Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 33, No. 2 (Apr., 1943), pp. 318-331Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/209783 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

NORTH AMERICA

FLUCTUATIONS IN MUSKRAT AND LYNX POPULATIONS IN CANADA. Charles Elton, whose studies of periodicity in animal populations are well known, offers new evidence on the subject in an article with Mary Nicholson (Fluctuations in Numbers of the Muskrat (Ondatra zibethica) in Canada, Journ. of Animal Ecology, Vol. ii, I942, pp. 96-126). The work is based on records of the Hudson's Bay Company, mainly after I849.

Mr. Elton's early studies had led him to postulate a correlation with the sunspot cycle (compare the note "Climatic Cycles and the Numbers of Animals," Geogr. Rev., Vol. 15,

1925, pp. 3I3-3I6). The eleven-year cycle was later abandoned and now is replaced by one of slightly less than ten years. This cycle is "most clearly shown in the fur returns of the lynx (Lynx canadensis), which prove it to have been in existence since the eighteenth century; and in the abundance of the snowshoe rabbit or varying hare (Lepus americanus and allied species), which is the main controlling factor of the lynx fluctuations." It is seen in other terrestrial fur bearers and some birds. "There is no doubt that the cycles are real ones in these populations and not simply the result of market or trapping variations; that they are widespread among different terrestrial species of the forest zone (especially in the northern conifer belt); that they often happen over enormous tracts of country; and that there is a tendency for the years of abundance and scarcity to synchronize regionally." The facts suggest the operation of a climatic factor, but "no one has yet been able to point to any direct meteorological evidence for a climatic cycle of the right length to account for the population rhythm."

The muskrat offers an advantageous study. The numbers are large (it is, in fact, the most valuable wild-fur crop in Canada today, with a peak of nearly 24 million skins in the I932-1933 season); as an aquatic animal it affords comparison with terrestrial species already studied; the fluctuations give distinct hints at climatic causes, especially as reflected in water-level changes. But to turn the hints to scientific evidence there is "need for exact measurements of water levels, snow depths and temperature in relation to sample field populations of muskrats, and opportunities for these should be available in the new muskrat conservation projects."

Since the above note was written, the November, 1942, number of the Joiirnal of Anitnal Ecology has been received at the Society. It includes another contribution by Mr. Elton and Miss Nicholson: "The Ten-Year Cycle in Numbers of the Lynx in Canada" (pp. 2I 5-244).

The article is especially interesting as a study in methodology. It makes careful use of Canadian lynx-fur records from the Hudson's Bay Company for a period of more than 200 years with details by smaller regions, reconstructed from the original fur-trade districts, since I82I. The conclusion is that "the cycle in lynx furs is very violent and regular and has persisted unchanged for the whole period. Its average period is about 9.6 years."

THE AMERICAN CARPET MANUFACTURE. Carpets are an integral part of our American civilization, adding much to the comfort and joy of our living. Some we admire; some we tum from in dismay; yet all, in Masefield's characterization, are "an improvement



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 3 19

upon the litter of bones, shells and bits of meat of the cave-dweller, the bare earth of Odys- seus' palace, or the rushes and filth of the mediaeval hall" (John Masefield: In the Mill, New York, I94I).

Carpets were not in use as floor coverings in Europe until the middle of the seventeenth century. As late as I75I a cyclopedia defined a carpet as a covering that might be spread on a table "or even a passage of floor." In America they did not come into common use until I830, though as early as I79I carpeting was being produced "in a family way" in Provi- dence, R. I., and in I8II there were more than four thousand hand looms in the carpet industry of Philadelphia alone, mainly in small shops containing two or three looms. The story of the industry is told by Arthur H. Cole and Harold F. Williamson in a volume of the "Harvard Economic Studies" (Vol. 70), "The American Carpet Manufacture" (Cam- bridge, I941).

The decade i825-i834 saw the factory form of carpet manufacture rise to dominance. Philadelphia remained the center of the hand-loom industry, but to the north and northeast factories of considerable size sprang up at a rapid rate. In I82I a factory was established in New Jersey, and by i825 there were mills at Somersworth, N. H., Simsbury, Conn., Steu- benville, Ohio, Medway, Mass., and Hudson, N. Y. Shortly thereafter there were mills scattered all the way from Gorham, Maine, to Wheeling, W. Va., many of which survived competition and depression and are still in operation today, such as the plants at Thompson- ville, Conn., and Lowell and Saxonville, Mass. All of these were launched on a factory basis, there being no intermediate stage of development as in the American manufacture of wool cloth proper or the boot and shoe industries.

The beginnings of localization appeared in the decade i836-i845. Massachusetts and Connecticut held an important proportion of the industry; Philadelphia remained a large center of production (though still on a small-plant basis); and Columbia County, New York, had several mills. Philadelphia, as in the earlier period, specialized in goods of cheaper quality-rag and list carpets. In I845, however, plants were still widely scattered, as com- pared with I875, when regional grouping became much more marked.

The factors behind the rapid growth of the carpet industry in the I830'S and I840's

seem to have been the improving economic conditions and growing wealth of the sea- board cities and protection in the shape of tariff duties. Tariff duties rose from 5 per cent ad valorem in I 789 to I5 per cent in I794, and the act of i 8i6 carried a tax of 25 per cent (reduced to 20 per cent in I8I9). The tariff of I824 introduced specific duties of increasing benefit to the domestic industry if it could lower its costs. This the factory system and the introduction of the power loom permitted.

The factory form of carpet manufacture was not preceded by any considerable technical development, as in the cotton or wool cloth industries, but after the industry had been launched on a factory basis important technical innovations were made, chief of which was the introduction of the Bigelow power loom in the late I 840's. Generally, this period from I845 to i 875 was one of rapid technical advance. In fact, it is hard to find any other Ameri- can industry that made so rapid and complete a shift from a handicraft industry to a power- driven, large-scale, factory enterprise. Since i 875 most of the changes have been refine- ments of earlier types of power looms. Recent (twentieth century) developments in carpet manufacture include larger plants, large-scale management, further localization in -the



320 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

Northeastern States (with minor developments in North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois, Minne- sota, Ohio, andWisconsin), and increasing emphasis on prefabrication (especially in yarn manufacture).

The quality of carpets has been steadily improved, lovers of primitive handicraft, who are apt to confuse age with quality, to the contrary. On this subject we quote again from Masefield, himself a worker in the large Alexander Smith Carpet Company of Yonkers, N. Y., during the last decade of the nineteenth century: "I have sometimes heard amateur weavers speak as though their work were more honest and better than the work of the power-loom. This seems to me to be bunkum. A good power-loom will make easily and swiftly a web which will last a century; it will weave yards while the hand loom potters at an inch. The power loom is a superb and splendid servant."

"The American Carpet Manufacture" offers a wealth of interesting and useful information on one of our great American industries. As economists the authors stress such as- pects of the industry as production, organization, labor, and marketing, and they use the historical approach throughout. They fail, however, to provide us with information on the sources of the raw materials (wool, cotton, jute, dyes, etc.) used in carpet manufacture -information the geographer would like to have, and preferably in the form of maps. A map showing the location and relative size of mills at different periods in our history would also be useful and interesting.-ROBERT G. BOWMAN

THE AMERICAN SULPHUR INDUSTRY. By sheer perseverance in finding an economic way to exploit the enormous deposits of the basic raw material in Louisiana and Texas, the American sulphur industry achieved this country's chemical independence. For commercial chemical processes are based largely on three natural materials, salt, lime, and sulphur, and the most important of these is sulphur.

In I890, when Sicily still controlled the world's supply, Herman Frasch conceived the idea of melting sulphur in Louisiana at its source in the ground and pumping it a thousand feet to the surface, a procedure ingenious in theory but almost fantastic in actual practice. Sulphur melts at 2400 F. and at 3I5? F. becomes as liquid as water; yet at 3300 F. it again thickens; thus for free flow a delicate balance of temperature must be maintained. Many were the difficulties encountered in supplying the needed heat-the fortunate discovery of oil in the region saved the process from certain failure-and in regulating the temperature. The formation of hydrogen sulphide gas was another problem; and, finally, Nature had tucked away the sulphur domes at most inaccessible locations: Grande Ecaille, for example, just west of the delta of the Mississippi, in the midst of a swamp yet ten miles from fresh water, and plagued by swarms of mosquitoes.

Fascinating is the story of how the various obstacles were met and surmounted (Wil- liams Haynes: The Stone That Bums: The Story of the American Sulphur Industry, New York, I942). The method now employed for recovering the fifty million tons of American sulphur which would otherwise have been locked uselessly within the ground has been developed from the original Frasch process. After drilling to the deposit from the surface, three pipes are installed, one within another. Water which has been heated to 3250 F. is fed under pressure through the outside ring of this concentric nest of pipes, and compressed air is introduced through the central passage. Melted by the hot water and filled with



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 321

bubbles from the compressed air, the sulphur has a density less than that of the surrounding ground water; thus it rises within the intermediate ring to the surface.

Production of sulphuric acid from raw sulphur has been progressing steadily in the United States, the needs for fertilizers requiring the large share of this output in times of peace, the demands increasing greatly in time of war. Our consumption of sulphur has been reaching a total of nearly two million tons yearly. There have been no large imports since the days when the ancient world-wide monopoly in Sicily was broken; indeed, American output has been supplying most of the rest of the world.-WILLIAM E. RUDOLPH

THE GROWTH OF THE TOURIST COURT, WITH AN ILLUSTRATION FROM ALBUQUERQUE. One product of our automotive age, temporarily in eclipse, is the tourist court. "Tourist court" is the name a new importance and dignity has bestowed on the former "auto camp." Its genesis from the "camping out" habit of the tourist and the "tin-can" threat is described by Franklin T. McCann, with an apt illustration (The Growth of the Tourist Court in the United States and Its Relationship to the Urban Development of Albuquerque, New Mexico, Denison Univ. Bull., Journ. of the Sci. Laboratories, Vol. 37, 1942, pp. 5I-66). Mr. McCann compares the relation of court and automobile to that of hotel and railroad in an earlier age. Climate and mode of living have had much to do with the growth of the tourist court. Its "native habitat" is west of the Mississippi. According to the I940 census, the country had I3,52I tourist courts (on a sharply restricted definition), which had done a business of $36,786,ooo in I939. California and Texas were far in the lead, followed by Florida, Oregon, Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. In New England and New York, on the other hand, the tourist home bids for a large share of the tourist trade. Albuquerque offers a good example of a suitable locus for the new industry. The town lies south of the main mass of the Rocky Mountains at the first point available for through east-west traffic, and it has always had importance as a communications center, as its cruciform pattern reflects. This pattern is reinforced by the new development. In I940

Albuquerque had 84 tourist courts, located on the two main highways, east-west and north-south, most of them on the outskirts of the city proper. Another form of transportation is now making its influence felt in Albuquerque-air transport. The city's progress as an air traffic center should lead to extension in a southeast direction.

CLIMATOLOGY AND AGRICULTURE IN MEXICO. The Bureau of Geography, Meteorology, and Hydrology of Mexico, established within the Department of Agriculture and Development, has in recent years become increasingly active in climatological research, and the results of its research are constantly being incorporated into the current Mexican agricultural program. This development is due largely to the efforts of one man, Alfonso Contreras Arias, whose earlier work in the classification of climates led naturally to a broader interest in the application of climatology to agriculture.

A comprehensive investigation of methods of climatic classification and a comparative analysis of the most widely used systems, including those of Koppen, De Martonne, Raun- kiaer, and Thornthwaite, led Contreras to select the last as most satisfactory for Mexican conditions and for use in the solution of agricultural problems (El problema de la clasificacion de los climas, Mexico City, I939; English translation by Lois Olson, Monthly Weather Rev.) Vol. 70, I942, pp. 249-253).




Contreras' map of world climates follows the Thornthwaite classification but is on a somewhat larger scale than the original (Geogr. Rev., Vol. 23, I933, Opp. p. 440) and includes a revision of Mexican climates based on new data. The Thornthwaite system had been adopted as standard by the Mexican Meteorological Service in I932 (Manuel Lebrija: Ventajas del sistema de Thornthwaite sobre el sistema de Martonne en clasificacion de climas, Rev. Soc. de Estudios Astronomicos y Geofisicos, Vol. 4, No. 8, I94I, pp. 45-50) and was already well known in Mexico through a detailed map of the climates of the Republic prepared under the direction of the Bureau of Statistics (Mexico en cifras: Atlas estadistico,

Tacubaya, I934, map). Further adaptations for Mexican use were introduced by Contreras. According to Thornthwaite's classification of the climates of North America ( Geogr.

Rev., Vol. 2I, I93I, pp. 633-655), most of Mexico would fall within the zones of winter rainfall deficiency. This gives an erroneous impression as regards agriculture, because most

of the country has its heaviest precipitation in the spring and, in many areas, a secondary

rainy season in the fall. Contreras, consequently, has modified Thornthwaite's seasonal

rainfall factor to take into account the four seasons of the year. By way of further modifica-

tion, the subhumid (C) and semiarid (D) humidity types are broken down into four sub-

types, and the mesothermal (B') and microthermal (C') temperature types into five sub-

types, with correspondingly restricted ranges of available humidity and temperature. The value of such a climatic classification for agricultural workers is illustrated by two

recent publications, the first entitled "Introduccion al estudio de los suelos," by Alfonso Gonzalez Gallardo, undersecretary of agriculture (Mexico City, I94I). Although Gonzalez was writing mainly for field workers engaged in land classification on irrigation projects, his book provides a broad background for agricultural investigations in general. In it the

climatic map of Mexico prepared by Contreras is used as a basis for discussing the climatic

distribution of soils and vegetation. The book also has the distinction of being the first text

on modem soil science written in Spanish for use in the Americas. In "El trigo en Mexico, Parte II, El clima" (Mexico City, I94I) Contreras has used the

modified version of Thornthwaite's climatic classification to explain wheat distribution.

Maps of the climates of Mexico and the earth have transparent overlays showing wheat

distribution. Contreras appreciated, however, that no general classification of climates can

include all the local factors that affect crop yields, such as the occurrence of hail or frost,

nor can it indicate whether or not the climatic elements are favorable at critical periods in

the life history of any specific crop. This requires a knowledge of both climate and the

processes of plant growth and, in consequence, coordinated research by climatologists and

biologists working toward a single goal. In his wheat studies Contreras puts this principle into practice, applying it to wheat

growing in each of the nine major producing areas of Mexico. The technique employed is

based on Azzi's system of "meteorological equivalents," in which the crop year, divided into four subperiods corresponding to the phases of plant growth, is substituted for the cal-

endar year and emphasis is placed on climatic departures from the average rather than on

direct instrumental readings-(Girolamo Azzi: Le climat du ble dans le monde, Rome, I930;

reviewed in Geogr. Rev., Vol. 23, I933, pp. I57-I59). The length of these subperiods for

wheat and their distribution within the calendar year vary from region to region and in

relation to the type of wheat grown. The rainfall and temperature of any given year or any




selected growth period within the year are evaluated in terms of their divergence from the average, and crop yields are correlated with the climatic divergences. The total yields include automatically any crop reduction caused by plant parasites whose distribution varies with the climate. Of these the rust, known as chahuixtle, is particularly serious in Mexico.

Contreras has also introduced an interesting graphic correlation technique. Tempera- ture deviations above or below average during the critical period of plant growth are measured along the abscissas and rainfall deviations along the ordinates. The position of each year in relation to these deviations is then plotted, and at that point the crop yield for the year is noted, and isopleths are drawn. The final graph may be used to indicate which climatic conditions are most conducive to high or low yields, either directly or indirectly.

All nine wheat regions identified by Contreras are described, so far as data permit, according to Azzi's principles. The graphic method of correlation, however, was used only in the investigation of the Bajio Region, where climate and yield data were available for 24 municipalities over a period of I2 years. Results indicate that the greatest expansion of wheat production may be expected in the north, in areas where winters are cold enough to check the development of chahuixtle, where the possibility of irrigation compensates for rainfall deficiency, and where topography permits the extension of mechanized agriculture. In the intertropical zone winters are seldom cold enough to kill the chahuixtle except in the higher altitudes, but in such areas the prevailingly low temperatures lengthen the growing season and thereby increase the time during which the wheat is exposed to direct climatic hazards. In consequence, the intertropical regions best suited to wheat growing are also most subject to chahuixtle infestation.

At the Second Inter-American Conference for Agriculture, Contreras presented two additional and important contributions to agricultural climatology in Mexico. The first was a large-scale map of Mexico which is a further refinement of those previously presented in "El trigo en Mexico" and in "Introduccion al estudio de los suelos." The map, which retains Thornthwaite's climatic types yet presents the greater detail needed for use within the country, is accompanied by an explanation of its construction and use and by extensive tables giving the data on which the climatic types were determined (Mapa de las provincias climatologicas de Mexico, Mexico City, I942).

The second work, "Estudios Climatologicos, Areas geograficas de Dispersion: Par- thenumn argentatum, Hevea brasiliensis, Castilloa elastica" (Mexico, D. F., i942), is most timely, since it identifies and delimits the climates in Mexico that are favorable for the production of hevea and guayule. Both these works had been specially printed for the conference and were available to all the members. They are extremely valuable method- ological studies and demonstrate the urgent need for similar climatic surveys in all the other countries of Latin America to provide a scientific basis for the agricultural readjust- ments now in progress.-Lois OLSON

SOUTH AMERICA

SURINAM. In a brochure, "Surinam: A Geographical Study," published by the Nether- lands Information Bureau, New York City, J. Warren Nystrom offers the portrait of a colony that has been a "consistent liability" to the mother country. The fortunes of war




have, for the time being, introduced a brighter note into the economic affairs of Dutch Guiana, but the still unsolved problem, shared with the other European colonies in the Caribbean and its borders, remains (compare Geogr. Rev., Vol. 33, I943, pp. I49-I50; and R. R. Platt and others: The European Possessions in the Caribbean Area, Amer. Geogr. Soc. Map of Hispanic America Publ. No. 4, 1941).

Until the sudden rise in the exports of bauxite-in I940 valued at 87 per cent of the total export trade-Surinam lived on agriculture. Yet in a territory four times the size of the mother country only I50 square miles, one-third of which is in large plantations, is under cultivation. The scene has been one of constant shifts since the golden days of tobacco and sugar; cotton, cacao, coffee, bananas, and citrus fruits also have been tried and have failed for one reason or another. At present rice is the most hopeful crop. Three decades ago Surinam imported I3 million pounds of rice; today paddy occupies the largest acreage, feeds the domestic population-nearly half of the population are rice-eating peoples, Indian or Javanese-and in normal years provides a surplus for export. However, it is unlikely that rice will prove the "financial salvation" of Surinam. Export encounters the problems of transportation and markets, on which other agricultural hopes have been wrecked. Mr. Nystrom's analysis of specific failures gives an inkling of what must be faced by the planner for the future.

Of immediate interest is the expansion of the bauxite mining industry. Surinam now furnishes 60 per cent of the aluminum ore used by the United States. The chief deposits exploited so far are at Moengo, near the border of French Guiana, 20 to 30 miles from the coast, but reached by a ioo-mile journey up the Cottica River. The ore is easily exploited once the cover of tropical jungle is removed. It is crushed, washed, and dried and then loaded onto freighters that proceed to Trinidad or St. Thomas for transshipment or direct to New Orleans, Mobile, or Newport News. "A ship is now loaded almost every day." An estimated 650,000 tons was produced in I94I. Moengo is a settlement of I500 people

and is quite "American" in appearance. Another new plant, also operated by the subsidiary of the Aluminum Company of America, has been opened up at Paranam, 25 miles south

of Paramaribo; and still more recently a near-by development has been put in operation by a Dutch concern, the Billiton Company. Meanwhile, recent reports point to a development of the aluminum industry in the United States that will permit exploitation of low-

grade bauxite deposits and eliminate or reduce the dependence on imported ore.

AFRICA

HARBORS OF AFRICA. Among African harbors Bizerte is exceptional in its natural

endowment. Landlocked Lake Bizerte offers perfect shelter and a large extent of deep water, permitting the accommodation of "an unlimited number of the largest vessels." It is

fed by the Garaa Achkel in the plain of Mateur, a swamp that serves as a settling basin for

the waters draining from the flanking ranges of the Tell and thus eliminates silt from the

harbor. Add a strategic situation, and we have the site of the world-famous naval base.

In contrast, Tunis, the chief commercial port of Tunisia, is an artificial creation; for the

lagoon on which it lies is very shallow and an excavated channel is necessary to connect with the open sea and the outport of La Goulette. On the West African coast Lagos, on




a tidal inlet leading to a sheltered lagoon, is "by far the best and most developed of the harbors of Nigeria." On the surf-bound Gold Coast Takoradi, on the contrary, is com- pletely artificial. On the east coast Mombasa is "typical of the deep, spacious, well-sheltered drowned river bays of Mozambique, Tanganyika, and Kenya." Farther north is the "largest and deepest sheltered indentation of Africa," the Ghubbet Karah, entered from Tajura Bay; but no use has yet been made of its numerous good anchorages.

These are a few of the harbors of Africa described in an article of this title by George F. Deasy in the October number of Economic Geography. He lists 88 harbors ranked as first-class on the basis of shelter, spaciousness, and depth (i S-foot minimum in the channel and anchorage). They are tabulated according to political allegiance, with indications of depth of channel and character of harbor (natural or artificial, developed or undeveloped), and located on a series of small maps. Twenty representative harbors are selected for brief description and illustration.

FISHERIES OF LAKE NYASA. Consideration of the "Report on the Fish and Fisheries of Lake Nyasa" by C. K. Ricardo Bertram, H. J. H. Borley, and Ethelwynn Trewavas (Crown Agents for the Colonies, London, I942) takes one all the way from sunspots to so human and humane a document as the British govemment's "Statement of Policy on Colonial Development and Welfare" (Cmd. 6175, London, I940), which has as a prime objective "active development of the natural resources of the various territories so as to provide their people with improved standards of living." In most of the colonies the basic need is nutrition. Recognition of the need has already taken effect in the form of nutrition surveys in several of the African colonies. It was as a part of the Nutrition Survey in Nyasa- land, begun in I938, that the fisheries investigation was undertaken.

Size, shape, and nature of its waters confer unusual advantages on Lake Nyasa as a fish producer. The area of the lake is II,000 square miles-nearly a third of the land area of the protectorate. In productivity it is far superior to Lake Tanganyika, for reasons made clear by the "John Murray" Expeditions to Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa (R. S. A. Beau- champ: Chemistry and Hydrography of Lakes Tanganyika and Nyasa, Nature, Vol. 146,

I940, pp. 253-256). In lakes of such size nutrient material is derived largely from bottom deposits by circulation of the waters. Mixing in Lake Nyasa is much more thorough than in its neighbor. Zoologically both lakes are interesting for their high proportion of endemic fish species. Of more importance economically is the fact that in Lake Nyasa there are several forms that are also first-rate food fishes. The long shore line is advantageous of exploitation. Livingstone, the discoverer of Lake Nyasa, reported that "the population on its shores is prodigiously large; all engage in catching fish by nets, hooks, creels, torches, or poison" (quoted by Dr. Richard Light in "Focus on Africa," Amer. Geogr. Soc. Special Publ. No. 25, 194I, p. 87; see also the accompanying photographs of Lake Nyasa).

For many of the natives of Nyasaland fish supplies practically the only animal protein in a diet overwhelmingly of maize or cassava. Many of the shore dwellers are part-time fishermen; some people migrate from the hills for the fishing season; fish is sold in the populous markets at the south end of the lake and some dried fish is hawked in the interior; but the industry could be greatly developed. Recommendations of the investigators are especially concemed with methods of curing and marketing. Attention is also drawn to




the benefits to be derived from a stabilization of lake levels. Besides the annual rise and fall, Lake Nyasa, like its great neighbors, exhibits longer-period fluctuations. Similarities in behavior among the lakes led earlier observers to look for a correlation with sunspot numbers (compare Geogr. Rev., Vol. I6, I926, pp. 142-143; Vol. 23, 1933, pp. 674-675).

Since I924, however, Lake Nyasa has behaved abnormally. Following the low levels of three decades ago the Shire outlet silted up and a general rise has been in progress; a maxi- mum was recorded in I937, and levels still remain high. An analysis of the situation has recently been made by F. E. Kanthack, the South African irrigation expert, who thinks that the sunspot theory can be dismissed and that the fluctuations are "due entirely to hydrological and mechanical causes" (The Hydrology of the Nyasa Rift Valley, South African Geogr. Journ., Vol. 24, April, I942, pp. 3-34). The practical consequences of the changes in lake level are far-reaching; fishing and agriculture along the lake shores obviously are directly affected; the influence on stream flow and this in turn on soil erosion is more remote but not less necessary of consideration.

THE OCEANS

A PLAN FOR MAPPING ARCTIC SEA CURRENTS. Ocean currents affect human life and enterprise through such widely varied factors as climate, navigation, and food supply. Least understood are the currents of the North Polar Regions; and yet there is no doubt of the expediency of knowing more about their behavior, particularly in this time of global war. A unique source of information is found in the application of tree-ring dating to the driftwood of Arctic shores. The groundwork for such a study has already been laid. More than a hundred dated samples of driftwood collected along the islands and mainland of northwestern Alaska have been identified with the regions in which they grew on west- flowing Alaskan rivers U. L. Giddings, Jr.: Dendrochronology in Northern Alaska, Bull. Univ. of Arizona, Vol. 12, No. 4; Univ. of Alaska Publ. 4, 1941; see note in Geogr. Rev., Vol. 32, I942, pp. 665-666). In some cases, driftwood can be traced within fifty miles of its place of origin on the Yukon River.

The methods of dendrochronology consist partly in cross-identifying sequences of annual rings by the relative ring widths. The procedure is possible because ring growth patterns tend to be the same under similar climatic conditions of tree growth under stress. In sub- Arctic Alaska the particular stress which produces good cross-dating in spruce trees appears to be the low temperature of the growing season. Enough local growth differences exist, however, to establish some individuality for any limited area, and driftwood, wherever found, if it carries the ring pattern of a certain stand of living trees, can be safely said to have grown in or near that stand. This has been substantiated by recent and extensive studies of growth patterns in groups of living trees across most of central and northern Alaska.

Timber carried down by the rivers and deposited on the treeless shores of Bering Sea and the Arctic Sea has long furnished the Eskimos with material for building and other purposes. Thus an Eskimo village, recent or ruined, may yield growth records from river- banks possibly hundreds of miles away. More significant in the present view is the fact that each piece of wood, whether used by Eskimos or lodged on an Arctic beach, has been transported not only by a river but by the sea and, like a drift bottle, carries its special




message. The outer ring in each intact sample, if it is a "bark" ring, indicates the year in which the log probably began its drift. Data such as these will, in mass, indicate changes in trend of current which may have occurred in years past. Though wind effects may influence drift to a certain extent, the nature of a floating log makes it strongly subject to the undertow of persistent water motion.

Driftwood already dated is predominantly from the Yukon. It occurs in about the same proportions on the north shores of St. Lawrence Island, on the Bering Strait islands, and at Point Hope, indicating a steady movement during the open season from the mouth of the Yukon northward through Bering Strait and past Point Hope into the Arctic Sea.

Similar work with living trees of the Mackenzie River and driftwood from Alaskan shores may indicate the prevailing movement of currents skirting the ice pack in the Beaufort Sea. Tree-ring mapping of the major north-flowing Siberian rivers will complete the groundwork for determining in detail the peripheral currents of the Arctic Sea. The recording stations-trees and driftwood logs-are already there and have been operating for centuries. It is necessary only to gather and interpret the records.-J. L. GIDDINGS, JR.

PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY

FEATURES OF LIMESTONE CAVERNS. When W. M. Davis wrote "Origin of Lime- stone Caverns" (Buill. Geol. Soc. ofAmerica, Vol. 4I, I930, Pp. 475-628), some students of caves in this country were beginning to examine the effects of solution below the water table. To be sure, most of the European speleologists had concluded that hydrostatic pressure caused enough circulation of water below the water table to bring about effective solution; and some, notably E. A. Martel (Nouveau traite des eaux souterraines, Paris, I92I), had interpreted caverns in part in terms of deep circulation. It is surprising, therefore, that some cave workers in this country still believe that most cave forms originate above the water table. (Many speleologists dislike the term "water table" as applied to water in caverns. The karst water consists of a complex of "water bodies" with surfaces at different levels.) In fact, the geomorphology of caves is still in a confused state; there is wide divergence of opinions on fundamental questions; the terminology lacks uniformity.

On the basis of observations in I07 caves in the United States, J Harlen Bretz (Vadose and Phreatic Features of Limestone Caverns, Journ. of Geol., Vol. 50, I942, pp. 675-8ii) demonstrates that many forms originate below the water table, although they may be modified by other processes after the ground water (karst water) descends to lower levels. He describes seven types of cave streams and notes that the streams. are merely modifying certain features, originated by other processes. In general, the first cavities are of phreatic origin; later these cavities may be filled with cave earth; finally the channels may be re- opened by stream action above the ground-water level. Most attention is given to the phreatic forms, of which ten are described and their origins discussed, although the genesis of some is, admittedly, not clear. "Spongework" is the term applied to "complexes of small, interconnecting solution chambers in the limestone." Networks are a system of streets and avenues running with the joint planes the openings of which are too small to be called "rooms" or "chambers." Horizontal chambers in vertical beds, bedding-plane anastomoses, joint-plane anastomoses, wall pockets, ceiling pockets, floor pockets, joint-determined cavities, tubes and half tubes, and continuous rock spans complete the list of first-epoch,




phreatic features. In addition, forms recording current flow are described-incised meanders, horizontal grooves, domepits, flutes, and potholes-and finally the features resulting from a combination of vadose and phreatic processes.

In discussing the relation between caverns and surface features Bretz gives special attention to the Mammoth Cave region of Kentucky. With his conclusion that the caves antedate the sinks all who have worked in the region would agree. But the statement that the Pennyroyal plain is a peneplain and that "parts of the backslope of the cuesta . . . are accepted as traces of such a peneplain" is to be challenged by the less enthusiastic students of the peneplain. Bretz admits that "escarpment retreat, largely because of solutional attack . . . has made the Pennyroyal surface in large part." It would seem better to regard both surfaces as structural platforms, modified by solution and stream processes, the Dripping Spring cuesta on the Cypress sandstone, its structural strength deriving from the relative insolubility, the Pennyroyal plain on the Mammoth Cave limestones, with high resistance to stream action and, in the lower levels, somewhat resistant to solution also. The fact that the surface, in each case, bevels the formation slightly seems to be a common feature of structural platforms in regions of gentle dips. If this is true it is not necessary, indeed it may be misleading, to assume even a local period of peneplanation and to interpret cavern features in terms of such assumptions.

The work of Bretz and his contemporaries in this country represents a substantial contribution to cave science. They have gone beyond the deductive work of W. M. Davis and have accumulated a sizable body of observational data. To one working on the fringes of the subject it would seem that the time is ripe for a work of synthesis. It would be de- sirable to have a statement of the ground in which there is general agreement and of the major problems that remain unsolved.-SAMUEL N. DICKEN

ADDITIONAL NOTE ON CYLINDRICAL MAP PROJECTIONS AND THE PLOT- TING OF GREAT-CIRCLE COURSES. This note is supplementary to the "Notes on Cylindrical World Map Projections" in the July, I942, number of the Geographical Review (pp. 424-430) and calls attention to several articles on the subject that have recently appeared in British publications.

Sir Charles Arden-Close suggests "A Combined Cylindrical Projection" (Empire Sur- vey Rev., Vol. S, I939-I940, pp. 66-67) in which the spacing of the parallels is determined as the mean between the Mercator and the equal-area. This is expressed by

Y = R [loge tan (4S o+ /2) + sin ] /2.

Although the poles are projected at infinity, the scale along the meridians increases very little from the equator to 450, and even up to 80? the increase is not large.

In a discussion of "The Map of the Pacific" (Geogr. Journ., Vol. I00, I942, pp. 65-72)

Sir Charles suggests yet another cylindrical projection, or, rather, a group of projections in which chosen parallels at equal and opposite directions from the equator have the same scale as that of the meridians. This he calls a simple rectangular projection, and he illustrates it with a map of the Pacific with standard parallels at 30? north and south.

Mr. A. R. Hinks has described (Geogr. Journ., Vol. 95, I940, pp. 38I-383, and Vol. 97, I94I, pp. 353-356) a method of sketching great-circle courses identical with the one out- lined in the Geographical Review. He illustrates the use of the device on various oblique




Mercator projections. (A limited edition of six different oblique Mercator projections together with the normal and transverse graticule has been published by him more recently on a larger scale.) Mr. Hinks mentions that examples had been published previously for the normal Mercator by M. L. Fave of the French Hydrographic Service. It is not stated whether M. Fave originated the idea, and one infers that it has probably been known for a long time.

The method is, of course, generally applicable to all cylindrical projections (Geogr. Rev., Vol. 32, 1942, p. 428), and similar devices can, as is well known, be made for all zenithal or azimuthal projections. For instance, the United States Hydrographic Office used Chauvenet's great-circle protractor based on the stereographic projection for many years in the nineteenth century. What is less appreciated is that the principle is applicable to all conic projections, polar or oblique (V. Kavraiski: Graphic Solution of Astronomical Prob- lems, Memoirs on Hydrography, Vol. 37, Nos. I-2, St. Petersburg, I9I3, pp. 27-IO9 and 303-

392; reference on p. 74), provided the projection chosen in its polar form is one that shows the meridians as straight lines converging to a point and the parallels as concentric circles centered on this point. (This of course excludes both Bonne's projection and the polyconic.)

In general, the overlay of great-circle courses and distances must be on a projection of the type chosen for the map but the conical axis of which cuts the equator. The device requires that the trace of the conical axis on the overlay be centered on the trace of the conical axis on the map. Then, in the same way as for azimuthal map projections, the overlay is rotated until the great-circle course between two given points can be interpolated. The truth of this generalization may perhaps be more readily realized when it is remembered that azimuthal and cylindrical projections are only extreme forms of conic projections and that in the cylindrical type the center of rotation is at infinity, thus necessitating a straight- line motion of the overlay grid rather than a rotation.

The finding of simple and rapid solutions of problems of navigation has become of great importance now that long-distance flights over all parts of the world are of constant occurrence, and the plotting of great-circle courses and the measurement of great-circle distances are only two of several problems that can be solved adequately by the use of overlay map projections or graphical and mechanical adaptations of map projections. Mr. A. J. Dilloway in the Journal of the Royal Aeronautical Society (No. 373, Vol. 46, I942, pp. 4-3I)

has attempted a systematic treatment of the subject. It contains original methods conceived by the author as well as a useful summary of the work of British writers on the subject.

EDUCATIONAL GEOGRAPHY

GEOGRAPHY, AN ART AND A PHILOSOPHY. The annual meeting of the British Geographical Association for I942 was held in the ancient and devastatingly bombed city of Exeter. "Two thousand years to create Exeter; sixty minutes to destroy her outward form, but not her spirit," said W. Stanley Lewis in speaking of "The South-West." His address, the inaugural by the eminent classicist Dr. John Murray, and a response by Sir Halford J. Mackinder are published in the December, I942, number of Geography.

Dr. Murray challenged the purpose of geography: is it not dissipated, he asked, in a congeries of "geographies" instead of being concentrated in a "magistral" effort? Sir Halford took up the challenge in "Geography, An Art and a Philosophy." Here, once again, we




see a brilliant geographical mind at work. Incidentally, "geopolitics" is dismissed in the single sentence: "The Victorian habit of thinking in political frontiers must have been seriously discredited by now!"

Sir Halford believes that there is general agreement among geographers on these four points: field of study, technique, visual way of thinking, basic pattern of the map of the world. To the first point he contributes the concept of the "hydrosphere" as a unifying principle. "It envelops the Earth from above the stratus clouds to below the deepest water in the oceanic abyss, say provisionally, up and down, a dozen miles." In technique the central fact, of course, is the map. Dr. Thring's dictum of the geographer as one who "thinks in shapes" is recalled. The geographer reads his map and sees the picture. However, the "trained geographical imagination is not limited to shapes in two dimensions . . . It can see also the shapes of solids and of fluid circulations." The idea of this last leads on to another matter, the time element, for theoretically the map is synchronous. The basic pattern of the world map "must be that of the coast-lines and river courses" (not political lines). On the basic pattern other patterns are superimposed in answer to questions regarding phenomena and processes: "Why there?" Thence have arisen the "specialist" geographies or, as Mac- kinder prefers to call them, the "hybrid or applied" geographies. He cites his own and Herbertson's regional studies as "a trial run for a global integration of the geographical patterns." But "only its humane crown can give broad significance to Geography." As a philosophy it "integrates its conclusions from the human standpoint and so departs from the objectivity of science, for it ranges values alongside of measured facts. Hence 'outlook' is its characteristic." And today, for the first time in the world's history, that outlook has become global.

GEOGRAPHICAL NEWS

ANNALES DE GEOGRAPHIE-BULLETIN DE LA SOCIET1 DE G?OGRAPHIE; AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE ANNALES. It is with a sense of profound respect and obligation that we report on the January-March, I942, number of the Annales de Geographie-Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie. The new title indicates the fusion of the two chief geographical forces in France-the Annales de Geographie, founded in i89I, and the Societe de Geographie de Paris, the world's oldest geographical society, founded in

I82I. This is not the time for an appraisal of our debt to the Annales and the Societe, though by chance a side light on the role the latter has played in the national development of France is revealed in Professor McKay's article, "Colonialism in the French Geographical Move-

ment I87I-I88I," on pages 2I4-232 of this number of the Geographical Review. MM. de Martonne and de Margerie continue the direction of the magazine and are joined by A.

Cholley and General Perrier as representative of the Societe. The Societe reports among its

current activities preparation of Tablesge'ne'rales for the 40 years, I900-I939, of La Geographie. For the Annales the union is coincident with its jubilee. Under other circumstances the

event would call for celebration. Here it passes with a brief but eloquent summation by Professor de Martonne of the decade-by-decade growth of the Annales from its happy inauguration under the great master Vidal de la Blache and his eminent associate Louis

Raveneau. From this analysis one naturally turns to the actual volumes, which, over the

years, have come to fill a seven-foot shelf, a geographical library in themselves; and an



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 3 3 I

exciting hour of discovery and rediscovery follows as personalities and themes spring from the pages. Here in Volume 2 is Gautier's first report on Madagascar; in Volume 4 a report on "Bizerte et son nouveau port" with a large-scale map in color; in Volume 8 Ratzel's classic study of Corsica; in Volume I0 Gallois' "Les Andes de Patagonie," magnificently illustrated with panoramas and maps in color. The insert maps in these first ten volumes, a total of I00, are the delight and despair of the editor of today, faced with prohibitive costs of engraving and printing. The entire March, I9I3, number of the Annales is devoted to the American Geographical Society's Transcontinental Excursion held in celebration of our own fiftieth anniversary and conducted by W. M. Davis, to whom M. de Martonne pays special tribute.

It is instructive to compare the first number of the Annales with that now in hand (the serial number is 285). Number i opens with a statement of purpose. The new journal represents a reaction against the multiplicity of "special geographies" (compare the pre- ceding note) and of geographical societies. Among the several functions of the Societe de Geographie is that of disseminating geographical information and keeping the public in touch with the course of geographical discovery. The Annales, on the other hand, is designed as an instrument of geographical research and discipline, for as a science drawing its data so largely from other sciences geography is methodologically in need of the severest discipline. As one looks over the volumes it becomes apparent that there has been no falter- ing from this high resolution. It would be a liberal education for the young geographer to turn him loose among the Annales.

The eclectic role of the Annales is reflected in its handling of bibliography. That pre- eminent geographical tool, the Bibliographie Geographique Annuelle, formed an integral part of the Annales for two years, before it was published separately under Raveneau's direction; its later history and our own Society's association therewith have been recorded in the Geo- graphical Review (Vol. I3, I923, p. 480; Vol. I4, I924, p. 469).

Returning to the first number of the Annales, we note the topics of the first two articles: "La France exterieure," by P. Foncin, a political, social, commercial, and moral justification for the "plus grande France"; and Henri Schirmer's "La France et les voies de penetration au Soudan," which, with its informative map, invites rereading for its current interest. And now, turning to Number 285 of the Annales, we find its two leading articles in the best tradition of the French school of geography. A study of the rural population of Cochin- china by Pierre Gourou continues his admirable work on Indochina already published, and an inquiry into a phase of pastoral life byJules Blache takes up a theme developed by many French geographers. The ancient antithesis between the pastoral and agricultural ways of life is illustrated strikingly in West Africa in the almost mutually exclusive occupations of the pastoral Peuhls of the drier regions and the agricultural blacks of the moister zones. However, M. Blache has observed the beginnings of a new movement-the introduction of stock raising into the forest zones. Should the promise that he sees be fulfilled and victory achieved over nature-the tsetse and other ills-and tradition, the transformation would be of incalculable importance for West Africa.

Reference should also be made to M. de Martonne's critique on the morphology of the Causses du Quercy. His first contribution to the Annales appeared in I896. His sustained devotion has been a large factor in the maintenance of the high standard and clear-cut personality of the Annales de Geographie.



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