Geographical Review of Japan
Online ISSN : 2185-1719
Print ISSN : 0016-7444
ISSN-L : 0016-7444
Volume 43, Issue 11
Displaying 1-6 of 6 articles from this issue
  • Yôko ÔTA, Tadahiro TÔMA, Shigemasa SUMA
    1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 647-661
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The Shimosueyoshi upland in and around Yokohama City is 30-50m high and borders the eastern part of the Tama hilly land. This upland consists of the Shimosueyoshi formation, deposited at the time of the Shimosueyoshi transgression which has been thought to be correlated with the last interglacial age, and its surface is covered with the eolian deposits, the Kanto volcanic ash bed. The original surface of this upland is, therefore, the marine terrace plain representing the high sea level of the Monastrian stage. This area has long been studied as one of the type localities in the Japanese Quaternary successions.
    The detailed discussion, however, has not been made completely as to the morphological characteristics which are different from place to place. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to investigate the following three problems in more detail: (1) the topography of the Shi-mosueyoshi terrace, especially the altitude distribution (Fig. 1) and the drainage pattern and density (Figs. 2 and 3), (2) the bedrock topography with respect to the facies and thickness of the Shimosueyoshi formation (Figs. 4, 5 and 6) and (3) the relation between the present topography and the bedrock topography according to the data shown in these figures. This summary describes particularly the results of the above-mentioned (2) and (3) which have not been fully discussed in the previous studies.
    The bedrock topography underlying the Shimosueyoshi formation is classified into the fol-lowing three groups:
    1) Group A is the very flat surface situated closely in the east side of the former shore-line with a height of 40-45m on the Shimosueyoshi terrace. This flat surface inclines gently to the east down to 30m high and is characterized by Lebenspur of the boring shell. Accord-ingly, the bedrock topography of Group A can be regarded as an abrasion platform which was formed at the time of the highest sea level of the Shimosueyoshi transgression. The Shimo-sueyoshi formation covering this abrasion platform is sandy in grain size and its thickness is less than 1 m. Consequently, the original surface of the Shimosueyoshi terrace in the Group A area may be inferred to represent the abrasion platform itself.
    2) Group B is distributed in the east side of Group A. Its altitude is 25-10m above sea level inclining gradually to the east. This group is also regarded as an abrasion platform be-cause of its flatness and Lebenspur of the boring shell remaining on it. But it is different from Group A in the fact that the thickness of the Shimosueyoshi formation is several meters, considerably thicker than in the Group A area. Accordingly, it can be estimated that this abrasion platform was formed by the wave erosion during the time of high sea level when the Shimosueyoshi transgression did not reach its maximum. The advance of this transgression caused a gradual increase of the depth of water and turned the Group B area into the depositional one of the neritic sediments, accompanying the migration of the effective wave erosion toward the west to form the abrasion platform of the Group A area. The original surface of Group B area, therefore, can be concluded to be a depositional surface, rather than an abrasion platform itself.
    3) Group C is observed along the main rivers and in the east side of the Group B area. Topography of this group is characterized by the high relief with various valley topographies which were formed by the subaerial erosion preceding the Shimosueyoshi transgression. Those valleys were drowned during this transgression, and then filled with the Shimosueyoshi forma-tion which showed local differences in its thickness and lithological composition in accordance with the initial relief of the bedrock topography.
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  • Yasuhisa ARAI
    1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 662-673
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    This paper is to consider the second aspect of the farmers' adaptation the farm management system.
    In sand dune areas, such as Kashima and Niigata, farmers take a new capitalintensive way of farming. In paddy areas, on the other hand, such as Tagonoura, Shinminato and so on, they almost failed to transform their farm management systems and are now in peril of a complete decline of agriculture, accompanying a serious outflow of labor from those areas.
    As a rule, the modern, industrial developments are different in character from other gen-eral industrialization, and agriculture is greatly influenced by the modern industrial develop-ments. The method of purchasing land for industrial use and the existence of an agricultural policy play decisive roles.
    It is now able to point out the following two factors which prescribe the regional peculi-arities of agricultural adaptations on the part of the farmers living in the areas of industrial developments such as Kashima.
    1) Internal factors: individual condition of each area involved in industrial developments, especially, scale of land possession, natural condition and mode of use of land influenced by natural condition.
    2) External factors: methods of purchasing land for industrial use, and administrative conditions such as agricultural policy.
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  • Tetsurô MIURA
    1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 674-685
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    1. Object
    The author wishes to clarify the process of the reclamation and its regional structure in the Kotô Plain located on the east coast of Hachirôgata Lagoon, Akita Prefecture.
    2. Methods
    i) Analysis of the relation between the year of settlement formation and the reclamation.
    ii) Analysis of old documents and pictures, together with field surveys, for the under-standing of the regional structure and the movement of the center of the reclamation.
    3. Major findings
    i) In the ancient age, the reclamation was proceeded around the villages of Masaka, Hitoichi, Ôkawa, Hamaikawa and Ôkubo distributed along the border of the flood plains.
    ii) In the middle age, the reclamation was proceeded around the fortified villages of Uraô-machi, Okamoto and Sakamoto at the foot of the mountains and the villages of Koike, Noda, Kawasaki and Nishino located on natural levees.
    iii) In the Edo feudal era, the reclamation of all the flood plains was proceeded in a close relation to the irrigation ditches which had been made owing to the development of public works in the feudal system. In consequence, Yachinaka, Harajima and Ebisawa were formed as the villages called shinden shûraku. iv) After the Meiji Restoration, the chizaki-type reclamation was done, and the reclamation of Hachirôgata Lagoon started.
    4. Future problems
    i) As the reclamation in this region has already arrived at the closing stage, it is very needed to foresee the future problems related to the industrial structure in connection with the New Akita Industrial City Planning.
    ii) Another important problem is the fast decreasing population, which fact has a close rela-tion to the future agriculture of Tôhoku District as a whole.
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  • Tokuji CHIBA
    1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 686-691
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
    The purpose of this paper is to understand the diffusion of maize in the Mainland China. The hypothesis which was proposed by the author is that maize was brought by Pacific seafarers from South America to Asia in the Old World. Data for this paper were collected from local gazetteers edited in the Ching Dynasty. No field study has yet been made on this problem. However, some researchers have made studies on the introduction of maize by using the historical approach. But the writer adopts here the biogeographical approach which was initiated by N. Vavilov.
    Main contents are as follows:
    1) Some of the crops which were introduced from the New World have played an important role in reorganizing the agricultural system in the Old World. It has been pointed out that several exotic crops were cultivated as subsistence and/or commercial crops and contributed much to the support of a dense population in hilly areas and valleys of China. Maize is today among the most important exotic crops in that country.
    2) A comparative study of historical documents supports the statement of Bencao gangmu written by Li Shi Zehn. The first reference to maize in Chinese documents is in Tiannanbencao written by Lan Mao who lived in the earlier half of the 15th century. It also provides evidence that maize was widely cultivated in the western Yunnan Highlands fifty years after the Portuguese' arrival in Canchow and Foochow. At that time, there were no places where the crop was cultivated in a considerably vast area.
    3) It is interesting and important to learn that various varieties of maize are found in the Yunnan and Kweichow Highlands where evidence suggests that the cultivation of maize is the oldest in China. These facts together point out that maize was introduced not from the coast of China directly but from west to this part of Kweichow and Yunnan.
    4) This inference is also supported by the following additional evidences:
    a) The changing colours of kernels (Fig. 1) show the long establishment of maize cultivation in Yunnan and Kweichow.
    b) Numerous ways of maize cooking (Fig. 2) show that maize is one of the older foodstuffs in Yunnan and Kweichow districts. This follows the general rule that the longer a crop is used as a foodstuff, the more varied are the methods of cooking.
    5) The dispersal route of maize to the Yunnan and Kweichow Highlands may be related to the methods of maize cultivation and cooking. A study of the cultivation and Booking customs of grain amaranthus in connection with maize may provide the most effective solution to the problem of maize dispersal. The plant is more often cultivated on newly cleared mountain slopes as well as maize, or cultivated in rotation with maize in the Himalayan Highlands and is therefore in many ways related to maize.
    The amaranthus is a South American plant but is not eaten there. However, in the Central Himalayan Highlands, it is cooked to make cake for a ritual purpose and the people of Yunnan and Kweichow eat this grain in the same way. Assuming that neither the Portuguese nor the Spanish brought the amaranthus to the Old World, the present writer proposes that amaranthus was brought to the Old World in the pre-Columbian times by some seafarers in the Pacific similar to the Polynesians. This may support the author's hypothesis that maize was also introduced to mainland China in pre-Columbian times.
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  • Y. TATEISHI
    1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 692-696
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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  • 1970Volume 43Issue 11 Pages 697-701_2
    Published: November 01, 1970
    Released on J-STAGE: December 24, 2008
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS
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