The author investigated the altitudinal forest limit on Yatsugatake Mountains, Central Japan.
Japanese researchers have recognized the altitudinal forest limit in Japan as a dividing line between the subalpine and the alpine zones in altitudinal zonation of mountain systems. However, some questions have recently been proposed with reference to this distinction.
The main purpose of this paper is to present the materialized landscape of the altitudinal forest limit and to elucidate the relationship between this landscape and topographic factors. The reason is that this landscape is complexly formed by many orographic factors which are concerned with the topograpy. Consequently the author intends to compare the result of this study with those of other mountains.
In the first place, the author drew a vegetation map of the study area (1:25, 000 in scale) with the aid of air photographs and field observation (Fig. 1). Then, in this map, grid data relating to the vegetation and topographic elements are obtained from about 1, 200 points in total. The sum of these data is shown in Figs. 2, 3 and 4. Moreover, a precise landscape map of the west facing slope of Mt. Ioh (2, 756m a. s. l.) is illustrated (Fig. 5). The results can be summarized as follows:
1) The forest limit appears at the Betula ermanii forest which stands above the subalpine conifer forest. The Pinus pumila scrub (the so-called “Krummholz”) extends above the forest limit.
2) The Betula ermanii forest is distributed on steep slopes or concave slopes of valleys where the snow cover lasts long.
3) The Pinus pumila scrub is distributed on convex slopes of ridges where the wind blows hard and on xeric block slopes.
4) The elevation of the forest limit is higher in the valleys than on the riges. It is also higher on the E-facing slopes than the W-facing slopes. These disparities in elevation reach about 100m on average.

View full abstract

S. M. Guseyn-Zade (1977) presents a new model for the relation of rank and size of cities with noninteractions between the cities within a region. It is different from the Zipf formula. According to S. M. Guseyn-Zade (1977), the expected population of the i-th rank city is theoretically shown as follows:
E(N_(i))=N/n_n∑_k=i1/k
where N and n are the total population and the number of cities respectively, and where N_(i) is the total population of the i-th rank city. The purpose of this paper is to examine to what extent this model fits the size distribution of cities in seven selected urban areas: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Sapporo, Hakodate, Hachinohe and Morioka areas, excluding the top rank city in each area. The result shows S. M. Guseyn-Zade's model is appropriate for Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas, and Zipf formula for the other areas.

View full abstract

From the late Meiji to early Showa Era (1901-1935), Japanese mining industry changed remarkably in the form of production and marketing. In this paper the author tried to examine these changes of mining industry in a case of the small and medium size mines in the Nishi-Waga Region, Iwate Prefecture (Fig. 1), and to analyze the related socioeconomic factors of the region. The Nishi-Waga Region is surrounded by mountain area and there is a large obstacle in traffic conditions.
Before World War I, mines in this region had usually their own refineries had been shipped the refined minerals to markets by men and horses. Through the period of the recession after World War I, the mining production and marketing systems in this region had drastically changed, many mines abandoned their refineries and converted into the source of raw mineral supply. These changes are considerd to have resulted from the improvement of traffic systems they are the opening of the Waga-Keibin (from Krosawajiri to Sennin, at 1910) and the Okoku Railways (from Kurosawajiri to Yokote, at 1924) and the technological development of mining by means of the mechanization such as the introduction of the Flotation and so on.
That is to say, most mines became possible to produce a large amount of raw minerals by technological development and possible to transport them at a low cost by using the improved systems made the total cost of producing and transporting of raw minerals to be lower than that of refinary minerals.
Through these changes the mines in this region became to be affiliated with the major refining companies outside the region and serve as the source areas supplying raw minerals.

View full abstract

[in Japanese]

View full abstract