringe areas of Nigeria. If schemes such as the Niger Agricultural Project or the Shendam Scheme should prove their worth, the way will be open for an agricultural revolution, a revolution that will go far toward bridging the economic and social gap between the Middle Belt and the remainder of Nigeria.-KEITH BUCHANAN

ETHIOPIA, ERITREA, AND SOMALIA. Few lands excite more sympathy or interest than Ethiopia and its neighbors. Now that Eritrea has federated with Ethiopia, and Somalia is being prepared for independence, we should take stock of new literature.

D. A. Talbot's "Contemporary Ethiopia" (Philosophical Library, New York, I952)

attempts "to inform the public of what has actually been taking place in this ancient yet new country for the past two generations." The enthusiastic author has spent several years in Ethiopia, and in journalistic fashion he covers many topics. Geographers will find particularly useful the chapters on agriculture, commerce and industry, communications, and land tenure. This last aspect may be supplemented for Eritrea by Professor S. F. Nadel's articles in Africa ("Land Tenure on the Eritrean Plateau," Vol. i6, I946, pp. I-22

and 99-IO9).

After World War II, Ethiopia hoped ardently for the incorporation of both Eritrea and former Italian Somaliland. The first objective, to which she had most right on his- torical and economic grounds, was essentially achieved in I952, when Eritrea became an

autonomous unit federated with Ethiopia. The Eritrean plateau, on which Asmara, the capital, lies, is inhabited by people identical with those of the adjacent Ethiopian province of Tigre-largely Christian Copts speaking Tigrinya, a derivative of the ancient Semitic language known as Geez.

The greatest virtue of the federation is that it gives Ethiopia access to the sea. While Eritrea was under Italian rule, Ethiopia had to rely on the French-owned Addis Ababa-

Djibouti railway for her external trade. Now she has Massawa, a natural and well-equipped seaport built on two connected islands, and also the smaller port of Assab. Eritrea has like-




wise a good system of roads and a railway connecting Massawa with the highlands. In fact, communications are the most useful legacy of Italian rule.

About half of the Eritrean population, however, is linguistically, ethnographically, and by religion distinct from that of the highlands. Tact and compromise will be necessary to bring about political and social harmony. At the same time friendly relations are essential with the neighboring Sudan, which has links with the Eritrean lowland peoples.

Ethiopia did not obtain former Italian Somaliland, the poorest of all the Italian colonies. Instead, it was put under Italian trusteeship in I950, with the proviso that it be prepared for independence by I960 at the latest. Many will know of E. Sylvia Pankhurst's moving book "Ex-Italian Somaliland" (Watts & Co., London, I954). Now Robert Gavin, of the International Labour Office, has also given a vivid and scholarly account of the problems of this scorched land (Economic and Social Conditions in Somaliland under Italian Trusteeship, Internatl. Labour Rev., Vol. 66, 1952, pp. 22I-245). He shows that Somalia has no sufficient indigenous society, political structure, or economic basis suitable for even the bare framework of a state. Most Somalis display a supreme contempt for economic incentives. Indigenous economy is based on the poorest nomadism, the most incredibly primitive subsistence farming, and the collection of incense and gum. Europeans grow bananas, sugar cane, sesame, and cotton; the Somalis, millet, maize, sesame, and cotton. Four-fifths of the people are nomads, who regard agriculture and routine work as fit only for slaves; illiteracy is almost universal. There are practically no industries (or ever likely to be) other than those based on the crops mentioned, and there is an absolute lack of technicians. Of a total population of I 1 million, there are no more than 50,000 ever-changing casual employees. Trade is mostly with Italy; the chief exports are bananas, hides, skins, and cotton. Imports and expenditure are twice exports and revenue, and the situation is not likely to change, except for the worse. Heavier taxation is already necessary to support the unasked-for apparatus of forthcoming statehood.

Rainfall ranges from I2-I5 inches a year on the coast to a maximum of 24 inches near Bardera. But it is highly variable, and effective moisture is far less. Twelve million acres have reasonable possibilities for agriculture; 60 million acres (5o per cent of the area) are poor, often tsetse-ridden, pasturelands, occasionally used for catch crops; 45 million acres are practically useless, and 4 million are totally unusable (together 40 per cent of the area). Thus io per cent only is cultivable, and only I per cent of that is actually cultivated, largely by Italian immigrants on their i8o,ooo acres of concessions. The basic cause of Somalia's poverty is the extreme aridity and the nomadic way of life, together with intertribal friction and boundary disputes, all connected with desperate claims to water holes and pasture rights. Cattle are almost the only considerable resource, and, as elsewhere in Africa, they are kept not for economic return but for social prestige.

The physical environment and human composition of Eritrea and the problem of the fragmented Somalis have been outlined by R. J. Harrison Church in "Modern Coloniza- tion" (Hutchinson's University Library, London, I95I, pp. I35-I40). The Somalis are divided between the areas under Italian trusteeship and British Somaliland, French Somali- land, Ethiopian Ogaden, and part of northern Kenya. During and after World War II there was hope that most of these areas might be regrouped under some new administration-surely preferable to insistence on the early independence of a part only of the Somalis' home.-Y. A. HAGGAG and R. J. HARRISON CHURCH



420 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

THE PETROLEUM RECORD. The expansive petroleum industry is constantly out- dating itself. To keep track of the principal changes year by year, many have come to rely on the annual (July I5) International Operations Issue of World Oil. The series of colored diagrammatic maps published in these issues was begun in I946 as the "World Oil Atlas," based on a nucleus prepared in the Foreign Production Division of the Petro- leum Administration for War. Compilation and cartography have been maintained by the editors of World Oil from data supplied by "its correspondents and friends throughout the world," including "many governments, oil companies and other interested persons."

For the I952 edition most of the maps that appeared in I95I were redrawn and brought up to date, and several new ones were added. The individual maps are grcuped in three large folded sheets, suitable for mounting as wall maps. On continental maps are shown "oil possibilities" -areas considered "favorable," "possible," and "unfavorable." Regional maps, on various scales, show national boundaries, the approximate extent of the productive areas, producing oil and gas fields, refineries, pipelines, and rail lines used for oil transport. The United States, Alaska, Central America, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Eastern Europe, the U.S.S.R., China, the Philippines, British Borneo, Australia, and New Zealand are not included. However, the names of the concessionaires and statistics on exploration, production, pipeline and refinery capacity, and reserves are given in articles on each of these countries except the United States, as also on the mapped countries, and in articles and tables summarizing the data for the world. Figures for the United States are included only in the world tables.

None of the maps on World Oil's three sheets indicate structure. For this and for more detailed surveys of world exploration and prospects the annual reviews published by the Bulletin of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, illustrated with black-and- white maps, are a convenient reference. About half of the July, 1952, issue is devoted to "Highlights on I95i Developments" in South America and the Caribbean, Europe except the U.S.S.R., Africa, the Middle East and Asia east to Burma, and the Far East.

The June, I952, issue of the Bulletin is given up almost entirely to a review of exploration and developments in North America in I95I, comprising a general article on

exploratory drilling and 26 separate articles on producing areas in the United States, one on Alaska, two on Canada, and one on Mexico, all with detailed maps. Unfortunately, no map shows the oil and gas fields of the United States as a whole, but the I95I edition of the United States Geological Survey's map, I 2,500,000, entitled "Oil and Gas Fields of the United States" summarizes the information on the extent of the productive areas and the capacity of the refining centers.

Inadequate information on the U.S.S.R. causes the largest gap in the annual world

reviews. The inquirer must rely mainly on earlier maps and on scattered reports. Among them might be mentioned the series of articles by Leonid Smirnov on the regional petroleum geology of the U.S.S.R. appearing at intervals in the International Section of the monthly issues of World Oil, the chapter on "Petroleum, Natural Gas, and Asphalt" in

Demitri B. Shimkin's "Minerals: A Key to Soviet Power" (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., I953, pp. I95-2i8), and the reasoned estimates of Soviet production that are given from time to time in the monthly Petroleum Press Service, London.-D.G.



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 42I

GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS

MEETING OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN GEOGRAPHERS. The forty-ninth annual meeting of the Association of American Geographers was held at the Hotel Cleveland, in Cleveland, from March 30 to April 2, 1953; Western Reserve Uni- versity, Kent State University, and Oberlin College were hosts to the nearly 500 members attending. Three full days and two evenings were devoted to papers and discussions, and one afternoon to the annual business meeting. Professor Glenn T. Trewartha delivered his presidential address, "A Case for Population Geography," at the banquet, held on Wednesday evening, April i, at which Samuel Van Valkenburg, retiring vice-president, presided. Of the several awards presented at the dinner, the Outstanding Achievement Award was conferred upon C. Warren Thornthwaite, for his contributions to the field of climatology and, in particular, for his development of a new approach to the classification of climates; and Citations of Merit were presented to Wallace W. Atwood, Jr., for his contributions to the success of the Seventeenth International Geographical Congress; to Walter M. Kollmorgen, for his study of the dynamic character of agricultural settlement in a part of the Great Plains; to Dr. Jacques M. May, for his contributions to the knowledge of the world distribution of certain major diseases; and to Arthur H. Robinson, for his essays and inquiries into the visual aspects of cartography.

The Program Committee, under the chairmanship of Guy-Harold Smith, had grouped the papers in concurrent sessions under IS different regional and topical headings: Geo- morphology (7 papers); Anglo-America (7); Africa (5); the Middle East (5); Population (6); Latin America (5); Water (4); the Soviet Union (3); Europe (6); Urban Geography (8); Cartography (6); Geographers and Point Four (5); Theory in Economic Geography (4); Vegetation and Climate (6); and Economic Geography (8). In addition, there was an omnibus session (6 papers) and a joint session with the Far Eastern Association, which held meetings concurrently with the Association of American Geographers. Field trips were arranged to the National Tube Division of United States Steel, in Lorain, and to Nela Park, the Lighting Institute of the General Electric Corporation.

The following officers were elected for 1953: J. Russell Whitaker, president; Joseph A. Russell, vice-president; Louis 0. Quam, secretary; and Hoyt Lemons, treasurer. Henry M. Kendall continues as editor of the Annals, and Arch Gerlach as editor of the Professional Geographer. The I954 meeting of the Association will be held in Philadelphia from April I2 to I7, a special program to mark the semicentennial of the organization.-W.B.F.

COMMISSION FOR CLIMATOLOGY, WORLD METEOROLOGICAL ORGAN- IZATION. In I947 the long-established International Meteorological Organization (IMO) adopted a convention creating a World Meteorological Organization (WMO), and in March, I950, WMO came into existence and IMO ceased to function. Unlike its predecessor, WMO is an association of states (79 in all) rather than of meteorological services. It is a specialized agency of the United Nations, comparable in structure with the Food and Agriculture Organization, or with the World Health Organization, with which it has established fraternal relations. From its Geneva headquarters, WMO has the job of regulating world meteorology, of all the sciences the one most dependent on international accord.



422 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

At the first congress of the World Meteorological Organization, held in Paris in J95I,

eight technical commissions were set up to keep abreast of the problems of each major part of the field. To geographers, the Commission for Climatology is probably the most significant. It held its first meeting at the Department of State in Washington, March I2-25, I953, under the presidency of Dr. C. W. Thornthwaite. The sessions were attended by delegates of I9 member states; other United Nations agencies were represented, as were the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (by Dr. W. B. Langbein and Dr. T. Hesselberg) and the International Geographical Union (by Dr. Peveril Meigs). The Commission elected as associate members Messrs. H. Flohn (Germany), M. H. Halstead, H. Landsberg, D. H. K. Lee, and M. Rigby (United States), F. K. Hare (Canada), and T. Sekiguti (Japan), all of whom attended. Dr. Naftali Rosenan (Israel) was elected vice-president of the meeting in the place of Dr. S. Basu (India), who could not attend.

The discussions ranged over the whole field of climatological procedure and research. The IS resolutions and 38 recommendations that emerged after the final plenary session covered a multitude of subjects. Several working parties were set up to initiate research or inquiry in significant fields. One group, for example, is to work with WHO to determine how meteorological data can be applied in the study of climate and health; another will advise bodies such as FAO on climatic classification; still another is to study microclimatology. The Organization does not yet possess adequate funds to support the activities of the working parties, but it is hoped that this obstacle will be overcome shortly.

The Commission also considered the question of the arid-zone programs now being carried out by various agencies. The view was expressed that in many of these programs insufficient weight is being given to the climatic factor. The Commission recommended that UNESCO make climatology the central theme of both its Arid Zone program and its projected Humid Tropics program for one year and offered the full cooperation of WMO. It endorsed the homoclimatic maps of the arid zone prepared for UNESCO by Dr. Peveril Meigs and recommended that member states assist in the Coastal Desert program being initiated by the Arid Zone Commission of the International Geographical Union. At the last plenary session Dr. C. W. Thornthwaite was re-elected president, and Dr. A. Angstrdm of Sweden was elected vice-president.-F. KENNETH HARE

WORLD DIRECTORY OF GEOGRAPHERS. Several years ago a useful new reference

work appeared, called, provocatively, "Who Knows-And What?" (A. N. Marquis Co., Chicago, I949). Only a sparse scattering of American geographers were included-under-

standably, since so many fields were covered-but enough to make one wish for a full

listing of geographers, their activities and interests. This wish has now been prodigally fulfilled with the appearance of the "World Directory of Geographers," recently published by the International Geographical Union.

The Directory is a compilation of 35I7 names, resulting from the distribution of

more than 4500 questionnaires to 60 different countries. Where countries were members

of the International Geographical Union, the respective National Committees were

charged with the responsibility of deciding which names should be included-in fact, of interpreting the Directory Committee's definition of a professional geographer as

one with special training in or scholarly contribution to the field, who devotes most of

his time to geographic work." The entries, listed alphabetically by country, comprise



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 423

name, date of birth, position or affiliation, address, and special interests; a complete cross index of the "special interests" renders the Directory doubly useful. There is no doubt that geographers everywhere will be increasingly appreciative of the efforts of the com- pilers.-W.B.F.

OBITUARIES

WILLIAM HERBERT HOBBS. The death of William Herbert Hobbs on January i, I953, brought to a close one of the most colorful and dynamic careers in American geology and geography. Hobbs was known the world over as teacher, scientist, and explorer, and his exuberance and vitality spilled over into public affairs.

Hobbs was born in Worcester, Mass., onJuly 2, I864. He became a student at Worces- ter Free Institute of Industrial Science (later Worcester Polytechnic Institute), where his ability to draw led him into the field of design; in fact, he contemplated and actually embarked upon a career in fabric designing. He subsequently undertook graduate work at TheJohns Hopkins University, and it was his contact there with great figures in geology

especially George Huntington Williams, the famous mineralogist-that deflected him from his intended career in chemistry toward one in geology.

Hobbs furthered his graduate studies at Heidelberg University, but in the summer of I889 he returned to the United States and was appointed instructor in mineralogy and metallurgy and curator of the Geological Museum at the University of Wisconsin. He remained at Wisconsin until he was called to the chair of geology at the University of Michigan in I906.

At Michigan, Hobbs, with the boundless energy that characterized him, cleared up the confusion and clutter he found, organized a department, and drew to himself one by one a group of able men. At the time of his retirement in I934, the staff of the department had increased to ten, and the student enrollment in geology courses from I3I to I035.

At Wisconsin, Hobbs's work had been largely in mineralogy, but at Michigan he left this field for dynamic and structural geology, in which he won his special fame. His catholicity of interests became increasingly evident and brought to him and his work the attention of scholars in all parts of the world. His physical vitality and zeal for exploration found expression in journeys that took him to Europe many times, to Africa twice, to the Pacific islands, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Hawaiian Islands, to Greenland several times, and practically all over the United States.

During these years of teaching, travel, and research, Hobbs's active mind contributed new and often controversial ideas on such varied subjects as coral atolls, growth of mountains, glaciers, volcanism, and earthquakes. He published all told more than four hundred papers and books. One of his best was "Characteristics of Existing Glaciers" (New York, I9II); he will probably be remembered longer and held in higher esteem for his researches in glacial geology than in any other field. The name of Hobbs is found on earth features in various parts of the globe: five glaciers bear his name, three mountains, a segment of the coast of the Antarctic Continent, and a number of lesser geographic features.

Although it might be an exaggeration to say that Hobbs looked for controversy, he certainly never avoided it, in defending either his scientific or his political ideas. His interest in politics and his proneness to argument often brought down violent storms on his head. His strong objection to the League of Nations caused one of the most tempestu-



Date post:	08-Jan-2017
Category:	Documents
Upload:	dokhue
View:	213 times
Download:	0 times

Geographical Record

Documents