Basic Principles of Landscape Mapping

This report of the Permanent Commission on Landscape Maps of the Geographical Society USSR defines four groups of landscape maps and their basic mapped objects, ranging from detailed, large-scale facies maps (1:10,000) to small-scale maps of less than 1:1,000,000 showing mainly landscapes (in the sense of a given rank of natural areal unit). The report defines various physical-geographic units, such as facies, urochishche and mestnost' and the Russian terms have been retained where the meaning is ambiguous and there is no clear-cut English equivalent. The report also discusses various ways of formulating map legends. A previous paper on landscape mapping appeared in Soviet Geography, February 1961, pp. 34–47.     

The Heat and Water Balance of the Earth's Surface,the General Theory of Physical Geography and the Problem of the Transformation of Nature

Two Soviet specialists in the geography of the United States analyze regional shifts in terms of the three major regions distinguished by Soviet geographers: North, South, West. The article, written before the 1960 census, is based largely on the Statistical Abstract of the United States for 1959 and earlier years as well as Current Population Reports. Problems of urban growth are also discussed, including traffic problems and population shifts to the suburbs.     

Review and Discussion of V. A. Anuchin'S Book on Theory of Geography

Following are a review and a discussion of V. A. nuchin's controversial book Teoreticheskiye problemy geografii (Theoretical Problems of Geography), Moscow: Geographical Publishing House, 1960, 264 pp. The table of contents of this book was translated in Soviet Geography, March 1961, p. 88.     

Physical-Geographic Processes Unfavorable for Agriculture and Control Measures Against Them

The authors describe the distribution of drought, sukhovey winds, dust storms, and waterlogging in the Ukraine, and the measures taken to combat these phenomena. They urge deeper research into physical-geographic processes that are harmful to agriculture and the devising of a scientifically grounded system of control measures. A previous paper on physical-geographic regionalization of the Ukraine [see Soviet Geography, December 1960] represented an earlier stage of their research project.     

Fifty Volumes of the Serial Voprosy Geografii

Professor Saushkin, a member of the editorial board of Voprosy Geografii since its inception, reviews the first 50 volumes of the serial and its program of publication. Many volumes of Voprosy Geografii have contained inter-disciplinary articles focused on specific geographic problems. This integrated approach to geography has often aroused controversy. Seven major fields of research of Soviet geography are outlined for the period 1960–80.     

The Importance of Home-Area Studies for Soviet Geography

The article discusses the Soviet Union's nation-wide program of krayevedeniye, a Russian term that is difficult to translate but equivalent in meaning to the German Heimatkunde. The English “home-area studies,” though admittedly unsatisfactory, has been used to avoid foreign terms. The Soviet home-area study program includes amateur studies by local residents, school-sponsored studies to acquaint students with their school district, and government-directed study programs centered on regional museums.     

Mapping Sxwóxwiymelh: A Pre-contact Settlement in the Upper Fraser Valley,Southwestern British Columbia

Abstract

Maps and mapping are fundamental to archaeology. Archaeologists sometimes fail to recognize that the maps we use and create are fraught, like material culture, with interpretive complexities. These complexities arise from the fact that maps are created with social meaning dependent on the context in which the map was created and used. Here, we relate our experience with maps and mapmaking at the pithouse settlement of Sxwóxwiymelh, in southwestern British Columbia. We review the mapping history of the site, highlighting the contexts in which the maps were constructed and how they influenced subsequent interpretations of the site. We describe our deconstruction of these earlier maps and how we combined them to create a more accurate and detailed map that presented a rendition of the site as it was prior to significant modern development. This process of map deconstruction and construction allowed us to see several previously unknown details about the ancient settlement (e.g., house form, relative house size, and feature spacing) of Sxwóxwiymelh. In general, this process provides conceptual and practical lessons for incorporating previously collected map data into archaeological research.     

IMAGES DES ETATS-UNIS DANS LE ROMAN QUEBECOIS MODERNE (IMAGES OF THE UNITED STATES IN CONTEMPORARY QUEBEC NOVELS)

Although most Quebec novelists are not preoccupied with the United States, the presence of the huge southern neighbour makes itself felt now and again. One is struck by the similarities in the images of the U.S. when it does appear in literature: Quebec novelists seem to see it as a powerful attraction and as a dangerous threat. Three novels, representing three different approaches, illustrate this point: Ringuet's Thirty Acres, Roger Lemelin's The Plouffe Family and Anne Hébert's Kamouraska (other novels are cited where relevant in the original paper).

The attraction of the U.S. is most oftén presented in French-Canadian literature by the theme of escape, frequently for economic reasons. Ringuet's novel explores the reasons for large immigrations southward, and in so doing exposes the myth of the “easy” life in the U.S. versus a “hard” life in the North (cf. Maria Chapdelaine). But the novel shows how misleading this myth can be: once Quebeckers taste the bitterness of economic depression in the U.S. in the 1930's, they begin to look back to the North with the same kind of illusions of economic independence which brought them South.     

The Interaction of Nature and Society

The author reviews the material of his article on the Stalinist definition of the geographical environment [Soviet Geography, December 1963, pp. 3–19] in the light of L. F. Il'yichev's pronouncement on the unity of the natural and social sciences [Soviet Geography, April 1964, pp. 32–34]. Like V. A. Anuchin, Saushkin interprets the ll'yichev statement as encouraging more work on geographic synthesis that would integrate the findings of the specialized physical and economic geographic disciplines.     

ANDREW HILL CLARK 1911–1975

ABSTRACT

The satire of Thomas Haliburton has generally been considered as highly ambiguous. The inability of critics to find a consistent social norm in his work is partly the result of their failure to read his satire in context with his historical writing. This paper examines the character of the Yankee clock peddler, Sam Slick, in light of Haliburton's later statements about American society published in The Rule and Misrule of the English in America.

In Rule and Misrule, Haliburton started from the premise that American Republicanism began with the Puritan experiment in New England. This experiment was unique in the world's history, and it almost worked because the people involved were both rural and moral. The American Revolution, however, began a movement away from the pre-revolutionary values, and the resulting decline in religious and social values indicated to Haliburton that American Republicanism was headed for the despotic conclusion which other republican models in Europe had evidenced.

Sam Slick, in The Clockmaker, may be viewed as the post-revolutionary Yankee who is losing touch with the old pre-revolutionary moral vision. Sam's inability to balance precept with action leads to a basically immoral attitude. For Haliburton, the centre holds the key to proper moral response. Aspiration must be balanced by action. Thus the irony of The Clockmaker works through a juxtaposition of ideal and action, a juxtaposition which Sam is unable to keep in tension. In contrast to Sam, the Squire and the Reverend Mr. Hopewell affirm the values of a Tory social order, an order which offers humanity true social equality and sound moral vision.     

The Density of Population of a City and the Density of Probability of a Random Magnitude

A continuation of a paper translated in Soviet Geography, April 1966, establishes a systematic relationship between the concept of a city's population density and the general theoretical probability concept of the probability density function of a two-dimensional random magnitude, and extends the discussion of population-density models beyond the category of single-center cities to a variety of non-single-center formations.     

Factors of Swamp Formation in the Polesies of the Russian Plain

The sandy, wooded, marshy outwash plains known as polesies occupy large areas of European Russia. Waterlogging and swamp formation are promoted by their location in geological troughs and in areas of excess atmospheric moisture as well as by deforestation and other man-made factors. The polesies represent an unused virgin land resource that could be used for growing fodder crops after drainage.     

About S. V. Kalesnik's Article on “Monism” and “Dualism” in Soviet Geography

The author defends V. A. Anuchin's efforts to develop the theory of unity of geography based on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Konovalenko finds that Americans are closely following the theoretical discussion in Soviet geography because they, too, are supposedly searching for a methodological foundation of a unified geography. He holds that Soviet geography, by developing such a theory on a Marxist basis, can win followers within the ranks of foreign geographers, including Americans. S. V. Kalesnik's article appeared in Izvestiya Vsesoyuznogo Geograficheskogo Obshchestva, 1962, No. 1, pp. 15–25, and was translated in Soviet Geography, September 1962 pp. 3–16).     

Yu. G. Saushkin's Reply to a Letter of Protest by Nine Soviet Geographers

The following is a reply to a letter that appeared in Soviet Geography, January 1963, pp. 60–62, accusing Saushkin of having given a misleading picture of Soviet economic geography in his article in the American journal Economic_Geography, 1962, No. 1. Saushkin rejects the charges that he gave a one-sided and impoverished picture of the Soviet discipline, that he minimized Lenin's contribution to Soviet economic geography, that he departed from an official definition of the discipline adopted in 1955, and that he supported three controversial Soviet geographers, R. M. Kabo, N. N. Kolosovskly, and V. A. Anuchin.     

The Work of Geographers on Regionalization of the USSR in the Interests of Agriculture

A progress report on coordinated research by Soviet university geographers on physical-geographic regionalization of the USSR for agricultural purposes. A previous paper by the author on this research program appeared in Soviet Geography, November 1960, pp. 5–19).     

The Economic-Geographic Situation of Orenburg

This paper, which supplements another article by V. S. Varlamov, published in Soviet Geography, March 1961, pp. 54–60, analyzes the effect of Orenburg's economic-geographic situation on the city's past, present and future industrial development. The city is found to owe its growth almost entirely to its situation at the crossing of transportation routes linking major raw-material-producing and end-product-consuming regions of the USSR.     

The Defense of V. A. Anuchin's Doctoral Dissertation

A previous report on the discussion at the defense of the dissertation, by Yu. G. Saushkin, appeared in Soviet Geography, January 1963, pp. 53–59.     

Plant Cultivation on the Northwest Coast: A Reconsideration

Conventional wisdom suggests that the peoples of the Northwest Coast did not cultivate plants prior to European contact. Considerable evidence suggests the contrary, however, particularly the well-documented practice of estuarine root gardening among the Kwakwaka'wakw and other indigenous peoples of the region. These gardens were maintained through transplanting, weeding, selective harvesting, soil modifications, and the production of mounds or low terrace-like structures within individually demarcated root plots. The scholarly oversight of these practices can be attributed to a number of biases rooted in the colonial and academic agendas of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In turn, scholarly legitimation of the region's “nonagricultural” label has served to undermine indigenous land claims on estuarine sites into the present day.     

Interaction between Nature and Society and Modern Geography

This paper, delivered by one of the leading Soviet philosophers at a plenary session of the Fourth Congress of the Geographical Society USSR, is the latest authoritative statement on the relationship between physical and economic geography. The author balances the fact of increasing differentiation and specialization and the continued existence of separate physical and economic-geographic groups of disciplines against the need for more synthesis in geographic research. He thus echoes ideas expressed by V. A. Anuchin earlier this year in the philosophical journal Problemy Filosofii [see Soviet Geography, April 1964]. Konstantinov, in preparing the paper, made use of the materials of the Combined Conference of Philosophical [Methodological] Seminars of the Academy of Sciences USSR on the theme “The problem of the interaction of nature and society and the place of the geographic sciences in its solution” [see Tezisy dokladov (Abstracts of Papers), Moscow, 1964], especially the paper by A. G. Doskach, Yu. P. Trusov, and Ye. T. Fadeyev on “The interaction of nature and society and some problems of modern geography.” Konstantinov also acknowledges suggestions from Academician I. P. Gerasimov, V. Zh. Kelle, a philosopher, and Academician Ye. K. Fedorov, a geophysicist.     

A Program of Development of American Geography

A review and summary of The Science of Geography, a report of the Ad Hoc Committee on Geography, Division of Earth Sciences of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council, published in Washington in 1965.