Geographical Record

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Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 47, No. 4 (Oct., 1957), pp. 582-596Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/211869 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE'S DEBT TO TRANSPORTATION. Architectural historians commonly seek the roots of modern design in functionally similar structures of an earlier day. However, architecture may also reflect contemporary design in other fields of construction. One of these is transportation-boats, trains, and airplanes especially. The borrowing, particularly by American residential architects, of transportation design elements is analyzed by Clay Lancaster (Transportation Design Elements in American Architecture, American Quart., Vol. 8, 1956, pp. 199-215).

To Americans' perennial love of travel is ascribed the responsibility for bringing details of the fascinating instruments of conveyance into domestic architecture. Other peoples, though sometimes for quite different reasons, have also found inspiration in transportation design. The Temple of the Sun at Konarak, Orissa, was constructed in the mid-thirteenth century in the form of the chariot that carried the Indian solar deity. Ching An Fang, the Marble Boat, was built in the lake of the New Summer Palace, Peking, in the late nineteenth century.

Among the earliest influences of transportation on American architecture are those appearing in New England in the form of the timber hipped roof, as illustrated by the "Old Ship" meetinghouse of Hingham, Mass., and the "rainbow" roofs of Cape Cod cottages. The seventeenth-century carpenters who built them had been trained as ship- wrights and presumably modeled the house roofs after ship bottoms. In reverse, it has been suggested recently that the overturned hull of the original Mayflower serves as the roof of an English cottage. Dutch New York also showed ship features in the form of ceiling beams resting on curved brackets or "knees" at the junction with the wall, and it added built-in bunks.

As the pioneering Americans crossed the Appalachians, they not only carried their goods in Conestoga wagons but also used the wagons as dwellings and, with tailboard down, as temporary shops when peddling produce that had been hauled to market. There seem to have been houses in the Ohio Valley that resembled flatboats, though none is known to have survived. But it was the steamboat of the interior rivers that in the full- ness of its development in the 1840's set the style for many architectural innovations.

The steamboat of the Mississippi and its tributary waters was distinctly an American creation. "The hull had all but disappeared below the waterline; and on a great flat oval tray was set a two-storied structure surrounded by open galleries except where inter- rupted by the big cylinder casings over the paddlewheels, with tall twin smokestacks and a cubical pilothouse on top in front." The steamboat was graceful and palatial, and it had romantic associations. Little wonder that it inspired imitation! During the forties many older houses of varied architecture added two-story porches that resembled steamboat decks. The additions normally faced the river, irrespective of the orientation of the original structure. In the 185o's the "steamboat" house became widespread. Its architectural style ran the contemporary gamut, but in the possession of prow, galleries, and pilothouse it gave unmistakable evidence of its relationship. "Steamboat gothic" was the name given the elaborate jigsaw trim borrowed from the "floating palaces" of pre-Civil War days and applied indiscriminately to any basic style.



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 583

Steamboat houses were built into the twentieth century, on the eastern seaboard as well as in the Mississippi Valley. House interiors felt the influence, as in the case of the New Orleans residence with the narrow upstairs hallway from which doors opened into "staterooms." In the East "North German Lloyd" was synonymous with elaborate and luxurious interior decor at the turn of the century.

The clear effects of the railroad age became apparent only in the late nineteenth century. One widespread expression was the revival of the ancient inglenook, a small alcove with fixed facing seats simulating the arrangement in a Pullman car-an ideal spot for an adult ete-a-tete or for children to play train. Discarded horse-drawn streetcars of the early twentieth century were widely used as dwellings, and sometimes several were combined into a fairly elaborate house. The trolley diner, in later days built specifically for the purpose, has become ubiquitous.

Frank Lloyd Wright perhaps more than any other architect has drawn upon transportation for design elements. His "prairie" house, with its long, low lines and horizontal strip windows, shows kinship with a sleek, swift-gliding train. Others of his buildings have the parallel decks of the stately steamboat, and still others reveal by cruciform plan or poised position an indebtedness to airplanes. The airplane house reached nation-wide prominence with the appearance of the "aeroplane bungalow" in 1916. This was a "low building with curved, wing-like eaves, and 'flying' bedrooms, or bedrooms on the second floor, slightly elevated, set well back over the fluttering roofs." Another step was taken in 1946 when the Beech Aircraft Corporation began production of aluminum, pumpkin- shaped dwellings, with a girdle of transparent plexiglass, altogether resembling a flying saucer rather than an orthodox plane.

From the end of the seventeenth century to the middle of the twentieth American domestic architecture has drawn uniquely from transportation. Surficial resemblance has proved always to be a fad. Better integrated are more subtle similarities-the early built-in bunks with drawers beneath for economy of space; curved instead of rectangular surfaces, drawn from the rainbow roof; and large deck areas for outdoor living. Until Americans lose their eagerness to travel (or their envy of those who do), design elements from the currently popular mode of transport are likely to creep into their houses.-FRED KNIFFEN

EUROPE

THE BRITISH ANHYDRITE SULPHURIC ACID INDUSTRY. Six years after the British raw-materials crisis in 1950, a ?25 million investment program sponsored by the United Kingdom government to encourage the greater use of indigenous sources of raw materials for production of elemental sulphur and sulphuric acid was brought to com- pletion. The aim had been to reduce by at least one-half national reliance on imported Frasch-process sulphur from the United States and Mexico for production of sulphuric acid. With respect to the production figures for 1950, this objective has been achieved, but increasing demands for, and production of, sulphuric acid have resulted in a some- what higher fraction of the total product in the first quarter of 1956 than had been hoped would be the case. The proportion of acid produced by the burning of natural sulphur has decreased considerably, and the decrease has been offset by increased use of pyrites, mainly of Spanish origin, of indigenous anhydrite (CaSO4), and of recoverable sulphur compounds present in gasworks spent oxides and in zinc concentrates.

The total production of sulphuric acid increased from 450,000 long tons of i00 per



584 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

cent acid in the first quarter of 1950 to 593,000 long tons in the first quarter of 1956.

The percentage due to the burning of Frasch sulphur declined from 57.2 to 33.5. The percentage due to the roasting of pyrites rose from 14.8 to 32 in 1954 (first quarter) and then fell to 30.5 in 1955 (first quarter) and to 25.75 in 1956 (first quarter). This represents an increase in the annual rate of consumption of pyrites from 205,000 long tons in 1950 to 458,ooo long tons in 1956. Although full use has been made of the recoverable sulphur compounds present in gasworks spent oxides and strenuous efforts have been made to recover sulphur from flue gases, zinc smelters, and industrial liquors, by far the most significant feature has been the increase in the use of anhydrite. The production of anhydrite, a plentiful natural raw material in the United Kingdom, for this purpose increased from 185,000 long tons in 1950 to 382,000 long tons in 1955. The quantity mined and consumed in the first quarter of 1956 was 176,700 long tons, an increase of 167 per cent over the first quarter of 1955. In 1950, s.s per cent of the national production of acid was derived from anhydrite, but this increased spectacularly to 7.25 per cent in the first quarter of 1955, to 14 per cent in the fourth quarter of the same year, and to 17.5 per cent in the first quarter of 1956.

Available statistics show that for the first quarter of 1956, 33.5 per cent of the national acid production was derived from natural sulphur, 3 per cent from recovered sulphur, 25.75 per cent from pyrites, 14 per cent from spent oxides, 6.25 per cent from zinc concentrates, and 17.5 per cent from anhydrite (corresponding percentages for 1950: Frasch sulphur, 57.2; pyrites, 14.8; spent oxides, 14.s; zinc concentrates, 8; and anhydrite, 5ss). The total sulphur consumption of the United Kingdom for the same period set a new record of 242,000 long tons (exclusive of sulphur in anhydrite for direct ammonium sulphate manufacture), an increase of 8.5 per cent over the same period of 1955; and of this total, 38.75 per cent was derived from indigenous sources, 22.75 per cent from imported pyrites, and 38.5 per cent from imported sulphur (Monithly Digest of Statistics, Central Statistical Office, London; Monthly Retuirnsfor the Untited Kinigdomn, The National Sulphuric Acid Association Limited, London; Qtuart. Biill., British Sulphur Corporation, Limited, London).

The planning action taken by the government in 1950-1951 comprised rationing and recovery of sulphur, exploration for new sources, research into new recovery processes, and increase of anhydrite and pyrites capacity by the extension of the experimental, full-scale anhydrite acid plant built by Imperial Chemical Industries, Ltd., at Billingham, in Durham, and the construction of two new anhydrite acid plants, one near White- haven, in Cumberland, and the other near Widnes, in Lancashire. Both the new plants and the enlargement were planned in the light of British and German operating ex- perience. They are large units of the most modern type, with fully integrated cement factories to utilize the clinker resulting from anhydrite roasting. All three plants were built with government aid by established major consumers to safeguard their production programs against future sulphur shortages due either to depletion of reserves or to strategic and economic actions between governments. Hence much of the new production is captive acid. Because of the high costs of bulk transport of acid, the two new plants are located in areas favorable for the disposal of surplus acid, and where the demand for cement is strong.

The Billingham plant was built in 1929, and a second unit was added in 1934-1935.

The anhydrite is mined from a seam 20 feet thick in Permian deposits, and suitable coal




and coke are obtainable nearby. There has always been a strong internal demand for acid in the company's complex of chemical factories in the neighborhood, and the cement by-product commands a ready market in the industrial area of northeastern England. Before the 1950 crisis the works was producing 100,000 long tons of i00 per cent acid a year from anhydrite and 6o,ooo tons from a sulphur-burning plant. The new extension (cost, ?2 million) raised the anhydrite acid capacity to 18o,ooo long tons a year, which, in view of the increasing activity in the chemical industry of the Tees estuary, is likely to be captive acid and to be consumed in the Imperial Chemical Industries' new ventures.

The new Solway Works is located two miles south of Whitehaven in the former "depressed area" of West Cumberland. The needs of the parent Marchon Products Com- pany had risen by 1950 to 5o,ooo tons of acid a year in a major undertaking that produces phosphate fertilizers, detergents, and surface-active agents. The company's request in 1950 for permission to build its own pyrites acid plant to reduce costs of bulk transport of acid to its remote location was refused by the Board of Trade, since twenty such plants were already planned.

Drilling close to the site of the parent factory revealed at shallow depths two anhydrite seams 12 feet and 17 2 feet thick, separated by shales, and thickening to 80 feet to the southwest. The Solway Works (cost, ?3 million), with its anhydrite mine, shale quarries, and cement plant, was built close to the parent factories. The first unit was begun in 1952 and was completed in May, 1955, and the second unit was in operation by November, 1955. The plant was designed and built in Germany, with the advice of Dr. H. H. Kuhne, a contributor to the Muller-Kuhne process, the first successful method of utilizing anhydrite for sulphuric acid production. The mine produces 350,000 long tons of anhydrite a year, of which 16o,ooo tons goes to the acid plant and the rest to manu- facturers of sulphate of ammonia. At a conversion rate of 1.78 tons of anhydrite for every ton of acid, the plant has a capacity of go,ooo tons of 100 per cent sulphuric acid a year, half of which is for internal consumption and the rest for sale. In addition to the anhydrite, 1oo,ooo long tons of coke and 30,000 tons of shales are fed into the coal-fired kilns annually; coal, coke, and shales are from local sources. Some ioo,ooo tons of cement clinker is produced each year in the kilns, and the cement finds a good market in the West Cumberland Development Area and in southwestern Scotland.

The works of the United Sulphuric Acid Corporation is operated on behalf of ten major consumers, mainly in the fertilizer, synthetic-textile, and transparent-paper industries, including Imperial Chemical Industries, one of the two greatest consumers. The Widnes works (cost, ?4 million) occupies a 66-acre site on the Mersey estuary in the heart of the middle-Mersey chemical region. The first unit began production in April 1955, and the second unit gave full planned production early in 1956. The capacity of the plant is 150,000 long tons of 100 per cent sulphuric acid a year, for which 240,000 tons of anhydrite a year is supplied from the British Plaster Board Company's Long Meg mine at Langwathby in Cumberland. Some 140,000 long tons of cement is processed on an adjoining site and utilized on Merseyside and in southern Lancashire.

Despite the passing of the crisis years of 1950-1953, the discovery of new supplies of sulphur, and the availability of ample quantities in world trade, the success of the long- term plans for anhydrite acid has been made possible by large-scale operation of fully integrated modern cement and acid plants, continuing high sulphur prices and dollar currency shortages, and a rising home demand. With anhydrite acid competing strongly




in the market and i00 per cent utilization of capacity reported in the first quarter of 1956, the general state of the industry shows that sulphur-burning plants are operating at 85 per cent of capacity, pyrites roasters at 75 per cent, and spent-oxide burners at 8o per cent.-ALAN D. WALTON

AFRICA

ANCIENT ROUTES IN THE SAHARA. Evidence continues to accumulate to show that trails across the Sahara were in use long before the Roman occupation of North Africa. Rhys Carpenter, in "A Trans-Saharan Route in Herodotus" (Amer. Journ. oJ Archaeol., Vol. 6o, 1956, pp. 231-242), traces the course of a trail that is referred to in the Libyan chapters of Book Four of the "History" of Herodotus. Carpenter locates the trail by comparing the descriptions in Herodotus with the geographical essays of Pliny and Ptolemy and with the present-day discoveries and descriptions of Gustav Nachtigal, H. Barth, Jean Tilho, Augustin Bernard, and E.-F. Gautier. Clues to some locations are obtained by interpreting the descriptions of Herodotus against the background of the probable geographical knowledge of the period. The origin of certain Greek words and their ancient meanings, or the methods of translating Greek into English, are keys in discovering other places.

The ancient route indicated by Herodotus apparently started at Thebes, on the Nile, ran west to the Egyptian oases of Kharga and Dakhla, swung north through Farafra and Baharia, and then continued west into Cyrenaica. Herodotus describes the route as following a ridge, with springs at roughly ten-day intervals. Carpenter finds this to correspond to the southern escarpment of Cyrenaica with the oases of Siwah, Jarabub, Jalo, and Aujila at the proper distances. Herodotus also describes fresh-water springs issuing from mounds of salt, which suggest the artesian springs that flow from clay knolls at Kharga and Dakhla.

Problems of interpretation are provided by the statement of Herodotus that the ridge and the ten-day spacing of oases continued to the Pillars of Hercules, and by certain in- consistencies. Carpenter, however, identifies the oasis of Aujila by the ancient name of "Augila," and by ancient references to abundant date palms and to the travels of coastal peoples to the oasis at the time of the date harvest.

Herodotus had only vague reports concerning the route to the west of Cyrenaica, and its course has been the subject of much speculation. Carpenter reasons that the route continued to the Fezzan and gives statements from Herodotus to support this view. Among these are references to the Garamantes, the ancient inhabitants of the region south of Tripoli, who were said to "hunt the cave-dwelling Ethiopians with four-horse cars." The rock carvings of horse-drawn chariots in the Fezzan tend to substantiate this, as does the presence of the dark-skinned Tibbu mountain people in the nearby Tibesti. References to the correct distance of the Fezzan from the coast, to agricultural practices that correspond to those of the present, and to the ancient region of "Phazania," and also other bits of evidence, add up to a convincing picture of the Fezzan as being on the ancient route.

The course of the trail beyond the Fezzan is much more difficult to locate from the clues given in Herodotus. Carpenter concludes that the route must have turned to the south and have led either to Lake Chad or to the Bodele Depression. A sketch map




shows both routes, and the evidence is given that supports each. Among other considera- tions, the trail to Lake Chad would pass by the salt mines of Bilma, which are suggested by Herodotus' description of salt mines with both white and bluish salt; the route to the Bodele Depression would pass closer to the Tibesti Massif and provide the peak of Emi Tusside as the tall mountain mentioned by Hlerodotus. Carpenter also considers another description of a desert journey in Herodotus and concludes that it probably refers to the same route. After the information contained in this second account is added, the evidence points to the trail to the Bodele Depression as the most likely ancient route. If Lake Chad was high enough at that time to drain into the Bodele Depression, it could have supported an eastward-flowing river as described by Herodotus as well as the swamps, crocodiles, and pygmies of his account.-BENJAMIN E. THOMAS

ASIA

ASIAN CITIES. Marco Polo's romantic descriptions of the urban wonders of the East have inspired Western imaginations ever since he wrote them. Certainly until a century or two ago Asian cities were larger and more numerous than cities anywhere else in the world. In 1956, Monsoon Asia contained about 35 cities of a million population or more, out of a world total of million cities probably somewhere in the seventies (depending on the definition of "urban" areas). This number corresponds fairly closely with Monsoon Asia's roughly half of the world's population but is misleading as a measure of the degree of urbanization in terms of the proportion of the total population living in urban settle- ments of 2000 or more, which is low by Western standards. Giants such as Tokyo and Shanghai are few, but most of the Asian cities in the 500,000-1,000,000 class are growing spectacularly, and it is clear that Asia is now in the early stages of the urban revolution that is a concomitant of increasing industrialization and commercialization of the economy. Are Asian cities, past and present, like those of the West? Will they become more or less so as urbanization grows? What, specifically, are their distinctive characteristics, their common features, their various types?

It is only recently that scholars have begun to pay specific attention to Asian urbanism, and the literature on the subject is still scanty. Most of it has appeared within the last seven or eight years and in general may perhaps be divided into two categories: (1) studies of individual cities, including their wider relational patterns as well as the details of their site, growth, structure, and economic base; and (2) studies of urbanism as a general social, economic, or geographic phenomenon, in which attempts are made to distinguish Asian cities according to types and functions and to relate or contrast these with urban types and functions in the West. Examples in the first category would be 0. H. K. Spate and L. W. Trueblood, "Rangoon" (Geogr. Rev., Vol. 32, 1942, pp. 56- 73); N. S. Ginsburg, "Ch'ing-Tao: Development and Land Utilization" (Econ. Geogr., Vol. 24, 1948, pp. 181-200); R. H. Hughes, "Hong Kong: An Urban Study" (Geogr. Jotirn., Vol. 117, 1951, pp. 1-23); and Rhoads Murphey, "Shanghai: Key to Modern China" (Cambridge, Mass., 1953). Examples in the second would be G. T. Trewartha, "Chinese Cities: Origins and Functions" (Annals Assn. of Amer. Geogrs., Vol. 42, 1952,

pp. 69-93); Robert Redfield and Milton Singer, "The Cultural Role of Cities" (Econ. Detelopment and Cultural Change, Vol. 3, 1954, PP. 53-73); Rhoads Murphey, "The City as a Center of Change: Western Europe and China" (Annals Assn. of Amer. Geogrs.,




Vol. 44, 1954, pp. 349-362); N. S. Ginsburg, "The Great City in Southeast Asia" (Amer.

Joumri. of Sociology, Vol. 60, 1955, PP. 455-462); and W. Eberhard, "Data on the Structuie

of the Chinese City in the Pre-Industrial Period" (Econ. Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 4, 1956, pp. 253-268).

Both these approaches have been handicapped by the shortage of detailed or system- atic data. This is perhaps not surprising for an area that is so little or so recently com- mercialized; as the above examples suggest, many of the studies to date have concentrated on the colonial ports, where development has been to a great extent on the Western model. Strangely enough, there have been almost no significant studies ofJapanese cities, where by and large a greater wealth of statistical data is available than in any other Asian country. However, commercialization and data availability are everywhere concentrated by nature in cities. Urban studies may therefore be one of the first or most workable approaches to a greater understanding of the developing economies and societies of Asia. Aside from the intrinsic interest and growing importance of the phenomenon of urbanism in general and of the individual large cities of Asia in particular, their internal morphology, functions, types, and spatial relations may be revealing of wider aspects of the regions to which they belong. The internal structure at least of modern Asian cities has perhaps been especially neglected, and data or detailed observations necessary to analyze it have been largely lacking.

A recent study of Taipei by Professor Cheng-siang Chen (The City of Taipei, Fu-Min

Geogr. Inst. of Econ. Development Research Rept. No. 71, Taipei, 1956) brings together for the first time a wealth of detailed data, principally centered on the city's morphology, which could be the basis for a degree of analysis far beyond what has been published for other Asian cities. In some respects Taipei is not a good example, since its postwar growth has been due largely to the mass influx of military, administrative, professional (including Professor Chen), and other personnel from the mainland, not only into the city but into its politically and economically tributary area. Some of this movement represents a re- placement of the Japanese colonial administration, but Taipei's population in 1955, according to Professor Chen, was 704,124, as compared with the 1940 census figure of

362,407. However, the still relatively small size of Taipei makes it representative in other respects of a great number of rapidly growing Asian cities and also makes the assembling of detailed data easier. Taipei's colonial history under the Japanese gives it further common ground with other Asian cities, and its present role as a political capital suggests additional comparisons. Unfortunately, Professor Chen has contented himself with collecting the data. The conventional text (climate, physical location, brief history, and so on), totaling only some dozen pages, makes no apparent use of the array of maps of Taipei at the end; no other cities are mentioned, and not a word of comment is included on the maps themselves. Population distribution in great detail (including its historical changes), daytime population movement, traffic flows, land prices, generalized land use, an almost bewildering series of commercial, industrial, administrative, and service functions, and finally a series of commercial data for the central business district alone are all presented with admirable clarity on 43 maps. Here is raw material of the kind we have not had before for Asian cities. It shows Taipei as essentially an overgrown provincial town whose recent mushroom growth has superimposed an Asian-Western urban amalgam on the traditional administrative-bazaar-rurban agricultural pattern, clear elements of which re- main. This is a development repeated in many other cities all over Monsoon Asia, with




variations and common features. We have been obliged in the past to speak of it for the most part in general terms. Now we are given a set of specific measures, whose useful- ness seems nevertheless to have escaped their author. Some 55 photographs pregnant with unspoken insights are also left largely to the imagination of the reader to build into an understanding of the urban pattern, for which Professor Chen supplies a trainload of bricks but no mortar, no scaffolding, and no blueprint. Nevertheless, this silent treatment is a first beginning toward a set of urban constructs for Asia.-RHOADS MURPHEY

BOUNDARIES AND PETROLEUM DEVELOPMENTS IN SOUTHERN ARABIA. The first boundary in the Arabian Peninsula was demarcated in 1901-1904 (ratified 1905)

between Yemen, then part of the Ottoman Empire, and British-protected Aden Terri- tory. Starting at Husn Murad on the strait of Bab el Mandeb, it followed minor physical features through sparsely inhabited country to the Wadi Bana. From there an unde- marcated line continued straight northeast into the Rub' al Khali. Telegraph lines from the north were advanced to Qataba, which became the border control point in Ottoman territory. Dhala, a few miles to the south, was selected as the British control center. In 1912-1914, Great Britain and the Ottoman Empire agreed to extend this boundary in a straight line across the Arabian Peninsula to a point on the Persian Gulf west of Qatar. The outbreak of World War I prevented ratification of this extension; however, the terminal points are shown on many modern maps (for example, "Atlas mira" [Moscow, 1954]) and form the basis of present territorial claims of the British-protected states in the area.

The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I resulted in the evolution of the new states of Yemen and Saudi Arabia in former Ottoman territory. Yemen never accepted Ottoman treaties as binding, and for this reason the 1905 boundary agreement lapsed. Saudi Arabia never recognized the 1912-1914 agreement. In the absence of any new treaties, warfare and lack of economic development characterized these border zones.

In 1934, Great Britain and Yemen finally agreed "to maintain the situation . . . [at]

the frontier on the date of the signature of this treaty" ([British Command Paper] Cmd. 4752, 1934). This so-called "status quo" agreement de facto restored the 1505 boundary west of the Wadi Bana. Farther east the straight-line boundary was not restored; Al Beidha and Harib became part of Yemen, and the Wadi Beihan was included in British- protected territory. It was agreed to negotiate revisions of this boundary after 40 years. Great Britain also assumed the obligation to assure unmolested and untaxed transit traffic to Yemen's border through British-protected territories. However, under the then exist- ing treaties control of traffic was a local prerogative in British-protected areas, and Great Britain had to negotiate abrogation of this right and introduce administration to supervise traffic and safeguard other prerogatives. This was achieved by dividing the originally loosely associated Aden Protectorate into two parts, each administered by local officials with a few British advisers. The many small states and tribal areas to the west and north of Aden were reorganized as the Western Aden Protectorate, and the larger sultanates to the east together with a few other territories were regrouped into the Eastern Aden Protectorate. The port of Aden, together with some offshore islands, remained separate as "Aden Colony." Similar changes in Yemen were effected by means of ruthless centralization and abrogation of all local rights. However, Yemen regarded the evolution of the new



590 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVlEW

protectorates as a change in the status quo of the boundary and shortly after the signature of the 1934 agreement invaded the Wadi Beihan area. Border warfare broke out again, and conditions along the border returned to the pre-1934 status.

In 1951 a new agreement was signed ([Command Paper] Cmd. 8590, 1951) "for the purpose of settling . . . disputes . . . in the limitrophe areas." The governments agreed

"to demarcate on the ground, without prejudice . . . the position of each party . . . as

it existed at the time of signature of the 1934 treaty and as it exists at the present time." Impartial commissioners were to assist in the work, and it was agreed that "both Govern- ments will refrain from taking any action which may alter the status quo in the disputed areas at the present time." The agreement also observed "that in the town of Shabwa there are no military forces or administrative services at the present time." To this day, Shabwa, located to the east of the 1934 and 1951 boundary, contains no administration, and visitors are not permitted to enter. Revisions of the boundary were to be negotiated as before. So far, no demarcation has taken place, and no reports are available on any difference between the 1934 and 1951 lines. Border warfare continued, and today Yemen claims both the two Aden Protectorates and Aden Colony on the basis of occupation during part of the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth. Yemen also claims the Kamaran Islands, which were seized by Great Britain from the Ottoman Empire during World War I and are now administered as part of Aden Colony.

Farther east along the unratified 1912-1914 boundary the situation is even more con- fused. This zone is rarely crossed by caravans, and the territorial dispute is focused on the disposal of the oasis of Buraimi, between Saudi Arabia and the British-associated states in the area, Trucial Oman and the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman (see the writer's "Political Geography of Trucial 'Oman and Qatar," Geogr. Rev., Vol. 43, 1953, pp. 194- 206; "Oil and the Evolution of Boundaries in Eastern Arabia," ibid., Vol. 44, 1954, pp. 295-296; and "The Economic Geography of Neutral Territories," ibid., Vol. 45, 1955, pp. 359-374). An attempt at arbitration failed in 1955. Today Great Britain regards

a line running up to some 200 miles inland from the coast line as the provisional limit of the states that are politically associated with Britain, and also continues to claim territory west of this line. Saudi Arabia claims undefined areas east of Buraimi, which would leave only narrow coastal strips to the British-associated states. The extent of these undefined claims depends partly on the status of the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman. In 1913 an interior part of this state revolted against the Sultan under the leadership of an elected religious leader (Imam). This division persisted until December, 1955, when the Sultan reoccupied Nizwa, the capital of the Imam. Saudi Arabia has since declared that it recognizes the territory of the Imam as a sovereign state, now occupied by a foreign power. No definitions of this territory have been reported, and the recent political changes may have repercussions on all local boundary claims. Occasional fighting continues. Except for a point on the Arabian Sea at Ras Dharbat 'Ali, no boundary has been de- limited between the Sultanate of Muscat and Oman and the Eastern Aden Protectorate.

Despite these political uncertainties, oil companies have made concession agreements accepting as the limits of their operational areas the boundaries the disputing states might ultimately acquire. To avoid conflict, the companies have concentrated their activities in areas that are undoubtedly part of the territory of the state granting the concession. Notwithstanding this compromise, problems have arisen. Yemen has signed concession




agreements with a German firm and an American firm that contradict each other. In spite of Yemen's claim to all the Kamaran Islands, a British company is now exploring there under the terms of a British concession. Exploration concessions have been granted to the international Iraq Oil Company for both Aden Protectorates, but the Sultan of Mahra in the Eastern Protectorate, whose territory adjoins Oman, has granted a conflict- ing concession to an American company. According to Mr. B. Orchard Lisle (The Oil Forutmt, December, 1953, p. 448) the Iraq Oil Company concession does not apply in the Wadi Beihan area, where an estimated five thousand square miles, containing several oil seepages, has not yet been assigned to any oil company.

No drilling has been done in any of these concession areas. Because of the Buraimi dispute, drilling west of the oasis has been suspended. However, south of Buraimi in territory definitely belonging to the Sultan of Muscat and Oman two concessionaires are now drilling actively: an American concessionaire in Dhofar (a province of the sultanate) has drilled a first well (dry) about go miles inland from Salala and additional wells 8o miles farther east (oil discovered); and the Iraq Oil Company has drilled a well (dry) near Hafuf, about 200 miles from the Arabian Sea. This drilling area could have been supplied most conveniently from the north through Trucial Oman and Buraimi, but because of the boundary dispute this route was not used. Instead, supplies were landed at Duqm on the Arabian Sea and brought inland over a new and difficult road.

No reports on quantities of oil discovered are available. Despite the continuing Middle East crisis, development is proceeding in the sultanate, and additional investments are being made. By way of the Cape of Good Hope these concession territories are closer to major areas of oil consumption in Europe and North America, and are farther from the Soviet Union, than any other Middle East oil fields. The present situation may therefore encourage their development.-ALEXANDER MELAMID

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

COASTAL FOGS AND CLOUDS. Boundaries between geographic regions offer opportunity for study of the exchange of regional products; boundaries between climatic regions that differ in heat balance offer opportunity for study of the exchange of heat and moisture. The well-known differences in the thermal characteristics of land and water result in boundaries along coast lines so sharp as to be virtual discontinuities, across which there is rapid movement of contrasting air masses. When one region is invaded by air from the other, it experiences an immediate change in weather; when invasions are repeated, the indigenous climate is replaced by an imported one. On the land side this trial of strength between local and alien (or advective) influences is often visible as fog or as low stratus cloud ("high fog"). Recent investigations in three parts of the world have revealed relations of these fogs to other elements in the physical geography of the coastal lands-upper-air circulation, mountains, forests, and the pattern of local climates. These relations have been subjected to a comprehensive examination by Clyde Perry Patton (Climatology of Summer Fogs in the San Francisco Bay Area, Univ. of California Ptibls. in Geogr., Vol. 1o, No. 3, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1956) in the San Francisco Bay Area, where parallel coast ranges break sufficiently to allow marine air, channeled into streamlines, to penetrate over inland water into a region of greatly differing heat balance. The cold water off the California coast produces a body of air so different from the air




mass formed over the adjacent land that its incursion across the coast line is almost dramatic in intensity. Dynamic subsidence in the North Pacific Anticyclone results in a low-level inversion, which, strengthened by cooling from below, concentrates the sea-land conflict into a shallow layer. As cold air of the marine part of this layer flows inland through gaps in the coast ranges, its streamlines define a well-marked pattern of temperature and humidity; regional differentiation of climate becomes expressed in two steep gradients, one vertical through the inversion, the other extending inland and displaying increasing temperature as well as the decreasing delay of the annual maximum mapped by Leighly (John Leighly: The Extremes of the Annual Temperature March, With Particular Ref- erence to California, Univ. of California Publs. in Geogr., Vol. 6, No. 6, 1938).

The inversion and associated stratus follow a different regime from that which Neiburger describes for Southern California (Morris Neiburger: Temperature Changes during Formation and Dissipation of West Coast Stratus, Journ. of Meteorol., Vol. 1, 1944, pp. 29-41), and Patton feels that Byers' explanation of stratus formation (H. R. Byers: Summer Sea Fogs of the Central California Coast, Univ. of California Pubis. in Geogr., Vol. 3, No. 5, 1930) is applicable. Fog formed in the cold air over the sea lifts into low stratus between 5oo and 2000 feet in elevation as it flows coastward, penetrating farthest by the end of the night and dissipating during the next day. Maps of stratus frequency show patterns at given hours, and isochrone maps show variation through the day; both series display effects of barriers that confine the streamlines of cloudy air flow. Maximum stratus penetration is about 8o miles; marine advection is felt much farther.

The low air temperature (San Francisco is about 3o0 F. colder than inland points untouched by either stratus or advection) results from two processes: shading by the stratus deck, and cold advection. To separate their effects, Patton correlates daily maximum air temperature with a cloudiness index and temperature change, after stratifying the data by month and by direction of air flow, in order to compute the equilibrium daily maximum temperature without stratus effect. At San Francisco during the summer this figure averages 4.5' higher than the observed daily maximum; the reduction is assigned to presence of stratus, which thus is of minor importance as compared with the cooling produced by advection of marine air.

Patton's synoptic-geographic approach is supplemented by a well-organized study by the Institute of Low Temperature Science of Hokkaido University (T. Hori, edit.: Studies on Fogs in Relation to Fog-Preventing Forest [Sapporo, 1953]), in a region where cutting of coastal forests coincided with an increasing fog problem for inland agriculture. Eighteen men contribute 25 papers, of which 11 deal with theory and ob- servation of the mechanisms that cause fog to dissipate. Katsumi Imahori evaluates three processes: evaporation, settling due to gravity, and downward diffusion in turbulent eddies that deposit droplets on ground or vegetation. He concludes that diffusion is the most important. A fog 200 meters deep, depleted only by gravity, would penetrate 8o kilometers, but gravity and diffusion together dissipate it within 17 kilometers. Heating of the air is significant mainly as it destroys the inversion that bounds the foggy layer, which then mixes with dry air above. Hirobumi Oura, from measurements of upward and downward fluxes of droplets, describes how the rough forest top increases turbulent diffusion to cause deposition of water at a rate of o.5 millimeter an hour. Filtering by the forest front is minor; no more water is caught by the front of a forest lo meters high




than is deposited on a 30-meter strip of its canopy. Zyungo Yosida and Daisuke Kuroiwa measured the drag of wind on the canopy as two or three times that on grass; since drag produces turbulence, the deposit of fog droplets is correspondingly larger on forest cover.

The term "fog precipitation" is more appropriate to this downward diffusion of droplets over a wide area than to the screening action of vertical barriers, but both processes occur where sea fog invades lowlands or where a stratus deck is intersected by mountains. In the Berkeley Hills of California, for example, water is deposited on grass or intercepted by isolated trees. This intercepted fog drip has been measured in various ways; J. F. Nagel (Fog Precipitation on Table Mountain, Quart. Journ. Royal Meteorol. Soc., Vol. 82, 1956, pp. 452-460) developed a cylindrical wire-mesh screen, with vertical cross-sectional area equal to that of the rain gauge opening over which it is set. This fog catcher registered 677 millimeters of water during the two summer months of least rainfall (117 millimeters) and caught fog drip on 212 days of the year The average rate of drip, 3.7S millimeters an hour, was double the average rate of rainfall. Nagel did not measure the rate of deposit by diffusion, but his notes on the saturated ground suggest that it is large.

Dynamic climatology defines regions which are vulnerable to oceanic invasion and in which low-level inversions and nonprecipitating clouds are common; physical climatology describes the relations of the resulting fog or stratus to other elements of climate and terrain. Cool air and fog from offshore water dominate these coastal lands, but de- creasingly so as the air travels inland; the width of the belt in which land use is significantly affected by these imported conditions depends on the streamline pattern, initial differences between land and sea, warming of the inflowing air, and rate of removal of liquid water from it.

Patton examines the streamline pattern, closely terrain-bound in California, with respect to the way it distributes heat and moisture. This pattern, a resultant of upper-air flow and surface relief, is important wherever advection brings qualities alien to the local landscape and the climate it would create. The Bay Area has an astonishing variety of climates: bright sun and cool air; sunny, hot weather; dark overcast and drizzle; and foggy, windy weather that fosters luxuriant vegetation. All exist within a few miles of one another, according as they are on or off major streamlines.

Characteristics of the earth's surface determine its heat balance and properties of the air overlying it. Patton describes the cold ocean off California; and a heat balance more favorable to agriculture is an objective of the Hokkaido study. In fact, a basic question in regional climatology is whether the local heat balance is stronger than the disturbing effects of advection.

As fog-laden air flows inland, it is warmed, but the fog itself influences the warming by its high reflectivity of sunlight. Long-wave radiation emitted downward from the stratus may in part compensate the region for heat lost by shading, but the regional heat balance is, I believe, affected by stratus more than the reduction in air temperature might suggest. Interception of solar radiation makes the Bay Area effectively cool to man and plants.

Removal of fog droplets from the air was studied in Hokkaido with emphasis on mechanical means, usually preferable to evaporation by artificial heating, inefficient except over tiny areas. In California droplets are removed where stratus crosses hills, by




diffusion and screening; over the valleys they are evaporated and the air warmed above its saturation temperature at the cost of perhaps 50 calories of heat a square centimeter of cloud surface.

Whether the aim is to ameliorate the climate, to add moisture of the inflowing air to local water resources, or to arrive at a better understanding of a region's heterogeneous mixture of local and advective climates, solid research such as these studies of fog inflow and its effect on climate is essential. But most of all, they tell us something about what happens at boundaries between regions of contrasting heat balance.-DAVID H. MILLER

GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS

INTERNATIONAL CARTOGRAPHY COURSE. Twenty-one persons from ten countries attended an international Course on Cartography in Switzerland from March 25 to May i8 (Geogr. Rev., Vol. 47, 1957, p. 426). The first four weeks of the course comprised twenty three-hour morning lectures by Professor Eduard Imhof given in Zurich at the Cartographic Institute of the Federal Institute of Technology (Eidgenos- sische Technische Hochschule). Simultaneous translation into English and French was available. All lectures were profusely illustrated with diagrams, graphs, and tables and with slides. For better visual comparison three separate projectors were used. Most after- noons were devoted to practical exercises and demonstrations, at which Professor Imhof was aided by several capable assistants. The lectures covered the art of cartographic representation thoroughly: 1, position, purpose, and trends of cartography; 2, terrain representation; 3 and 4, contour and fathom lines; 5 and 6, shade tints, slope shading, and illumination; 7, hachure lines; 8, representation of rock cliffs; 9 and 10, color tones, sense and possibilities of color application; I1, representation of landscape; 12, geo- morphological view of the terrain; 13, cultural features and vegetation cover shown on topographical maps; 14-20, thematic maps: (14) definition, topics, and general rules of elaboration; (15) locational data and their representation; (16) distributions and their presentation; (17) linear occurrences and their presentation; (18) mosaic configuration of areas; (19) isolines and flow lines; (20) various topics. Unfortunately, a thorough evalua- tion of these excellent lectures is impossible in this brief report.

Of special interest were Professor Imhof's detailed demonstrations of the methods used in the preparation of shaded relief. With his scientifically drawn shading he has been able to produce maps with beautiful simulated three-dimensional relief, which are para- gons in their class. For example, always an inspiration to behold and study was his large shaded-relief mural "Die Landschaft um den Walensee" on the wall of the conference hall of the Cartographic Institute. This mural map has been reproduced as a full-page black-and-white illustration for his "Aufgaben und Methoden der theoretischen Kar- tographie" in Petermanns Geographische Mitteilungen (Vol. 1oo, 1956, pp. 165-171). The article and his book, "Gelande und Karte" (Erlenbach-Zurich, 1950), contain the main substance of the course. In Switzerland, only the French version of the book (Terrain et carte [Erlenbach-Zurich, 1951]) is available; the German edition is exhausted. Consider- able interest has been shown in the possibility of an English translation, but the reproduc- tion of the hundreds of illustrations (343 in black and white; 34 in color) may well make the cost of an English edition prohibitive.

One afternoon was devoted to a visit to the Art. Institut Orell Fiissli AG., where the




precision printing of various maps was demonstrated. On the canton maps with full shaded relief eleven colors are used. The original shaded-relief drawing prepared by Imhof is photographed three times at different exposures. Three printing plates are made: one with all color tones is printed in a pale blue gray; the second eliminates about one- third of the lighter tones and is printed in a neutral gray; and the third produces only the deepest shadows and is printed in a violet gray. The result is a remarkably realistic three-dimensional effect on flat paper.

After Easter the course was continued at the Eidgen6ssische Landestopographie (Fed- eral Topographic Service) at Wabern, a suburb of Bern. In its modern-style buildings, 15 years old, the cartographers work an 832-hour day in airy, white-walled rooms with large windows. Framed paintings or enlarged photographs and potted plants in most rooms create a pleasant atmosphere not usually found in cartographic offices.

Professor S. Bertschmann, the director, welcomed the participants and outlined the four-week plan-a series of illustrated talks by specialists, followed by individual instruction in the preparation of map orig. ials.

Professor Bertschmann himself gave several of the lectures. In one he related the history of Swiss cartography, from the first map of Switzerland, by Konrad Thiirst in

1495, to the famous i :ioo,ooo topographic map of the country by Guillaume Henri Dufour, the first director of the Landestopographie, in the mid-nineteenth century. In June, 1935, the Swiss government decided to publish all new official maps on six scales: 1 : 25,000; 1: 50,000; i: 100,000; 1 : 200,000; 1: Soo,ooo; and 1: 1,000,000. This sensible progression of scales could well be adopted by other governments. In another lecture Professor Bertschmann explained the triangulation system. First-, second-, and third- order triangulation, to a total of more than 8o,ooo points, is completed and available; leveling likewise has been completed for all Switzerland. Professor Bertschmann also described the system of cost accounting. Every item from the taking of aerial photographs through the various stages of compilation, scribing, printing, and distribution is tabulated and presented in graphical form in quarterly and annual reports. Since the introduction of the latest methods the cost of each sheet has been considerably reduced; the cost of glass engraving, for example, is less than 5o per cent that of copper engraving. All of Switzerland will be adequately mapped in about ten years, after which only revisions of the maps will be necessary.

Dr. Daniel Chervet, chief of the Technical Service, gave an illustrated talk about the technical operations of the plant, from map compilation to printing. He demonstrated clearly the superiority of engraving on glass, by showing greatly enlarged views of scribed lines, some of which were crosshatched as fine as ten lines to one millimeter with no perceptible unevenness or chipping of the emulsion. He also conducted the course members, in groups, on tours of inspection of the various activities of the Landestopo- graphie, ending with the printing of the shaded-relief maps in eight colors on two-color presses.

Professor Imhof gave a lecture on recent developments in the lettering and spelling of names on maps. Swiss cartographers have to deal with several languages-German, French, Italian, and the dialects of Romansh and Ladin. Professor Imhof's rules on lettering are complete and cover selection of names, size, spacing, and style of type for each feature named; the lecture outline comprises i6 typed pages and io5 diagrams. Two




lectures given by P. Biihler, chief of the Cartographic Section, on techniques of map making included the principal rules used for lettering on maps at the Landestopographie. He explained in detail the methods of stone and copper engraving formerly used, the experiments with hand stamping and a variety of mechanical instruments for the posi- tioning of lettering on maps, and finally the advantages and disadvantages of the present lettering methods.

At the Landestopographie copper engraving has, after many tests, been replaced by scribing on glass. Instruction in scribing the culture and contour plates and rock-cliff engraving was given by experts in each art, using glass plates coated with a specially developed emulsion of nonactinic red color. The scribing tools used are produced by Haag- Streit AG. at Liebefeld-Bern with typical Swiss precision (Aero Service Corporation of Philadelphia is the American agent). These tools are described and illustrated by Janusz J. Klawe in his article "Federal Mapping in Switzerland" in Surveying and Mapping (Vol. 17, 1957, pp. 17-23). He states that "the Swiss have produced a swivel type of tool which bears all the characteristics of Swiss finish and by comparison with which some of the American tools appear somehow primitive."

During the second half of the course five visits were arranged. On May 3 a group enjoyed an all-day tour through the buildings of the Wild plant at Heerbrugg. Starting in the lens-grinding section, the group was shown all the many precise mechanical and technical operations that go into the production of the world's finest surveying instruments. Manipulation of the newest Wild Autograph No. 8 was demonstrated, and the tour concluded with the showing of a motion picture of Swiss techniques of aerial photog- raphy and its restitution with the use of Wild cameras and precision plotting instruments. Among the other visits was one on May 9 to the firm of Haag-Streit, in Liebefeld-Bern, where precision measuring instruments, coordinatographs, scribing instruments, and the like are produced. On May 16 a morning lecture was given at the Eidgenossische Vermessungsdirektion (Federal Cadastral Survey) in Bern by the director, H. Harry, who described the organization of the Swiss cadastral surveys, both federal and private, and explained how the results are used by the Landestopographie and others.

At the closing dinner Professor Imhof and Professor Bertschmann expressed their feeling that if the participants of this first international cartography course would return to their homelands and impart to others some of the facts they had learned and thereby influence the production of better maps, all the expense, time, and effort of preparation would be justified. In response to a questionnaire the majority expressed a desire for another cartography course. It was announced that a similar course will probably be held in the fall of 1958.

As a gesture of appreciation on behalf of the members, Dr. Fritz Aurada of Vienna presented to each of the directors an inscribed brass vase. To all who completed the course an illuminated certificate was awarded. Attendance at the course was made possible for the writer by aid in transportation via MATS through the Office of Naval Research.-W.A.B.



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