Products of small coastal fisheries are collected several times to reach to the remote and large consuming cities, which are shipped by fish brokers from the islands to the collecting ports.
In this paper, the author discusses the role of small fishing ports in isolated islands in fish distribution.
The results are as follows;
1) In recent years, many shipping agencies were replaced by the Prefectural Federation of Fishermen's Cooperative Association (P. F. F. C. A.) in many villages. Consequently the fish brokers have decreased gradually. But the ports the Fishermen's Cooperative Association uses as the collection centers, are still acting in the islands sporadically, and some fish brokers extend their collecting-area to the neighbouring islands and collect from the villages where the Federation can not touch in the shipment.
2) Such expensive fishes as yellow tails, gold breams and lobsters, are mainly shipped to the large cities outside the prefecture by the P. F. F. C. A., while the cheep ones like saurels, mackerels and miscellaneous are shipped to the markets within the prefecture by fish brokers.

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Coral reefs are important in the climatic geomorphology. Following items are investigated: living coral reefs, shore features (beach rock, notch, bench, sea cave, fissures, coastal dunes), elevated coral reefs (terrace classification, character of deposits and limestone, karst landform, terra rossa), limestone caves.
Such phenomena well indicate the sea level at present or past, and are very useful to prove the sequence of sea level change.
The thickness of limestone is an indicator of the duration of warm period and the rock facies instruct the environment of the rockbuilding. Paleo-dunes are built at the last interglacial.

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By the C-14 method, a peat layer in the column of Loc. 2 is dated 15, 800±350 yrs. B. P. (GaK-3374). This is the first valid date about the Quaternary geology of Sendai Lowland and its vicinity.
This report is written to publish the date and to discuss on some relating informations. The subsurface geology and geomorphology of the area will be discussed in detail by Mr. Hiroaki Hase.

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There are many terrace surfaces along the middle and lower courses of the Oirase River, especially on the left side, which are classified into the upper (four surfaces), the middle (two surfaces) and the lower (two surfaces).
The Hokkiri and Akôbo surfaces of the upper were cut in Shichisyaku and Furumaki uplands suffered from downwarping and tilting to the east before Riss- Würm Interglacial. The Shibayama surface was cut at the highest sea level in Riss-Würm Intergalcial. The Takadate surface was cut at the early Würm Glacial.
The middle terraces were cut at the lower sea level of the Würm Glacial, and the lower terraces at the higher and lower sea level stages in the postglacial time respectively.
The submarine terrace (-120 m) is compared with the Akanuma surface and the submarine terrace (-50 m) with the Sanbongi surface. Thus, the terrace surfaces in the region have different geneses such as crustal movements, sea level fluctuations and recent volcanic activities, or their combination.

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Retreat rate of snow in altitude in spring is observed at some stations on Route 112 along two valleys with east to west direction on both sides of Mt. Gassan. Rate of retreat is slow in lower foot, 40-50 days to reach 150 m in altitude, but the rate increases abruptly in higher foot, only about 10 days to reach more than 200 m in altitude. This seems to be similar on both sides of Mt. Gassan, and to be related to the change of daily maximum temperature.

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Surface features of Isawa fan with many terraces give us suggestions on the relation between surface features and settlements.
There are isolated houses on the lower terraces. Isolated houses and agglomerated settlements are distributed east to west along the dissecting valleys on the intermediate terraces, the highest part of which, Uenobara, has few settlements. On the upper terraces heavily dissected, there were only woods before, but some new settlements and meadows around have grown with the promotion of dairying.
Below the edges of Isawa fan, there are street villages along the national highway, and hamlets on the valley plain between the national highway and the Kitakami river. Many of hamlets are located on the natural levee of the Kitakami, and there was once cultivated mulberries.
The isolated houses on the lower terraces have some features such as hafu facing to east, thatched roof of Kata-irimoya type, seperated stable and toilet toward east, surrounding woods called egune and kizuma and frontal gate of nagaya-mon.
These features are gradually replaced by modern ones such as colored zinc roofs or tile roofs of kirizuma or irimoya type and block walls. The gate of nagayamon are diminishing.
The change will be faster in accordance with the changing social environments.

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The land values of Tokyo, three prefectures adjacent to Tokyo (Kanagawa, Saitama, Chiba), and six other metropolitan areas were examined for the period 1951-1970. Municipal property tax values were used to determine the proportion of national land value incorporated in these urban areas. A hierarchy of land values, as proportions of the national land value, was identified according to urban size and location within the hierarchy. The order of land value succession was found to be:
Decreasing Proportion of Augmented Land Values
¥ Giant City or Metropolis
Urban Fringe
Inner City
¥ Large City
Satellite City
Non-Satellite City
¥ Minor City
Satellite City
Non-Satellite City
The structure of the hieararchy was found to be related to the rates of population growth increases and, in metropolitan agglomeration, to suburban land utilization changes from rural to urban use.
It was also found that income level (purchasing power) is closely related to the formation of urban land values. As a proportion of national land value, the order of magnitude, using both population growth rates and income levels, is:
Tokyo Metropolitan Area>Kanagawa Prefecture>Chiba Prefecture>Saitama Prefecture.
It is concluded that the factors involved in the formation of metropolitan land values, particularly Tokyo, is highly complex.

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It is worthy to note that on an early stage of developing flower-producing district, only 31 out of 56 farmers in Takayanagi district (the largest center of flowering plant in Tôhoku) bring their flowering plant to four markets, located at Sendai. This channel of circulation is not merely because of competition among the four markets, but because of a human relations among the farmers.

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Around the coastal Plains in Japan, there spread the undulating low hills cutting the unconsolidated Tertiary sediments, some of which were once considered as “low level peneplains”.
The application of Hack's (1960) dynamic equilibrium concept will explain the origin of the accordant summits of the hills, if the extent and relief of the erosionally graded landscape on geological varieties is evaluated.
When the original flat surface was dissected based on the slightly lower baselevel in the Quaternary baselevel fluctuation, as the author previously reported, an accordant erosional surface is formed in a limited height zone between the two. Although it is akin to “partial peneplain” or “old-from-birth peneplain”, it is not “almost a plain land”, but it presents “ridge and ravine topography” proposed by Hack (1960) or “mixed stage topography” by Nishimura (1963).
The author reviewed the relief and extent of the erosionally graded landscape which is rock-controlled or controlled by local baselevel in the Appalachian, the Piedmont peneplain lands and some elevated peneplains in Japan, from the reports treating the peneplain.
The valley depths of the two types in hills are recorded; the wide and shallow “high level valley” (Nakamura 1963) acting in denudation on the hilltops, and V-shaped valley cutting down the former and analysing the hills. Both types of valleys are in mutual relation as the latter is nourished by the former. It is concluded that in the case of slight baselevel drop there appear only the shallow valleys, which make the undulating hill landscapes.

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