The newspaper industry can be said to have a character of the regional or community industry, as the industry is closely connected with the region of the community through its news collection, editing, printing and distribution activities.
Distribution areas of Tokyo ku area (23 wards area) have been picked up in this research as newspaper industry-related regions. Analysis has been done chiefly by the statistical method.
The following are the major results :
1. The peripheral ku have larger distribution, while smaller distribution is ob-served in the central ku.
2. Distribution density (copies distributed per head) indicates an opposite trend against the above 1.
3. The Nippon Keizai and the Asahi are widely read among the residents in south-western ku, whereas the Sankei and the Yomiuri are relatively popular in northeastern parts.
4. Subscribers' economic background constitutes a contributing factor in present-ing such regional features.
As indicated above, newspaper distribution behavior can safely be regarded as an effective index of regional or community reflection, whereby enabling us to use the news-paper as a tool for the analysis of the region or community in question.

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Groundwater table fluctuations reflect the physical properties of the aquifer of a region. Especially, in a coastal region, sinusoidal fluctuations of groundwater levels occur in response to tide. If the level of bodies of surface water varies with a simple harmonic motion, a chain of sinusoidal waves may be propagated inland from the shore. Consequently, the water yield of a flowing well under the influence of tidal activity fluctuates correspondingly. So the author attempted to quantify the fluctuation char-acteristics of groundwater table levels in the flowing wells located at various distances from the river shore of the Tone.
Data concerning the variation of groundwater levels were collected from three flow-ing wells in one line towards inland from the shore.
The author's procedures are given below.
(1) The fluctuation characteristics of daily and monthly yields of each well are expressed by the following equations respectively.
_??_
where, D_i denotes an absolute value of deviation from the mean monthly yield.
Q is the discharge of a flowing well (l/min)
M is the mean value of Q
Qr, is the mean deviation of water yield
(2) The statistics of frequency distribution of daily yield throughout a year is represented by Pd which is defined as the modal value of the Q. A cumulative curve like that of a flow duration curve is drawn, and from the graph the standard deviation of Q is calculated as the mean of the first and the third quartile deviation of water yield. The other measures proposed are as follows, QH : the yield which equalled or exceeded 95 days of the year.
QM: the yield which equalled or exceeded 185 days of the year.
QL : the yield which equalled or exceeded 355 days of the year.
(3) The equation governing the groundwater behaviour in porous, isotropic media may be written in the form:
_??_
where, Δh is the amplitude of groundwater fluctuations during a half tide cycle, and this value can be obtained from the flow duration curve and it generally tends to decrease with the distance from the shore.
ΔH is the tidal range.
x is the distance inland from the shore.
σ is the angular velocity 28.98/hr during a semidiurnal fluctuation.
k is a parameter which is equivalent to the coefficient of permeability and governed by the porosity of the aquifer.
t is time.
The above analysis suggests that the elastic property of confined aquifers results in changes in hydrostatic pressure when changes in loading occur. That is, an additional load compresses the aquifer and increases the hydrostatic pressure which is transformed into the potential head of a flowing well. After then, the pressure decreases and ap-proaches its original value as groundwater moves away.
Field measurements of groundwater table variations in coastal region show that the parameter k proposed by the author in this work is a satisfactory representation of the groundwater dynamics for the studied area.

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The rapid growth of national economy after 1955 has prompted the population decrease in mountain villages of Japan. But, on the other hand, it has given some positive effects on the mountain villages. The most important of such effects is increase of value of natural resources in mountain districts, and Zenmai (edible royal fern) is one of the typical examples. This paper is to describe actual state of production of Zenmai and its village sustaining functions in three key Zenmai producing villages located at the Echigo Mountains and the Asahi Mountains of the Tohoku District which is the principal region of Zenmai production in Japan.
Though village economy heavily depends on Zenmai, the pattern of production is rather primitive basing on the customary use of forest and grassland regulated by village community. In 1971, the price of Zenmai is about nine times of that in 1955. So Zenmai is the largest source of income for the villagers, and the income level is still rising. This fact made the population decrease of these villages slower. Moreover, Zenmai has significant role in the natural conservation which is nowaday one of the -urgent social problems in Japan. In this connection establishment of proper production system and scientific management of resources corresponding with evolution of mountain village are highly required.

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