French Part Research Articles

Strategies for correcting the atmospheric propagation for the Topex-Poseidon project

The French part of the Topex Poseidon System is composed of two measure instruments: an altimeter, and a Doppler measurement System called Doris. The goal of this experiment is to measure the oceanic topography with a subdecimetric accuracy. So the atmospheric propagation errors on both measurements must be corrected with great accuracy. The aim of this communication is to present the atmospheric effects, the correction modelisations choosen, the necessary data, and the resulting propagation error budget on both measurements.

La moquerie patoise au XVIIe siècle à travers quelques textes francoprovençaux

Vernacular scoffing in the 17th century as seen in a few Francoprovençal texts. The dialectal literature of the French part of the Francoprovençal field in the 17th century has produced a great deal of little works the main theme of which is scoffing. This kind of vernacular scoffing is most often at the expense of great characters or of those who want to emulate them. It is the gap between the respect due to these characters' social importance and the.ir real or supposed situations or behaviours which arouses laughter. The vernacular, a popular, colloquial language is supposed to express prosaism and vulgarity. Those who use it are automatically situated at the bottom of the social scale and thus entitled to speak on behalf of ordinary people. Social claims or political satire can thus find a well-adapted form of expression. These works, however, were not written by vernacular speakers and there must be no misunderstanding of their real purpose. By using dialect, their authors join in the tradition of the mock-heroic genre : The comic characters they set at work arouse laughter through their language as well as what they are supposed to scoff at. These jokes written by educated persons of note are in fact aimed at ridiculing vernacular speakers. It was not until the 19th century that the vernacular, no longer being exclusively a comic form of expression, could claim to provide a literary médium to transmit genuine native feelings.

Le modèle Hermès-France

The Hermès-France model, by Eric Faubry, Jean-Eudes Moncomble, Olivier Vidal de la Blache, Paul Zagamé. The Hermès-France model is the French part of a system of dynamic econometric medium-term models representing the economies of the EEC Nine economic branches are distinguished, among which three represent industry, in the accounting system of S.0.E.C. Energy has been modelled specifically: it is considered as a specific production factor in productive branches and the energetic choices of households and the productive sector are described in a detailed nomenclature of eight energetic products. Therefore, such a system of models permits to improve the analysis of macro-sectoral phenomena, because of three substantial contributions: the direct integration of energy into the sectoral production functions allows a finer study of questions related to employment, investment, productivity, competitivity, by reference to a mean price of energy use; the study of choice behaviour between various utilized forms of energy in terms of prices: a price variation for one kind modifies the choice structure, the mean price of energy and, hence, the global demand for energy and for other production factors; finally, the growing interpénétration of European economies leads, even on medium term, to the use of linked models for a better understanding of competitivity and redistribution effects of the productive activities. The construction of the Hermès model has led to original econometric contributions: estimation of sectoral "putty-clay energy" production functions and use of dynamic "translog" functions in order to describe the allocation of energy between the different products. These works have permitted to corroborate, on a sectoral level, results established from a global point of view, i.e. the complementarity of investment and energy considered as production factors : the rise of the price of energy has contributed to lower the productive investment rate in French industrial sectors. The Hermès model will be utilized for forecasts or alternative studies. "Linked" utilizations will simultaneously use the models of different countries, the interface being made of bilateral flows. The utilizations in which the national models will work alone will be used by decentralized teams. Therefore, each country will benefit from a new model in which energy will be a specific production factor for industry.

PCBs in Lake Geneva (Lake Leman) fish.

The PCB levels of 4 fish species which were collected in the French part of Lake Leman were determined. The factors of intra- and extra-species variations of contamination and the risks in reproduction were studied. Char eggs contained PCB levels between 14 to 22 ppm on a lipid basis (0.17 to 0.22 ppm on a fresh weight basis). The very high sensitivity of the Char is a good argument to explain the degree of mortality in Char eggs related to PCB content. PCB levels in lake Leman fish are comparatively high and therefore, the contamination of the ecosystem is certainly not negligible. For that reason the following studies are under investigation: contamination in other trophic levels; the fate of PCB in the ecosystem; sources; risks for Char reproduction. (JMT)

L'aménagement intégré d'un grand fleuve : le Rhône – A. Conception générale et effets sur les crues et les nappes phréatiques

Responsibility for the development of the 500 km of the French part of the Rhône is in the hands of the National Rhône Corporation (CNR). The operation is virtually completed to-day as 16 of the 19 locations to be harnessed are already in service. This is a multi-purpose development (hydro-electric generation, navigation by wide vessels, agricultural development, protection against floods, port facilities, etc.). The Rhône has promising potential with a semi-permanent flow of 1 460 m3/s., conveying an average 50 billions m3 per year. It produced 16.9 TWh in 1981. The navigable section built as of that date is 350 km long and can handle the passage of 4 000 to 5 000 ton convoys. Given the fact that the valley is populated, the project has been designed to occupy as little space as possible and to reduce the absorption of land to the strict minimum. Consequently, it includes very long lateral dykes and apart from Genissiat upstream, head 70 m, is divided into a continuous series of low heads. As a result, reservoirs are low by comparison with the river's flow. This has a very positive effect on the quality of the water and the transit of solid matter, but necessitates very sophisticated operation to secure correct propagation of floodwaters. It is particularly important to prevent acceleration and overflowing of floodwaters, albeit the floodable surfaces have been significantly reduced by dykes and diversion canals. This type of project also implies very tight control of subsurface water layers, whether on farmable sites or in the urban environment. The report shows the methods used to master the phenamenon in particular using very large-scale drainage devices. The continuity of the work, which was spread over thirty years, and the fact that the CNR is both designer and operator, have made it possible for this development to benefit at all times from the significant technological progress which has occurred in recent decades.

Bogidiella martini, un nouvel Amphipode souterrain de l'Ile Saint-Martin (Antilles) et la zoogéographie des Bogidiellidae

Both sexes of a new species of Bogidiella, B. martini, are described. The new species, with a very pronounced sexual dimorphism, has been discovered in two wells in the island of St.-Martin (French part), one of the Lesser Antilles. Another member of Bogidiella has been recorded from the island of Curaçao, but the specimens were damaged too much to allow proper description. The Bogidiellidae (5 genera, 26 named species, and several unnamed species) are present in the sea as well as in inland waters. The family has a wide distribution, exceeding the boundaries of the former Tethys Sea. Probably, they represent a very old stock that had acquired already a great part of its present-day distribution before the fragmentation of the primordial continent of Pangaea during the Mesozoic.

Hominid remains from the plio/pleistocene formations of the Omo basin, Ethiopia

The Omo deposits in Ethiopia, discovered at the beginning of the century, then studied by a first French scientific expedition in 1932–33 and resumed by an international expedition in 1966, represent today an outstanding sequence for palaeoanthropology, prehistory and paleontology. This importance is due to the exceptional thickness of the deposits, the wealth of fossiliferous levels, the presence, in these levels, of Hominidae and lithic industries next to tons of fossil vertebrate bones, and to the fact that the 3 million years period they illustrate is sharply calibrated by radiometric dating confirmed by paleomagnetic measures. It became the reference scale for the whole of Africa. This paper intends to briefly describe the hominid remains, collected by the French part of the Omo Research Expedition during the 1970, 1971 and 1972 seasons.

Etudes paleomagnetiques de quelques formations Permiennes et Triasiques dans les Alpes Occidentales (France)

The natural remanent magnetism of Permian redbeds and volcanics, together with Triassic spilits have been studied in the French part of the Alpine belt. The reliable directions obtained show a great similarity with the results obtained in other parts south of the Alps. They may be interpreted by an anti-clockwise rotation of Pelvoux and part of the Briançonnais zone of about 30°.

Petroleum Exploration in Senegal-Mauritania and Ivory Coast Coastal Basins (West Africa): ABSTRACT

The Cretaceous and Tertiary Senegal-Mauritanian basin was almost completely unknown below the surface, before its reconnaissance was started in 1952 by the French Bureau de Recherches de Petrole. The great depth of the basin was at first indicated by airborne magnetometer and refraction seismograph tests and checked by a deep stratigraphic well (3,403 m., 11,165 ft.). Active exploration was carried on since 1955, three companies being active now in the French part of the basin. Reflection and refraction seismograph and geological core holes were effective tools for exploration, gravity having been useful only locally. A marine section of about 5,000 meters (16,400 ft.) is known in deep wells, from Lower Cretaceous (Aptian) up to Miocene, mainly shale and sands in various proportions, with some limestones, overlapping the basement toward the East. The basin is open toward the Atlantic Ocean. The regional westward dip is very low and structure is mainly controlled by deep north-south flexures and by basement uplifts. A first gas well producing 3½ m.c.f./day was drilled near Dakar in 1959. In Ivory Coast, a narrow coastal basin, almost as deep as broad on land, was discovered by gravity and checked by refraction-seismograph since 1952. Active exploration was started in 1957. Marine, lagoonal, and terrestrial reflection-seismograph and geological coreholes were done at first in the French part of the basin, before spudding deep exploratory tests. The northern border of the basin is a fault system, and structures are related to plunging noses with southward dip. A marine section of about 2,700 m. (7,856 ft.) was drilled, with mainly shale, sands and conglomerates ranging from Aptian or Albian up to Miocene. Below Aptian or Albian, possibly non-marine dark shales and sandstones, or continental red-beds, were encountered. Good shows (tar sands and heavy oil seepages) occur in the eastern part of the basin, in Ivory Coast and in Ghana. End_of_Article - Last_Page 1258------------

Urban Life in Western America, 1790-1830

THE were the spearheads of the American frontier. Planted as forts or trading posts far in advance of the line of settlement, they held the West for the approaching population. Indeed, in I763, when the British drew the Proclamation Line across the Appalachians to stop the flow of migrants, French merchant company prepared to survey the streets of St. Louis, thousand miles through the wilderness. Whether as part of French and Spanish activity from New Orleans or part of Anglo-American operations from the Atlantic seaboard, the establishment of preceded the breaking of soil in the transmontane West. In 1764, the year of the founding of St. Louis, settlers made the first plat of Pittsburgh. Twelve years later and four hundred miles down the Ohio, Louisville sprang up at the Falls, and the following decade witnessed the beginnings of Cincinnati and Lexington. Before the century closed, Detroit, Buffalo, and Cleveland were laid out on the Great Lakes. In fact, by i8oo the sites of every major metropolis in the old Northwest except Chicago, Milwaukee, and Indianapolis had been cleared and surveyed. Furthermore, these urban outposts grew rapidly even in their infant decades. By I815 Pittsburgh, already thriving industrial center, had 8,ooo inhabitants, giving it slight margin over Lexington. Cincinnati estimated its population at 4,ooo at the end of the war with Great Britain, while farther west Louisville and St. Louis neared half that figure. The speed and extent of this expansion startled contemporaries. Joseph Charless, the editor of the Missouri Gazette, who had made trip through the new country in 1795, remembered the banks of the Ohio as a dreary wilderness, the haunt of ruthless savages, yet twenty years later he found them sprinkled with towns boasting spinning and weaving establishments, steam mills, manufactures in various metals, leather, wool, cotton and flax, and seminaries of learning conducted by excellent teachers.' The great transformation moved Cincinnati bard to somewhat heroic couplet:

The new books on our shelf

The Elementary Training School Building By Michael Louis Altstetter. Nashville Tenn.: George Peabody College for Teachers, 1930. Pp. 103. (Contributions to Education, No. 67.) Business Communication By Carl Lewis Altmaier. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Pp. xv + 496. (Macmillan Commercial Series.) Educational Biology By William L. Eikenrerry and R. A. Waldron. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1930. Pp. viii + 589. Program Making for Junior High Schools By Harold L. Harrington. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Pp. vii + 174. American History By Thomas M. Marshall. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Pp. xiii + 747. The Organisation and Administration of Extra‐Curricula Activities By Cecil V. Millard. New York: A. S. Barnes and Company, 1930. Pp. xiv + 145. (Extra curricula library.) An Introduction to Child Study By Ruth Strang. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1930. Pp. xiii + 550. Civilization in Transition By Harrison C. Thomas and William A. Hamm. New York: Vanguard Press, 1927. Pp. vii + 300...

The Arrangement of the Rural Population in Picardy and Flanders

GLANCE at the x: ioo,ooo topographical maps of Northern France quickly reveals a great difference in the arrangement of rural population in Picardy and in that part of the department of Nord belonging to the Plain of Flanders. The distribution in both cases is very even, but the arrangement is radically different. Reference to the geological map shows a close connection between the arrangement in each district, and its geology and physiography. Picardy is a lonely-looking land of low, naked, rolling hills, cut by tortuous mature valleys. Here and there a village is seen, generally nestling in a hollow, and close circled by trees. Otherwise there is not a house in sight, though the greater part of the country is under cultivation. A winding belt of poplars marks a neighbouring valley, and a regular row of elms reveals a main road on the horizon. Other vegetation there is none, save an occasional dense wood of young trees, on high ground. One seldom sees old trees in France. The underlying formation almost everywhere is the chalk (Senonian) of the Upper Cretaceous, which yields a poor and shallow soil on the terraced hillsides. The climate is continental and humid, moderated by proximity to the sea in the west, but becoming more rigorous inland. The villages are compact, generally several kilometres apart, dotted over the land quite regularly, and connected by good roads, too numerous for communication alone. The map has hence a characteristic knotted and netted appearance. Owing to the poorness of the soil holdings are large, and the farmer, following the gregarious instinct of man, lives not on his farm, far from neighbours, in a melancholy country, but in the village, setting out daily with his team, one of the numerous roads serving his convenience. Though the total population of the department of Somme has declined, the agricultural section, be it noted, is on the increase. The French part of the Plain of Flanders constitutes about three-fifths of the department of Nord, and a small corner of the Pas de Calais. It stretches from the sea to the Scheldt and the Sensde. The landscape is flat and enclosed, with occasional noble vistas through the trees and hedges into green and fertile distances, dotted with red thatched or tiled cottages, and seldom broken by an undulation until the foothills of Artois are reached. The only feature of importance is the beautiful chain of residual heights stretching from Cassel to Kemmel, and studded with windmills. Ditches and hedges line the roadsides and fields; sluggish brooks, tamed and canalized streams, and long canals traverse the plain. Woods are rare, but trees abound, distributed regularly around the edges of fields and along the roadways. Not an acre of ground remains untilled, except the

Representation of Science at the Paris Exhibition

WE are glad to know that the interest shown in the Loan Collection of Scientific Apparatus at South Kensington and the benefit to the nation at large to be derived from such displays have not been lost upon the organisers of the French part of the forthcoming Exhibition.