Preston E. James

The Association of American Geographers: The First Seventy-Five Years 1904-1979

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Geography yesterday and tomorrow

This book commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Royal Geographical Society. The first part describes the considerable role played by the Society in the early development of geography as an academic subject in Britain. The second part consists of a series of articles by contributors distinguished in their various fields, surveying the recent progress made in each aspect of geographical study and research. Students and teachers of geography will find these papers useful as summaries, while others interested in exploration and the environment will be introduced to the theories available for classifying and analysing the physical landscape and mans interaction with it. All those interested in geography and geographical history.

The Coffee Lands of Southeastern Brazil

UGAR, gold, and coffee have in turn ruled Brazil. Each of them dominated a period of history and was localized in a definite part of the country. One after another these products have supported settlement in new areas: first pioneer settlements; later, more elaborate and extensive settlements. But one after another the products have suffered a decline in importance, and with this decline has come a decadence of the settlements which were based on them. None of these areas of settlement has reached the advanced stage of adjustment and close attachment to the land that gives the occupation security and permanence. The last of these commodities is coffee. The story of its phenomenal growth, especially during the last forty years, is an epic. The series of maps in Figure I presents the story of experimentation and elaboration during the spread of coffee over this chief area of its production.1 Any interpretation of the areas of settlement that focus on the great cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, both of them having a population of more than a million, must deal mainly with the rise of coffee: for on the wealth this crop has brought to southeastern Brazil is based the growth of these urban centers. Since the growers of coffee, especially in recent years, have controlled the government of Brazil, unchecked by the interests of any other important economic group, the industry has been artificially aided and stimulated for the sake of immediate gain. This has been accomplished chiefly through valorization, the history of which is well known.2 First used in I906 to help the growers over a temporary difficulty, it was supplemented by restrictions of planting. Later valorization was used again with less attention to restriction, and finally, by the law of I922, it was made a permanent feature of the industry. Relaxation

Santo Domingo de los Colorados - A new pioneer zone in Ecuador.

N many parts of Latin America new pioneer zones are appearing. In each case pioneer settlement has followed the construction of a highway. The postwar road building programs, supported by loans from a variety of sources, are opening up new areas which were previously unoccupied or only thinly occupied. Unfortunately, not all these new pioneer zones have been examined in advance by land classification experts, nor have they been properly surveyed. In some cases disaster can be predicted with confidence. In other cases the outcome is not at all certain. In January, 1959, the authors of this paper were able to examine one of these new pioneer areas in Ecuador, and to gather the information for this report. Santo Domingo de los Colorados is located at the western base of the Andes, about 45 miles in a straight line to the west of Quito, and a little less than one hundred miles southeast of Esmeraldas (Fig. 1). The low country to the west of the Andes in Ecuador is made up of a mixture of low hills and flat valley lowlands. Where rivers emerge from the high Andes, they bring down vast quantities of volcanic material, and this material is accumulated in huge fans along the western base of the mountains. One of these fans directly east of Guayaquil has the effect of confining the drainage of the whole Guayas Basin in one narrow channel as it finds its way out to the Gulf of Guayaquil. Farther to the north there are other similar fans. Santo Domingo is situated near the apex of a fan that spreads out from where the Rio Toachi emerges from the Western Cordillera. Where this fan borders the mountains opposite the end of the Toachi Valley the elevation is about 1800 feet above sea level. Santo Domingo is also just about on the divide between two major drainage basins. The Rio Toachi itself is a tributary of the Rio Blanco which in turn is a tributary of the Rio Esmeraldas. Just to the north is the Rio Guaillabamba, another tributary of the Esmeraldas, the headwaters of which are eroding the ash fill of the Quito Basin. Where the Rio Toachi crosses the fan slope, it has cut a flat-floored trench which is between one and two hundred feet below the surface of the fan. The Santo Domingo settlements are on the undissected fan slope, several miles west of the trench of the Rio Toachi (Fig. 2). Draining this fan

The Sao Francisco Basin: A Brazilian Sertao

T HE focusing of geographical attention on Brazil is a notable development of the last twenty year;. From a past as one of the least-known parts of Latin America, Brazil has emerged as one of the best known. No little of the credit for this is due to the growth in that country of an active interest in geographical scholarship, an interest that centers in the Conselho Nacional de Geografia in Rio de Janeiro. Foreign writers on Brazil, especially those whose study of the many aspects of Brazilian culture reaches back only a few years, may bring to light new and significant facts, but they often fail to interpret these facts adequately because they do not give due weight to the underlying philosophical conceptions and moral values, which Brazilian writers take for granted. There is somewhat of a gap, then, between the writings of Brazilians, who do not feel the necessity for discussing the basic attitudes and objectives so familiar to them, and the writings of non-Brazilians, who tend to overlook the significance of these matters. This gap is nicely illustrated by recent works on the Sao Francisco Basin. Of major importance is a penetrating monograph by Jorge Zarur, which forms a kind of pilot study for a series of regional analyses.I Several other works, by both Brazilians and North Americans, deal with different aspects of the Sao Francisco Basin.2 All of them, however, will leave the picture incomplete for a non-Brazilian unless he understands the significance of the term sertao. For to the average Brazilian, literate or illiterate, the Sio Francisco Basin is the sertao.

Formulating Objectives of Geographic Research

A T the beginning of any serious research study it is essential that the objectives i;\ be clearly and unambiguously stated. Although few geographers would L k disagree about the need for this, we have developed the habit of taking this preliminary step in a research project for granted-certainly not giving it the careful thought it requires. A perusal of the published results of research in recent professional periodicals indicates that in many instances the reader gains nothing from the opening paragraph that he did not gain from the title. When either the research worker, or the reader of published research, cannot clearly identify the objectives of a study there is no way to distinguish the relevant from the irrelevant, or a completed work from one that is incomplete. We need to give more thought to the formulation of objectives.

Careers in Geography

Geography is a discipline that has other uses beside being studied and taught: the present demand for geographers in many aspects of the worlds affairs far exceeds the supply. Professor James comments on the opportunities in this field and how to get ready to take advantage of them.

Implications of the Race Between Economics and Population in Latin America

Hunger is the price today of the race between economics and population in Latin America. Thus, the pri mary problem is to achieve an adequate food supply at prices which the poor people can afford. The changes in economics and population must be seen in the perspective of the indus trial revolution and the democratic revolution. The industrial revolution has provided the means to achieve a better life and the democratic revolution has provided the desire for and awareness of a better life. But the industrial revolution has also brought in its wake increased poverty. The industrial revolution, for example, tremendously advanced the public health services, but as the death rate declined population in creased and more mouths needed to be fed. The industrial revolution by modernizing agricultural production increased the food supply but it also released people from the land who could earn higher wages in the cities. As the demand for and the price of food increased, less and less people could afford to buy the food. Thus, the hunger problem, and the need for tremendously increased agricultural productivity arose. Co operative efforts among many disciplines are needed to devise balanced development programs—programs that will stimu late economic growth in Latin America but will obviate in creased hardships.—Ed.

Air Masses and Fronts in South America

THE extension of regular commercial air lines in Brazil, as in other parts of the world, has been accompanied by an important increase of meteorological knowledge. During the last five years the reorganized Brazilian Meteorological Service has been gathering data on weather conditions in terms of air masses and fronts. Its network of climatological stations is still far from adequate, especially in the vast interior, and the reports from outlying observers are not all that might be wished. Nevertheless, the studies of Adalberto Serra and Leandro Ratisbonna now make possible a tentative description in modern terms of the climatic features of the South American continent. The interacting warm and cold air masses of this part of the southern hemisphere can be divided geographically into equatorial, tropical, and polar types. The source regions, lines of movement, and normal positions of the fronts can now be identified with a fair degree of certainty.