The settlement pattern in the Chugoku mountainous region is regarded as lockeres Haufendorf in the terminology of German rural settlement geography. Auther intended to investigate its actual features from the viewpoint of the spatial relationships between village and field patterns. And in this treatise, Auther paid his attention to the developmental aspects of the rural settlement. This could throw light on the historical processes of the reclamation in the mountainous region of Chugoku district. The research area is NuKui district. Kate-cho, in the north-western mountainous region of Hiroshima Prefecture. In these persepectives, intensive field study has been conducted minutely at the level of each parcels of land. In this area there remains a historical material as Kenchi-cho, Agricultural land survey, describing each parcel and its holding in 1638. All the agricultural holdings are recorded according to their small place name (Honogi), not the location number. Identifying the place name. Auther constructed the village map showing relationships between a peasant house and his fields in the early Edo era. The map reveals that many peasants held their fields neighboring their own houses except a few big peasants. Auther guesses that this mountainous area, consisting of many small branch valleys, was reclaimed by the peasants who settled down sporadically in the medieval ages. The settlement pattern which is inherently identical with lockeres Haufendorf, considered to have developed from this process of the reclamation. After the Meiji Restoration, each parcel of the lot was recorded according to location number. In 1888, the old land tax roll (Kyu-tochi-daicho) was completed. This is a valuable datum about the landholding at the middle of the Meiji era. At that time, there were cases cultivator was not always landowner. A few powerful peasants have their fields far away from their own houses. On the other side, many peasants did not possess their cultivating fields. In this way, Buraku, basic regional unit of the rural community in modern Japan, come into existence under the leadership of those upper class peasants whose lots were distributed over Nukui district. Some earth gods in the small branch valleys were consolidated into a Buraku shrine. A primary school was also constructed at the foot of the Buraku shrine. Moreover, communal forests of 100 hectare belong to the common property to the Buraku. The map showing farming regions as of 1978, based on Census data (Noka-kihon-daicho), reveals that each settlements are grouped separately into the farming regions in the small branch valleys. In conclusion, Auther came to the thought that lockeres Haufendorf in the mountainous region of Chugoku district could be identified as dispersed settlement. Basically speaking, lockeres Haufendorf have much in common with dispersed settlement, judging from the spatial organization just as peasants cultivate rented or owned fields neighboring their own houses. Lockeres Haufendorf in the study area could be considered as a dispersed settlement (complex) consisting of toft and croft.

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This paper aims to make a clear understanding on the development of commercial activities at the selected key settlements in the Western Ghats of South India. The major points of discussion were stressed upon the increase in number of shops and the factors which made possible the development of commercial activities in the sample study villages. The basic concepts applied to this study is the key settlements re-arranged by Cloke (1979) from the geographical points of view. The door to door interview method using a schedule was applied for the collection of basic information at each shop of two selected study villages. The field work was conducted at the sample villages from August 24 to September 30, 1982. The selected sample villages were those of (1) Kurubathur in Manjarabad taluk, Hassan district and (2) Naravi in Belthangadi taluk, Dhakshina Kannada district of Karnataka state. The random sampling method was employed to select the sample shops of which total counts 88; (1) Thirty samples from Kurubathur and fifty eight samples from Naravi. The major findings are summarized as follows: 1. The rapid increase in number of commercial functions including wholesale, retail and service, has begun since the beginning of 1970's at the sample village Naravi in particular. Most of the shop owners were the residents of sample villages. The increase in number of shops naturally resulted in the increase in variety of shops also. The evolution of shops in variety has reflected three developmental stages. In the first period (until the end of 1960's), shops for realizing a modernization of living standards has been well developed. Shops in place of the periodical market had rapidly increased in number in the second period in the former half of 1970's. The second phase of realizing a modernization of living standards had progressed in the latter half of 1970's. 2. The growth factors among newly coming-up commercial activities can be arranged in three categories; (1) The sub-factors for creating demand: (2) The sub-factors for stimulating the opening-willingness of shops: (3) The sub-factors by the development policy. 3. The sub-factors for creating demand were sub divided further into four minor factors which reflects the real scene in the sample villages; (1) The progress in public facilities such as a panchayat office, a primary health unit, a high school and a bank branch office: (2) The development of transport network with a nodal point in transportation: (3) The increase in agricultural labourers: (4) The development of beedi (the low quality of cigarette) works as a household industry. 4. The sub-factors for stimulating the opening-willingness of shops can be understood in the following six minor factors; (1) The orientation for establishing business by progress farmers: (2) The orientation for extra income by small farmers: (3) The immigrants from other villages with expecting good benefits from business: (4) The shifting from other occuption than business: (5) The succeeding to their father's business: (6) The joining to new business after leaving schools. 5. The sub-factors for the development policy of business can be realized through further three minor factors; (1) Increase in number of rented shop buildings through the panchayat office: (2) The progress of loan system for joining commercial activities: (3) The development of various loan system by the government for general economic development. The personal or consumption loan is one of the good examples to rejuvenate the monetary flow in a village. In conclusion, the commercial activities at the key settlements has been developed with the combined effects of various minor factors for making a growth of business since the beginning of 1970's in the Western Ghats of South India.

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Beach rook is composed of beach sediments that have been chiefly cemented by calcium carbonate deposits. The cemented aggregates may consist of bioclastics sand (mainly coral, shell, and foraminifera fragments), gravels or of whatever else the beach may be composed of. Typical beach rock seems to have developed best along the sub-tropical and tropical coasts. Beach rocks have been found on the coasts of the Ryukyu Islands, including the Amami, Tokara, Okinawa, and the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands. The beach rock is found as far north as at Noto Peninsula (N37゜) in Japan (Azuma et al. 1982). Beach rocks crop out at about mean tidal level or about mean high tidal level providing the range is large. In this report, the distribution of beach rocks and ground-water springs on Okinoerabu Island are shown (Fig. 1), and the source of calcium carbonate is also discussed on the basis of water qualities of moat-water, ground-water on the Otsukan beach and Yakomo beach in the south-western part of Okinoerabu Island. Beach rock runs some 500m long and 40m wide along the coast on the Otsukan beach in Okinoerabu Island. In this srea, beach rock can be seen in the intertidal zone. Here the beach rock, which belongs to the sandy beach rock, is made of bioclastics sand. It can be stated that the beach rock corresponds with the intertidal beach rock reported by TAKENAGA (1965). The results of the present writer's study of beach rock on Okinoerabu Island are as follows; There seems to be no relationship between the distribution of beach rocks and that of ground-water springs on Okinoerabu Island (Fig. 1). The calcium carbonate is supplied from moat-water as the result of instrumental analysis of moat-water and ground-water (Fig. 2). Incipient consolidation of beach rock on the surface of intertidal zone or at the higher level is held by strong insolation.

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