The fishery in Japan, ever since Tokugawa era, has been developed within circulating economy, and transportation of this perishable item has been developed in a commercial scale in accordance with the advance of cities.
In this paper the relation between the character of fishing ports and their localities is analysed based on the shipment of saury pikes. Comments are made on the hinterlands of the following three ports: Hachinohe, Shiogama and Choshi in their relation with the Tokyo market and the competition for the same market.
1) Amount of fish on landing is the largest at Shiogama. The price of fish becomes higher at the port nearer to the Tokyo market.
2) A vivid competition exists between Hachinohe and Shiogama. Hachinohe, with its unfavorable location for the Tokyo market, ships more fish to Osaka and Kobe districts than to Tokyo.
3) Hachinohe ships to the Tokyo market only when the amount of fish landed exceeds the amount landed at Shiogama.
4) Shipment from Hachinohe can be classified into four types according to the amount of the fish.
5) For the shipping to the Tokyo market, no competition is to be seen between Shiogama and Choshi.
6) Shipment from Shiogama to the Tokyo market is in proportion to the amount of the fish landed. In the latter half of saury pike season, however, the shipment of this fish to Tokyo market decreases, because at that time shipment of other common fishes increases. Shiogama tries to seekother, markets in Tohoku and Hokkaido districts.
7) Choshi, situated in a most favorable location, being closest to Tokyo, has little shipment to Tokyo and much of the product is consumed by the local manufacturing factories. (Chiefly by canning factories.)
8) As the output of fishery is very unstable, fish-processing industry is well developed at Choshi, where balanced supply of raw material can be obtained all year round. Canning factories at Choshi buy about half of their raw material from Tokyo and other fishing ports.

View full abstract

An unusually heavy rainfall occurred in Niigata Prefecture, on the 12th to the 14th of July, 1960. According to the author's analysis using synoptic charts, the rain was caused by the stagnation of a warm front corresponding to the Jet stream over Akita to Sendai, A moist tongue of isodrosotherms extended from northwest to southeast across Honsyu in the shape of an arc carried by the strong wind around the high pressure belt. The type of the rainfall indicates the occurrence of an extremely unstable atmospheric condition which brought about this unusual weather.

View full abstract

Mount Iwaki is a Volcano 1625m high, in the western part of Aomori Prefecture. The author has made a survey of the area covered by volcanic mud-flows around this volcano. The main results are as follows:
1. The material ejected from Iwaki Volcano consist s of the lava and agglomeratic rocks in Diluvium and various volcanic mud-flows and volcanic ash in Alluvium.
2. The volcanic mud-flows are classified into three types: namely sandy flows, ashy flows and volcanic detritus flows, according to the types of main ejecta.
3. The author has classified volcanic mud-flows of Iwaki Volcano into five. Those are Sasamori mud-flow, Odaino mud-lfow, Tozurasawa mud-flow, Yayoi mud-flow and Hyakuzawa-mud-flow, named after the the typical localities they are distributed.
4. Around the Iwaki Volcano, the detritus flows are distributed widely on the northern foot, the ash-flows on the eastern foot, and the sand-flows on the southern foot.
5. The area covered by the order of the ejection of the mud-flows is shown in Fig 5.
6. The area covered by the mud-flows around Iwaki Volcano is smaller than those around Volcanoes Iwate and Bandai.

View full abstract

Prof. T. Tomita (1951) referred to the Maemorihara plain when he discussed on the structure of alluvial fans in Taiwan (Formosa). He stated “there may be eroded fans even in the Main Island of Japan, such as those in arid regions. Probably it in hard to confirm the possibility of the formation of eroded fans in the Main Island of Japan simply because of the deficiency of finding the outcrops showing the structure of alluvial fans”, and treated the Maemorihara Phain as an exsample which has the possibility of such structure. Although the present writer does not necessarily agree with his opinion, the writer studied Maemorihara Plain recently to analyse the structure of this tongue-shaped plain, and concluded a, follows;
1. Maemorihara Plain is composed of two portions with different levels, the upper and the lower Figs. 1 & 3).
2. The heights of the basements of deposits that constitute the upper and the lower levels are approximately same, while the thicknesses of the deposits are different, resulting in the diffecence of the levels Fig. 4).
3. The deposits that constitute the upper level arc sorted well and those of the lower level are sorted less. This is caused by the epicyclic changes in the development of the stream system.
4. The upper and the lower levels were built as terraces of erosion in the present shape of an elongated fan, that is in the tongue shape.
5. Factors that contibuted to the formation of such a shape are the distribution of loose Pleistocene sediments and the shifting of the courses of the stream loaded with a large amount of breccia produced from the granitic mountain.
The writer has observed several fans which suggested him of the structure such as this, and thinks that not a few of the fans in Japan may be of the erosional origin rather than accumulated one.
Fig. 1 : Map showing the topography and geology in the vicinity of Mukaimachi, Yamagata Prefecture.
Mu : Mukai-machi, Ma : Maemorihara
1-4 : Locality numbers of cross-sections shown in Fig 2.
Fig. 2 : Cross sections showing the relations between each plain terraces. The sites of each section are shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 3 : View of the mountain, hill, and two terraces it Locality 4, sketched from the opposite bank.
A·B : See Fig. 4.
Fig. 4 : Geological columns showing the structures of the lower Maemorilhara plain (B) and that of the upper one (A) respectively, at Locality 4.

View full abstract