Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1965), pp. 107-120Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/212861 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

COAL STRIP-MINE RECLAMATION IN THE UNITED STATES. The amount of land affected by coal strip mining in the United States is now approaching one million acres, and the next quarter of a century may well see that figure increase to multimillions, for man has so far devised no more efficient method for extracting large quantities of coal from the ground.

Several decades ago, when the stripping industry was in its infancy, it operated without undue concern about public disapproval. The area then disturbed was small; and topographic, surface-material, vegetational, and drainage changes resulting from open-pit mining were tolerated as an inevitable aftermath of the conduct of a vital industry. Moreover, major modification or elimination of the effects of surface mining was believed to exceed the financial capabilities of the nation's economy, especially during the depression and war

periods of the 1930's and early 1940's. But in recent years, when stripping is annually account-

ing for a rising percentage of total coal production, when ever-deeper pits and more- mountainous accumulations of spoil are being produced by increasingly gigantic machinery, and when evidence of stripping is being scattered in wide profusion from Pennsylvania to Kansas and beyond, the matter of reclamation is receiving serious attention from the public, the mining industry, state and federal regulatory agencies, physical and social scientists, and

engineers. Meanwhile, a modest body of literature has appeared relative to the problems of coal

strip-mine reclamation, but since the subject has manifold ramifications, contributions are

widely dispersed among a great variety of journals that are primarily oriented toward other

topics. It is a pleasure, therefore, for those of us who are working in the field to be able to call attention to the first significant attempt at assembling between the covers of one volume a collection of important papers dealing with the topic (Ohio Journ. of Sci., Vol. 64, No. 2,

1964). The contents are the product of a recent symposium on strip-mine reclamation sponsored jointly by the Ohio Agricultural Experiment Station and the Natural Resources Institute of The Ohio State University. Representatives from a variety of interested organiza- tions and disciplines participated in the meeting, including those from the federal government (Soil Conservation Service and Forest Service), the Ohio state government (Division of Geological Survey, Division of Reclamation, and Department of Agronomy of the Agricul- tural Experiment Station), the coal-mining industry (Consolidation Coal Company), and The Ohio State University (Water Resources Center, and Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology), and also a visitor from the government of West Germany (Federal Research Organization for Forestry and Forest Products). As was to be expected, the papers contributed by such a heterogeneous group represent a wide range of viewpoints and approaches and suffer from the defect, common to all symposia, of lack of integration and coordination. Nevertheless, nowhere else is there presently assembled so comprehensive a body of material relating to the subject.

Obviously, it is impossible to comment here on even the bare essentials of the contents of the ten papers making up the symposium. Suffice it to state that the coverage is, for some aspects of the topic, excellent, but other aspects are inadequately treated or ignored. The validity of this criticism rests on the assumption that all the diverse objectives of optimum



1o8 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

coal strip-mine reclamation (whether enunciated by foresters, economists, agronomists, engineers, geographers, geologists, conservationists, sociologists, or whomever) can be

encompassed under one comprehensive goal, namely the restoration of disturbed land to maximum economic and social usefulness at minimum cost. Achievement of this goal necessitates the determination of(i) the site, situation, areal extent, and distributional patterns of lands affected by strip mining; (2) the geologic, topographic, surface-material, and

drainage characteristics of these lands in their raw post-mining state; (3) the future needs, on a priority basis, of the locality, the state, and the country for various land-use classes (for example, agriculture, grazing, forest, recreation, water storage, and waste disposal); (4) the

engineering and economic feasibility of converting the mined areas to one or more such land

uses; and (5) the specific mechanics for implementing such conversion. Nine of the ten

symposium papers deal at some length with item 2, and four discuss more or less adequately some aspects of items 4 and 5. But only three refer even casually to item 3, and none mentions item 1. Surely information concerning these last two items is vital to the planning and prose- cution of any successful reclamation program.

It is a strange anomaly of the present situation that despite the grave concern of many over the growing amount of mining-induced wastelands, almost nothing is known about their geographical distribution. True, maps of these areas have been prepared for a few states (see, for example, by George F. Deasy and Phyllis R. Griess, "Terrain Damages Resulting from Bituminous Coal Stripping in Pennsylvania," Proc. Pennsylvania Acad. of Sci., Vol. 34, 1960, pp. 124-130, and "Stripped and Breaker-Waste Lands of the Anthracite

Region," ibid., Vol. 35, 1961, pp. 129-136), but the federal government is only now beginning to investigate the possibility of preparing a comprehensive map of stripped lands for the whole country.

An even more striking aberration in the national concern over strip-mine reclamation is the almost psychotic avoidance of any discussion concerning the most economically and

socially beneficial uses to which such reclaimed lands can be converted. Almost as if by common consent, it is assumed that they will be developed into forest, pasture, or farmland. But

such lands are presently, and promise to remain during the foreseeable future, lowest in

priority on the scale of national needs. We are already surfeited with their products and are

paying handsomely in taxes either for keeping large acreages out of production or for sub-

sidizing their owners against foreign competition. It would constitute a supreme example of

waste if the American people were called on to pay, through additional taxes and/or in-

creased energy prices, the costs for converting millions of acres of present and future coal

strip pits into unneeded farm, ranch, and timber land. Instead, the most careful scrutiny and

painstaking research should be focused on the prospects for utilizing the worthless disturbed

areas in the densely populated northeastern and north-central United States for recreation, water storage, flood protection, erosion control, and urban and industrial waste disposal. All

these, and related, specialized uses of land are certain to be in rapidly increasing demand in the

near future, all are characterized by high economic productivity per acre, most are esthetically appealing to the public, and all can be developed at relatively low cost from raw strip-mined areas (George F. Deasy and Phyllis R. Griess: An Approach to the Problem of Coal Strip Mine Reclamation, Mineral Industries, Vol. 33, No. 1, 1963). A real opportunity awaits

geographers to bring these specialized land uses to the attention of the public and its legisla- tive representatives, and to engage in the necessary research to bring such developments to

fruition.-GEORGE F. DEASY and PHYLLIS R. GRIESS



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

THE USE OF GEOTHERMAL STEAM IN CALIFORNIA. With conventional sources of power, proved techniques derived from long experience and related to the nature and occurrence of the energy source are in the main straightforward, and problems that are not stem mainly from local peculiarities of climate, location, site, or geologic structure. This is not the case when attempts are made to use underground geothermal steam in volcanic areas. Not only must engineers contend with problems connected purely with the specific locale, but also every attempt to use the steam is virtually a pioneer effort. So little is known about the nature of this underground source of energy that no solid body of generalized data has

yet been accumulated which will supply a modus operandi for the development of new areas. At three important levels utilization and site assessment will always remain a complex and unreliable business. These are the preliminary evaluation of the area, the determination of the location of production wells and the depth to which they must be drilled, and the estimation of steam reserves.

Before World War II the only successful use of geothermal steam for power was at Larderello, Italy, where steam was used first in 1904. Since the war Larderello has been com-

pletely rebuilt with a capacity of more than 300,000 kilowatts. The second place where

underground steam has been successfully harnessed after a number of years of experiment is Wairakei, near Taupo in the central part of the North Island of New Zealand. Here output of the power plant has reached 192,420 kilowatts, and when planned development has been completed, installed capacity will be 250,000 kilowatts. Extensive use is likely to be made of flashed waste steam and hot water, and ultimately with the use of the Waiotapu and perhaps the Rotokawa fields the geothermal output may reach 1,300,000 kilowatts.

As a result of the success achieved both in Italy and in New Zealand, development has been initiated in El Salvador, Japan, Russia, the United States, Iceland, and Mexico. In the last three countries development plans have been pushed furthest ahead, and already in California, since June, 1960, geothermal steam has powered a small generating station which during the first stage of development will be brought up to a capacity of 28,000 kilowatts

(James R. McNitt: Exploration and Development of Geothermal Power in California, California Division of Mines and Geol. Special Rept. 75, San Francisco, 1963). Since 1955 more than forty wells have been drilled in California in fifteen different thermal areas. Except mainly for The Geysers, seventy-five miles north of San Francisco in the Mayacmas Moun- tains, the area extends in an arc roughly parallel to the coast and east of the Sierra Nevada from the Salton Sea to Lake City, near the junction of the California, Oregon, and Nevada borders. Of the fields already investigated, those showing the most promise are The Geysers, Casa Diablo Hot Springs, and the Salton Sea area. Whether or not there will be sufficient steam for electricity generation outside these three areas is yet unknown.

The Geysers thermal area occupies part of a complexly faulted graben, the floor of which rests on a Jurassic-Cretaceous basement of graywacke overlain in parts by basalt and serpen- tine. Superheated steam makes its way through the graywacke and later through the zone of groundwater above it. The temperature of the steam from wells 500-1200 feet deep is between 170? and 190? centigrade. The very low percentage of noncondensable gases in the steam does not necessitate elaborate equipment for its removal. In addition, the steam is dry, and the production from four wells is supplied directly to the turbines through a 2000-foot feed line.

The fact that potential cannot be ascertained with any accuracy from data on natural surface heat flow is admirably demonstrated in this area. The maximum heat flow at present,

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THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

because drilling has allowed heat energy to come to the surface more readily, is estimated to be one hundred and seventy times the flow calculated before drilling began. What it might increase to with maximum exploitation is not known. The development so far has merely established the technical and economic feasibility of the project.

The Casa Diablo Hot Springs, Mono County, are due east of San Francisco, east of the northeast front of the Sierra Nevada, near the headwaters of the Owens River. Here Tertiary rhyolite is overlain by Pleistocene material that includes a basaltic lava flow, and it is near the contact of the two volcanic rocks that vertical faults permit thermal activity to reach the surface. Already several wells have been drilled, tested, and found to produce a mixture of saturated steam and hot water. These are the more usual constituents produced in most areas, including Wairakei, New Zealand.

The Salton Sea thermal area is at the southeast end of the Salton Sea, three miles southwest of Niland. Near and parallel to the shore several low domes of rhyolitic lavas, pumice, and obsidian rise above the alluvial mantle, and associated with them are mud volcanoes, fumaroles, and other volcanic manifestations. Although wells were drilled for carbon dioxide in the 1930's, it was not until 1958 that the first steam well was successfully drilled. Exploratory drilling is yet at too early a stage to assess the potential of the field, but heat flows in exploratory wells are relatively high, and encouraging information now at hand suggests that the field may extend over fifteen square miles.

Little has been done to harness the heat energy associated with volcanism. The future in some places is already most promising, but areally, as compared with other sources of

power, the peculiar conditions required for successful utilization are strictly limited. Califor- nia has at the very least three such sites. In a dry area with little water or fossil fuel geothermal steam for power can be most useful. Capital costs are likely to be less than those for conventional thermal stations, and the cost of fuel is nil. The Geysers, like Larderello in Italy, has the added advantage of producing dry steam, with the consequent merit of still lower costs. Given ideal conditions the cost structure may be simplified, but the complexity of assaying the unknown will always be a challenge. In this respect alone, geothermal steam may be differentiated from other sources of energy.-BRYAN H. FARRELL

MIDDLE AMERICA

BRITISH WEST INDIAN EXPORT CROPS. In few parts of the world are the oppor- tunities for economic growth and increased material well-being under greater geographical constraint than in the British West Indian islands. Their small size and modest endowment of resources, compounded with an exploding population, make the outlook bleak indeed, despite an institutional and administrative structure in some ways vastly superior to that of most of the other low-income countries of the world. The West Indies live by export agriculture, and it is natural that its intensification and possible areal expansion should receive continuing attention. It is doubtful whether any like area in the tropical world has been the object of so many reports, inquiries, and royal commissions, but the nagging problem-too many people, not enough land-shows no sign of disappearing.

A recent issue of Social and Economic Studies (Vol. 13, No. 1, 1964), the principal scholarly journal of the area, is devoted to projections of main export crops in the British West Indies through 1975. The prognosis is hardly encouraging, though it is perhaps a more

optimistic one than many other persons who have had close contact with the West Indies

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

would venture to make. Attempts at intensification and diversification of the agriculture have been almost uniformly disappointing. Separate essays, written by economists who are, or were, with the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University of the West

Indies, analyze the prospects for sugar, bananas, cacao, citrus, Sea Island cotton, and coffee.

Sugar is still the bellwether. Its production has more than doubled in twenty years, thanks largely to increased yields brought about by fertilization and varietal research, but further gains will come increasingly hard. The disparity in yields between the different

producing units is great. Crop fluctuations due to rainfall irregularities are extreme, and the

highly seasonal labor demand is a further disadvantage. Rising labor costs have been reducing

profit margins; a period of low prices could result in the collapse of the industry. Mechaniza- tion seems unthinkable in the face of the growing surplus of hands. Of the approximately one million long tons of annual output (including British Guiana's), about 900,000 tons are

protected under the Commonwealth Sugar Agreement. The remainder must normally enter the free market unsubsidized. Temporarily some West Indian sugar has gained access to the premium United States market as a result of the redistribution of the Cuban quota, but this outlet is judged to offer little hope in the long run. In any event, United States thinking seems to be moving away from premium prices. An increase in production of about 25 percent between 1965 and 1975 is projected despite the admitted "disincentive effect" of the

prospect of competing in the world market with larger, more efficient producers. Whereas sugar has increasingly become a plantation crop, the other export crops are

basically associated with peasant farming. Most are tree crops. Bananas, once exported from

Jamaica only, are today important in several of the Windward Islands where soils are better. St. Vincent, St. Lucia, Dominica, and Grenada together produced about 25 percent of Britain's banana requirements in 1960, Jamaica 40 percent. All entered the United Kingdom duty-free and protected from foreign competition. There is no illusion that the small-scale West Indian producers could compete successfully in the open world market. Their hopes are tied instead to an increased per capita consumption of bananas in the United Kingdom.

The prospect for cacao is better, since substantial increases in output in the next few

years are certain as new high-yielding plant materials now in the establishment phase come into production. The Cocoa Rehabilitation Scheme, initiated in 1944, calls for the complete replanting of the cacao groves of Grenada with high-yielding clones and the replacement of five thousand acres of nutmeg with cacao. In Jamaica and Trinidad Cocoa Subsidy Schemes have also promoted much replanting. Total production on the three islands is expected to increase two and one-half times between 1960 and 1975 despite the uncertainty of world

prices. Coffee production, too, is currently being expanded, especially in Jamaica, notwith-

standing the disappointingly low yields. In recent times local demand has been at least as

important as the export market, though "Prime Jamaica Washed" and "Blue Mountain"

grades bring premium prices on North American and European markets. An interesting sidelight is that Reynolds Jamaica Mines Ltd. is planting in coffee several hundred acres of land that has been mined for bauxite. But serious doubts are cast on the soundness of both coffee and cacao expansion schemes involving long-term gestation periods against a back- ground of uncertainty with regard to future market conditions. A minor boost to the economies of Trinidad andJamaica has recently come from the export of fresh and processed oranges and grapefruit. Here again the market is a protected British one, though some fresh oranges go to New Zealand, and the growth projection for the industry places much reliance

1ll




on an expected per capita increase in the consumption of juices in the United Kingdom market and on the assumption that Commonwealth exporters of food will not be abandoned

by Britain. Dominica's lime industry continues to maintain itself in spite of hurricane disasters and disease, but it hardly rates as a growth industry. Indeed, there is no real hope for a breakthrough in any of these crops, though modest increases in output and exports may be

expected for each. Nor, apparently, are any major new crops on the horizon. In some ways the tragedy of the West Indies is perhaps in capsule form the history of Sea

Island cotton. This luxury-grade fiber plant seems to have been brought to the islands from

Georgia and South Carolina about the turn of the century. It has been especially significant in the economies of the smaller and poorer islands such as Montserrat, Nevis, St. Vincent, and

Anguilla. On impoverished Montserrat it has the dubious distinction of still being the number one crop. But although Sea Island cotton is produced commercially today nowhere but on the West Indian islands, the world can easily do without it. Competition from the cheaper, semiluxury Egyptian long staple and even from synthetics is likely to increase. Sea Island

cotton, originally a plantation crop, is today apparently grown almost exclusively by peasants, often under a form of shifting cultivation. Between 1940 and 1960 its acreage declined by two-thirds. Its very survival as an export crop depends on the poverty of the peasant farmer

and the stagnation of agriculture on these small, isolated island units where there is no al- ternative save to exist on the handouts and remittances from a hard-pressed "mother

country."-JAMES J. PARSONS

SOUTH AMERICA

THE CAMPO CERRADO VEGETATION OF CENTRAL BRAZIL. The plateaus of

west-central Brazil are mostly covered with a characteristic savanna vegetation commonly referred to as campo cerrado or simply cerrado, which consists of grassland with sparsely to

densely spaced low trees. The origin of this vegetation has given rise to more controversy than that of any other type of plant formation in the tropics (see, for example, Leo Waibel:

Vegetation and Land Use in the Planalto Central of Brazil, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 38, 1948, pp. 529-554; and . S. Beard: Brazilian Campo Cerrado: Fire Climax or Edaphic Climax, ibid., Vol. 39, 1949, pp. 664-666). Since the nineteenth century, when the Danish botanist P. W.

Lund and his student Eugenius Warming debated the relative importance of clearing and

burning by man versus a seasonal climate and dry soils, at least a hundred publications have

appeared on the ecology of the Brazilian campo cerrado. Different writers have stressed

different factors, often reflecting the particular conditions of the areas they themselves had

studied. The increasing interest of Brazilians in the problems of the cerrado is reflected by an

interdisciplinary symposium held in Sao Paulo late in 1962 ("Simposio sobre o cerrado"

[Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, 1963]). M. G. Ferri, a leading authority on the

cerrado, introduces the symposium publication with a detailed summary and commentary on

the history of studies of the cerrado, and this is followed by papers on soils, climate, geo- morphology, physiology, flora, fauna, agriculture, silviculture, and cattle raising. Ferri con-

cludes that "in certain areas the 'cerrado' vegetation may be the [edaphic] climax, whereas in

other places it may occur as a result of human activities, especially through fire, which

changed the original surrounding conditions; in this case the 'cerrado' may be a 'fire' climax."

In the core area of probable natural cerrado, located on the old plateaus (chapadas) of

Goias and Mato Grosso, the critical edaphic condition inhibiting forest growth and favoring

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

cerrado seems to be the extreme mineral deficiency of the very deep and highly leached latosols. This is the conclusion of Karl Arens in his symposium paper and of others previously, including Paulo de T. Alvim (Soil as an Ecological Factor in the Development of Vegetation in the Central Plateau of Brazil, Proc. Sixth Internatl. Grassland Conference, State College, Pennsylvania, 1952, Washington, D. C., 1953 [2 vols.], Vol. 1, pp. 610-617), Reeshon Feuer

(An Exploratory Investigation of the Soils and Agricultural Potential of the Soils of the Future Federal District in the Central Plateau of Brazil [Ph.D. dissertation, Cornell University, 1956]), and Frederick Hardy (Supplementary Report on the Soils of Experimental Stations of Minas Gerais, Brazil, Rept. No. 32-B, Inter-American Institute of Agricultural Sciences, Turrialba, Costa Rica, 1959).

As tropical weathering progresses on nearly level sites where erosion does not continually reexpose fresh mineral soil, forest vegetation becomes more and more dependent on mineral nutrients accumulated in the surface organic layer. On senile soils with great depth to weath-

ering parent-rock material these nutrients are no longer brought up from below by plant roots but are passed from foliage to soil to roots to foliage and back again in a closed cycle. In this situation the humus is important for supplying not only nitrogen but most other plant nutrients as well. The cycle is broken once the forest is cleared, and recovery on very senile soils may be long and difficult, if not impossible.

The plateau-forming erosion surfaces of central Brazil are ancient (Jurassic to Tertiary), and soils are deeply weathered, very old, and highly acidic, with nearly all exchangeable bases removed ("a pronounced deficiency of Ca, P, S, N, Zn, Mo, and Bo," according to

Arens). On these soils the closed nutrient cycle may have been broken, and forest terminated, by clearing and repeated burning by Indians in preconquest times. However, since extreme soil senility was already reached millions of years ago on the older erosion surfaces, it seems not unlikely that the nutrient cycle, once virtually self-contained, slowly played out from

gradual losses of nutrients from miscellaneous causes, and the vegetation deteriorated from forest to campo cerrado (which may have evolved concurrently) having species adapted to the low-nutrient soils. If campo cerrado on senile soils is protected from fire, clearing, and grazing, the vegetation remains campo cerrado. However, on younger soils where forest growth and fertility have been destroyed by human activities and campo cerrado has taken over, forest may well recover in time with protection. Many of the cerrado studies stressing the role of fire were made south of the old plateaus, in Sao Paulo, where there are younger soils. Of course, infertile soils somewhat comparable with those in central Brazil do support tall forest in certain parts of the humid tropics. Possibly an additional critical selective factor for the stunted campo cerrado species is soil toxicity resulting from high concentrations of iron and aluminum oxides.

The cerrado-forest boundaries in central Brazil are usually soil boundaries also. As Monica Cole has pointed out (M. M. Cole: Cerrado, Caatinga and Pantanal: The Distri- bution and Origin of the Savanna Vegetation of Brazil, Geogr. Journ., Vol. 126, 1960, pp. 168-179), cerrado occurs mainly on the senile soils of the plateau surfaces ("pediplains"), whereas forest grows where stream dissection of the plateaus is exposing fresh parent material and is also changing drainage, burning, and other conditions. On the other hand, I found that in central Brazil where forest is advancing onto the young soils of newly dissected surfaces, cerrado may take over, especially where parent materials are acidic, because of human disturbances which inhibit forest growth and favor the more tolerant cerrado.

Beard, Cole, and others have maintained that campo cerrado is entirely or partly the

113




result of periodic waterlogging due to unfavorable drainage. However, Reeshon Feuer and others have recently pointed out that hardpans underlie only a small part of the plateau surfaces and that indurated laterite is mainly confined to the exposed upper edges of the

chapadas. Consequently, very little of the old chapada surfaces is subject to waterlogging due to impermeable layers. On the other hand, much of the chapada soil is very deep and is

excessively well drained; there is a marked seasonal deficiency of surface soil moisture, but

many deep-rooted cerrado plants are able to tap water at depth. The question that naturally arises is what the nature of the savanna vegetation was before

man entered the scene with his clearing and burning. Possibly the light woodland known as cerradao, which contains species both of cerrado and of forest, was dominant, as S. R. Eyre has suggested (Vegetation and Soils: A World Picture [Chicago, 1963]). However, in my own fieldwork in the Planalto Central I did not observe any well-developed remnants of cerradao

anywhere on the extensive older (higher) erosion surfaces. The currently prevailing majority opinion of ecologists seems to be that cerrado for-

mations are edaphic, low-fertility climaxes on the senile latosols of the older erosion surfaces of central Brazil. From these surfaces the cerrado has advanced onto sites once occupied by forest, with the aid of fires and soil impoverishment caused by clearing, cropping, over-

grazing, and erosion. As yet, however, little attempt has been made to relate soil fertility to other factors to explain the great diversity of the various forms of campo cerrado, a diversity of density, height, growth behavior, and species composition. To do this, it will be necessary to combine botanical studies with studies of(1) the physics, chemistry, and hydrology of the soils and (2) man's past and present activities.

Interest in the campo cerrado is by no means confined to ecological matters. Increased attention is being given to the agricultural possibilities of the vast and little-used cerrado lands, with a view to easing population pressure in other parts of Brazil. In late 1962 a recon- naissance survey of the Planalto Central was sponsored by the Agency for International

Development for the purpose of making recommendations for more detailed surveys and, if

feasible, to outline a development program for cerrado lands ("Survey of the Agricultural Potential of the Central Plateau of Brazil" [American International Association for Economic and Social Development, Rio de Janeiro, 1963]). The survey report concludes that although the cerrado soils are extremely poor chemically, they generally have favorable physical properties. Furthermore, the climate is suitable; much of the plateau country is sufficiently level to permit mechanization; the region already has good roads, railroads, and such sizable cities as Brasilia, Goiania, and Campo Grande; and the southern cerrado lands are fairly close to the major population centers of Brazil. The report suggests that considerable agricultural

development and new settlement may be possible, provided adequate sources of mineral fertilizers can be found within the region. Such a program, however, would presumably necessitate mechanization and relatively high capital investment, and the political, economic, and social obstacles that would have to be overcome might prove greater hurdles than the

technological problems. Detailed study and mapping of the cerrado soils and field experimentation with dif-

ferent crops and different combinations of fertilizers on different soils are essential before any agricultural program can be seriously considered. Such work has barely begun. The best research so far is probably that in Goias and Sao Paulo by the IBEC Research Institute of the American International Association (now the International Research Institute) (for example,

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

L. M. M. de Freitas, A. C. McClung, and W. L. Lott: Field Studies on Fertility Problems of Two Brazilian Campos Cerrados, 1958-1959, Bull. No. 21, New York, 1960; and A. C. Mc-

Clung and others: Cotton Fertilization on Campo Cerrado Soils, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, Bull. No. 27, 1961). Several of IBEC's scientists (L. M. M. de Freitas and others) have a paper in the "Simposio s6bre o cerrado" on the potential for cultivation ofcerrado lands, in which it is concluded that certain campo cerrado soils "would be capable of supporting an intensive

agriculture if improved practices of liming and fertilization were adopted," with "economic returns" and "sustained production," but that much more experimental work must be carried out.

Thus the literature on the campo cerrado vegetation and soils continues to accumulate, though the definitive study still remains to be done. The presence of the cerrado may have been explained to the satisfaction of many, but there is much to be learned about the reasons for its present diversity. And although the infertile cerrado soils may well be made productive someday, a large amount of basic research will first be necessary.-WILLIAM M. DENEVAN

EUROPE

LE HAVRE-A VICTIM OF DUALISM? During air raids on September 5, 1944, the downtown area of Le Havre was almost totally destroyed. Some 6600 houses on 370 acres were reduced to rubble, and about 5000 people lost their lives.

At the end of the war Le Havre, like many other destroyed cities in Europe, became a planners' paradise. After careful consideration, the plan of M. Auguste Perret, a Paris archi- tect, was selected. When the present writer visited Le Havre in 1953, construction was well under way, but a bitter complaint could already be heard that local climatological conditions had not been taken into consideration by the gentleman from Paris; that the new rectangular pattern of streets had a north-south, east-west orientation; and that with the prevailing westerlies the east-west streets lined with tall buildings became canyons which provided a channel for the unobstructed and constant flow of air, to the chagrin of pedestrians. Apparent- ly, other causes for concern have been mounting since then, and Le Havre has developed a dualism that seemingly has already had serious repercussions.

The fascinating story of Le Havre is told by Jean-Philippe Damais in "La nouvelle ville du Havre: Reconstruction et repopulation," published in the Memoires et Documents of the Centre de Documentation Cartographique et Geographique (Vol. 9, No. 2, 1963). According to tradition, "Le Havre-de-Grace" dates from February 7, 1517, when Francis I charged Admiral Bonnivet with the creation of a port at the mouth of the Seine that could shelter the fleet in battle against the English. He also commissioned M. du Chillou with the construction of a town. Actually, maritime activity in the Seine estuary goes back to ancient times, and a port of Havre-de-Grace was first mentioned in a register in 1484, but major port works were not initiated until 1517. There had never been a city in the area, and the building of a town proved to be a knotty problem. Storms, climatic extremes, siltation, marshy ground, and disease made occupance hazardous. But although the site itself was hostile to human settlement, the general location was superb. Easy communication was possible into the interior to Rouen and Paris and toward the Channel and the Atlantic Ocean. Besides, the neighboring Pays de Caux on the "plateau" was a large agricultural region, which could supply food.

Thus the city began as a port, and it has retained ocean transport as its principal function ever since. By 1530 the population was 5600, and by the early seventeenth century more than

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10,000. Then, however, growth slowed down, because of lack of space within the fortifications that had to be maintained as defenses against the British. In 1852 these fortifications were removed, and Le Havre was ushered into its greatest period of growth. In place of the walls the people of Le Havre built boulevards, and city and suburbs merged into a large urban area. A thriving commercial port gave rise to industrial life. For half a century, beginning in 1856, the city's population grew by an average of 14,500 people a decade. In the early 19oo's

the population increase slowed down, but by 1911 the city had 136,159 inhabitants and the total urban area nearly 170,000. Then, between the two World Wars, people began to move into the suburbs, so that the population of the city proper declined, while that of the suburbs continued to increase. On the eve of World War II the city had a population of 123,000, of whom some 48,000 lived in the central section, which was to be destroyed.

After the war the architects created a residential area where the central business district had been. A rectangular grid pattern of streets made city blocks. Because of the need for

green areas and gardens, wide streets and avenues, the total built-up space was 50 acres smaller than before the war, and the plan called for the housing of 40,000 inhabitants. The new building material was concrete, but individuality could be maintained through shading and tinting. The maximum height was determined at five or six stories. Only two high-rise groups of

buildings, one of them for navigation companies and business and industrial concerns, were an exception. The apartment houses were designed to provide maximum access for sunshine and fresh air by variation in the height and volume of the buildings and by the use of French

windows, apparently in all apartments. Within the framework of Perret's general plan, his architects were given great liberty in detail and execution, so as to avoid the monotony of a

housing development. Thus the new Le Havre has become two cities: a modern residential central area and the

old prewar city beyond the core. In the modern city are blocks of new apartment buildings, where there is no crowding, where apartments are cooperatively owned and are equipped with running hot and cold water, central heating, and bathrooms. The apartments are

comparatively luxurious and are occupied by a well-to-do middle-class population, of whom at least half own automobiles. In the old city, which did not require large-scale reconstruction, many living quarters are uncomfortable, small, and crowded, and inhabitants are chiefly workers and low-salaried employees.

This dualistic phenomenon has created serious sociological problems. The old and new cities have personalities of their own, and there is not much communication between the two. It seems as though a psychological barrier had been created. The residents of the old city do not consider the new luxurious center as their "domain" and tend to stay away from it. The residents of the new Le Havre, on the other hand, apparently are so content with their living quarters that they have withdrawn from outdoor life, producing an effect of a city "without a soul." Moreover, by 1962 the new city housed only 27,000 people (or about two-thirds of the total projected) on four-fifths of the area that was to be built up. Thus it appears unlikely that the goal of 40,000 inhabitants for the new city will ever be reached.

The bombings of September, 1944, destroyed the commercial core of Le Havre, and architects and planners created a new city with a totally different function, with a changed population structure, and with profoundly altered sociological relationships. It is "Havre-

Ville-Neuve," located in the center of the city, but it is no longer "Havre-Centre-Ville," the nerve center it used to be.-GUIDo G. WEIGEND

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

ASIA

NEW MAPS OF NON-SOVIET ASIA. The basic patterns of land use, population dis-

tribution, and agricultural production in non-Soviet Asia are delineated on three handsome

maps in color on the scale of 1:15,000,000 prepared by Hans Boesch and his co-workers at the University of Zurich, G. Ammann, H. Haefner, and S. Stadeli. The authors are to be commended for the success of their venture, despite the limitations of publication scale and the imperfections of data. The maps are stated to be equal-area, though it is not evident what projection is used. Problems of compilation and of obtaining accurate and consistent sources are discussed briefly in the text accompanying each map (Hans H. Boesch and others: Karten zur Landwirtschaft und Bevolkerung Asiens [ohne UdSSR], Geogr. Rundschau, Vol. 15, 1963, pp. 161-165, 328-333, and 407-410, and maps).

The first map purports to show the distribution and limits of cropland. The large agricultural belts in the Indian and Pakistani plains and the major lowlands of China, and the

many small tracts of mainland and insular Asia, are rendered in a heavy gray. Forested land

appears in green, a color that is appropriately predominant in Southeast Asia and, to some

extent, in mountainous regions elsewhere. In the dry zones, which are in two shades of

yellow, a distinction is made between aridity (the Gobi, Thar, Dasht-e-Kavir, for example) and extreme aridity (the Takla Makan and the Rub' al Khali). An orange tint is given to land more than 4000 meters above sea level in Tibet and adjacent areas. Areas not under cultivation or forest and lying beyond the limit of aridity and below 4000 meters, which Boesch takes as the normal limit of cropland in and around Tibet, are left blank with oc- casional gray stipples to indicate scattered cropland. Grazing land is not shown. As a result, no distinction is made between the permanent pasturelands of semiarid Mongolia and northern

Sinkiang or mountainous Southwest Asia and the deforested hills of humid China and Korea or the secondary forest lands of tropical India and Southeast Asia that are intermit-

tently burned and cleared for shifting agriculture. It may well be impossible to portray the limits of cropland, and to distinguish forests

and pastures, from maps and statistics now available. Three sources of information are used for this first map: (1) land-use statistics reported by the Food and Agriculture Organization for the year 1958; (2) land-utilization maps; and (3) descriptive regional studies. Statistical data are the least useful because most of the reporting units (national states and colonial

territories) are too large. However, care has been taken that the proportion of cropland and forest shown in each country does not exceed that reported by the FAO. Further problems arise because publication scales of existing land-use maps are too small and reference

grid lines and geographic features are lacking. It is obvious that the efforts of the IGU Commission on a World Land Use Survey toward achieving uniformity of scale and land classification are much needed and should be intensified. The boundaries of the arid zones, according to the Thomthwaite system, derived from Peveril Meigs's maps prepared for UNESCO in 1952, and the 4000-meter contour, taken from the 1: 1,ooo,ooo World Aero-

nautical Chart series, can serve only as makeshifts for determination of the dry and cold limits of agricultural land use pending the development of more accurate criteria and more detailed mapping.

The map of population is effective in showing the general patterns of rural and urban concentration in Asia. The crowding of rural people in the wet agricultural lowlands of the mainland and certain islands is indicated by green dots, each of which has a value of 250,000.

117




Red dots of the same value depict the general distribution of urban population exclusive of centers with more than 125,000 inhabitants. Cities between 125,000 and 375,000 are pin- pointed with black dots. Cities over 375,000 and metropolitan areas are shown by vertical black bars, the height indicating the number of inhabitants. All population data are estimated for the year 1959. Great care was exercised to select a dot value that would produce a visual

impression of crowding and yet maintain each dot as a separate and countable unit in con-

gested areas such as East Pakistan, Java, Japan, and the river provinces of China. However, on the thinly settled uplands of Southeast Asia and in the oases of Southwest Asia and interior China dots of the same value are too few and too widely scattered to provide more than a schematic representation of the true patterns. Thus the map cannot be read for details of distribution, and a more precise delineation of density patterns would require isopleths. Some interesting regional comparisons can be made by calculation of the proportions of dots representing rural and urban population. But the authors' assertion that the breakdown into green, red, and black colors represents the division of employment in primary, second-

ary, and tertiary sectors of the economy seems invalid. The third map of the series shows the value of agricultural production and foreign

trade; each symbol represents fifty million United States dollars. Symbols of different

shapes distinguish eight crop categories: wheat, rice, tea, sugar, rubber, oilseeds, fibers

(wool and cotton), and all other products. Production for domestic consumption is in

green; exports and imports are red and yellow respectively. The geographic distribution of all symbols except those representing imports is determined by, and superimposed on, the

pattern of cropland presented on the first map of the series. The result is a map that gives visual importance to differences in crop production and trade in the various Asian countries; for example, the relatively high intensity of Japan's production and its dependence on

imports other than rice or wheat, the concentration of agricultural export production in East Pakistan, Ceylon, Malaya, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, and mainland China's small volume of imports in contrast with Hong Kong's.

The preparation of this map, which demanded more originality than the others in the

series, also necessitated more manipulation and estimation of data. The user is well advised

to be cautious in interpreting the symbols. Aside from the problem of equating real income and money value when international comparisons are made in terms of a single currency, there are many deficiencies and voids in the data. The money value of agricultural production is known or accurately estimated for only a small number of Asian countries. For

many it had to be calculated by analogy on the basis of the agricultural population and

assumed ratios of productivity. Nevertheless, all major countries are covered, only about ten

small political divisions in the Arabian peninsula, the Himalayas, and Southeast Asia being omitted.-JOHN E. BRUSH

OCEANIA

ANCIENT VOYAGERS IN POLYNESIA. The fact that almost all the islands of the

Pacific were settled by a brown-skinned people who spoke dialects of one language, Malayo-

Polynesian, has led to long discussion of how this dispersion over the vast reaches of the

world's greatest ocean occurred. Opinions have differed on how good the Polynesians' navi-

gation was, whether their voyages of discovery were deliberate or accidental, whether or not

they ever reached America, and if so whether they returned, and when they began this epoch of great voyages-if indeed they did make great voyages.

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

In general, a rather optimistic view has been taken of the ability of the Polynesians to

navigate, and to make deliberate voyages of discovery and return to their starting points. Peter H. Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa) in his "Vikings of the Sunrise" is at times lyrical in his reconstruction of the Polynesian wanderings. No one denies that somehow or other immense distances were crossed; for Polynesian-speaking people were on Hawaii, New Zealand, and Easter Island, and these are certainly at immense distances from any other land. But just how this was accomplished is vigorously debated.

In this debate Andrew Sharp (Ancient Voyagers in Polynesia [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1964]) holds the extreme position against what might be called the Buck school of ability to

navigate and deliberately to find new land. Sharp utilizes both the historical data from the earliest voyages and the accumulated data from the observations of missionaries and traders on how the natives now sail or don't sail, and when they get lost at sea, and what then happens. The gist of his findings is that the Polynesians hardly know how to navigate at all. They usually operate within a loo-mile radius of familiar islands. Deliberate 20o- or 300-mile voyages are the maximum, and they are rare indeed, and even then the Polynesians are easily blown off course, or lost if the sky is obscured, and then wander aimlessly about the sea

hoping to chance on land. It is Sharp's thesis that this random seeking of land by lost boats is sufficient to account for

man's reaching all the islands of the Pacific. Given the fact that Polynesians often move from one atoll to another, sometimes taking their whole families and their plants and domestic animals, it requires only a loss of direction and a fortunate landing to plant a viable Polynesian colony on any microscopic bit of land in the Pacific. This is exactly what Sharp envisions as happening. Of course innumerable boats must have been lost at sea. No matter. It takes only one family to found a colony, and if there is enough time, and enough random shots are fired, every island should be hit. Archeological time in Polynesia has deepened, and to this extent Sharp's argument is aided.

The major speech relations and the major cultural relations of Polynesia are with Asia, and this fact requires spread of culture upwind-somewhat against the random "lost boat" thesis. Yet Sharp points out that there are seasonal winds which carry boats to the east, and there are records of lost boats which arrived well to the east of their starting points. Again, given enough time the observed result is expectable. Further, the evidence is clear. Asian men, with domestic plants, and animals played a dominant role in populating the Pacific islands.

However, Sharp tends to overplay his thesis, and to restrict his view. Evidence of trans- pacific voyaging is now abundant, beginning perhaps with accidental landings on American shores as early as 2500 B.C., and with important cultural effects suggesting deliberate voyaging by 1500 B.c. Although these seem to have been mainland people, probably from southern China earliest and from India later, they did voyage through Polynesia, and a growing body of evidence suggests that they returned to Asia. We are probably coming to a view of Asian colonization of America with round-trip voyages.

Just what effect all this had on the Polynesians is somewhat unclear at the moment, but the problem already looms over the Pacific, and Sharp tends to ignore it. Indeed, he strains at the evidence to make it fit a thesis of accidental one-way voyages. Thus, despite the growing evidence of very early and very important Indian Ocean trade with East Africa, Sharp wants an accidental, one-way, lost-canoe colony of Polynesians to account for the Polynesian speech and culture on Madagascar. Similarly for the Norse in America, he is

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120 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

unwilling to consider anything except accidental one-way voyages. Concerning the sailing ability of Polynesian canoes he raises doubts. Can they really sail upwind? Can the double canoes stand the wracking strain of long voyages upwind? He implies that they cannot. Yet the evidence is that the Polynesians sailed well upwind, and one wonders what evidence there is that the lashings of the double canoes were not readily maintained on long voyages. Sharp spends much ingenuity and time explaining away legendary and folklore evidence some of which may refer to pre-Polynesian settlement of the islands, and some of which probably refers to voyages to America and return. But he rejects mythological references to distant lands by all seafaring peoples-Celts, Arabs, Greeks, Peruvians, Romans! Yet evidence for distant purposeful voyaging by all these peoples increases steadily. By Sharp's criteria it would be easy to prove that the Norse could not deliberately sail to and from America. Yet we know that they did.

Sharp may be read with profit as a caution against the romantic view of Polynesians as the world's greatest, earliest celestial navigators and explorers, but he should also be viewed as a

partisan pleader for one-way voyages. The trend of the evidence is that early deliberate

round-trip voyaging by many peoples in many seas was well under way by 2500 B.C.-

GEORGE F. CARTER



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