2013 Volume 122 Issue 3 Pages 521-534
Most of Edmund Naumann's work on the geology and geography of Japan was translated into Japanese by N. Yamashita (1996). However, a paper titled “Neuere Arbeiten der kaiserlich japanischen geologischen Reichsanstalt (Recent works of the Imperial Geological Survey of Japan),” which appeared in the German Weekly Das Ausland in 1891, had not yet been translated. The paper, which we have now translated, relates to two publications, both published in 1890 by the Imperial Geological Survey of Japan. The first publication is Die japanischen Inseln. Eine topographische-geologische Übersicht (The Japanese Islands. A topographical-geological overview) by T. Harada, who was the deputy director of the survey. Naumann introduced Harada's explanation of the geological systems and geotectonic structures of the Japanese Islands, and, at the same time, severely criticized his concept of the“Fuji Zone,”which was proposed in response to Naumann's“Fossa Magna,”and also the“syntaxis theory,”which interpreted the tectonic relationship between the north and south Japan arcs. The second publication is Beiträge zur Kenntniss der japanischen Landwirthschaft, I, Allgemeiner Teil (Contributions to the knowledge of Japanese agriculture, I. General part) by M. Fesca who was the chief of the agronomical section of the survey. This paper is also an explanatory text of Agricultural Production of the Japanese Empire, Atlas edited by Fesca in 1889. Naumann introduced the contents of the publication in detail, especially that related to climate, vegetation zones, soil characteristics, arable land, and various aspects of agricultural management, and mentioned that he missed the citation of someone's work on agricultural insurance. Naumann's paper is important because it represented not only the results of investigations by the Geological Survey of Japan about ten years after its founding, but also the general situation of geological and agronomical research in Japan around 1890.
