Miles Of Sea Research Articles

The Maori Agricultural Revolution: Tropical Crops and Temperate Land

The Maori Agricultural Revolution: Tropical Crops and Temperate Land Gordon R. Lewthwaite*1 There is little doubt that the Maori agricultural revolution was one of the most remarkable achievements ofprehistoric time. In one decisive leap, without benefit of intervening land mass or opportunity for gradual adjustment, the Polynesians traversed almost 2,000 if not 3,000 miles of open sea to carry their crops from the heart of the tropics to temperate middle latitudes. True enough, the transition from the Cooks, the Societies, and the Marquesas may have been eased by the introduction of differentcrops atdifferenttimes—though that is a moot question—and success was far from complete. Coconut and breadfruit, banana and plantain, «i-apple and rose-apple, pandanus and hibiscus—all the rich fruits and fibers of the islands—were swept away by a brusque climatic veto, while the sole survivor of arboriculture, the paper-mulberry, existed only in stunted and virtually useless form. The Polynesian arrowroot and giant aroids were lost, too. But it was not so much the losses which were remarkable; it was the tenacious survival of several tropical crop plants in latitudes beyond the threshold of climatic tolerance and the success with which the Maori gardener adapted to a basically hostile environment . The real wonder is that he was able to carry on at all. In essence a cooler and more seasonal climate expunged tree culture but left the gourd (Lagenaria siceraria), which could dodge ß Dr. Lewthwaite is Professor of Geography at San Fernando Valley State College, Northridge, California 91324. This article was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers at Washington, D. C, August 1968. Research was supported by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation to study the historical geography of the Maori. Dr. Lewthwaite did field work in New Zealand and several other Pacific islands in 1964 and in 1967. 99 100ASSOCIATION OF PACIFIC COAST GEOGRAPHERS the New Zealand winter by virture of its seeds, and four more delicate tuber crops. The taro (Colocasia antiquorum), "king of roots" and basic staple of the islands, was drastically reduced in significance and yield, though if current experiments by Yen and others1 give any clue, it may have been hardy enough to weather the winter at least in a few sheltered spots. But more critical is the seemingfact that the basic crop-plant of Maoriland, the sweet potato or humara (Ipomoea batatas) and the still more delicate yam (Discorea sp.) and ti (Cordyline terminalis) were somehow introduced and cherished into productivity despite the fact that none of them, according to the experiments so far conducted, could have survived a single winter in the field. Part of the puzzle is the fact that the immigrantPolynesians were conditioned to horticultural methods that were fine for the tropics but fatal in New Zealand. Virtually all Polynesian agriculture, derived largely from the primitive southeast Asian culture hearth but also from South America in the case of the sweet potato, rested on the premise that continuous reproduction from vegetable stem cuttings was safe and sound. When the tuber was lifted, a bunch of stems was detached and thrust back into the soil and the cycle of life went on without climatic intermission. True enough, there were dry seasons and even erratic spells as in the Marquesas when the population shifted emphasis from breadfruit to taro or carried on with supplies of breadfruit paste retrieved from the storage pits, but this was nothing like the problem in New Zealand where humara, yam, and ti would simply vanish in the course of a year if tropical practices were followed and the plants left to face wind and weather. An apparently abrupt revolution in agricultural methods was essential. The question is, therefore, how on earth did the Maori succeed? Some believe that the introduction of tropical crops was assisted by a climate distinctly warmer and wetter than that which now prevails and make their appeal to the evidence of soil and vegetation. As Raeside read the evidence embedded in South Island soils,2 ancient 1 D. E. Yen, "The Adaptation of Kumara by the New Zealand Maori," Journal of the Polynesian Society, Vol. 70 (1961), pp. 338-348...

The Metrication of Navigation

THE following notes stem from Ronald Turner's somewhat controversial paper on the metrication of navigation.The unique feature of the nautical or sea mile as a unit of distance is that it is directly related to a commonly-used unit of angular measure. To be more precise, the nautical mile may be defined as the length of a meridianal arc of the terrestrial sea-level surface, the geographical latitudes of the end points of which differ by one-sixtieth of a degree. In other words, the sea mile is a minute-mile, and the resulting convenience to mariners is one that is not too lightly to be sacrificed on the altar of the metric system.The association of the seaman's unit of distance with the unit of angular measure and with the size of the spherical Earth, became a serious consideration soon after the initiation of the Age of Discovery by the Portuguese navigators sponsored by Prince Henry. Before this epoch, and indeed for some time after, seamen used landsmen's units of measure: units derived from homely, but certainly non-scientific, standards such as the length of a thumbjoint, forearm, foot and pace, and in no way related to the size of the Earth.The inconveniences in trade and commerce caused by a wide variety of units of length and weight must always have prompted men to suggest standardizing these units.

THE BIRDS OF TASMANIA: ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION

SUMMARYTasmania, about the size of Ireland, separated from the Australian mainland by 140 miles of sea, and isolated for about the last 12,000 years, has 104 species of native breeding land‐birds, with the addition of ten introduced species. The environment is described; in particular the vegetation is classified into nine natural types and three produced by European man; and the distribution of the bird species among these is defined and discussed. The other vertebrates are briefly considered. No extinction is definitely known to have taken place as a result of European settlement except of the Tasmanian Emu (and of course Tasmanian Man).An attempt is made to reconstruct the Late Pleistocene history of Tasmania and its vegetation, with special reference to the Last Glaciation, when the island would have been joined to the mainland.When the avifauna is divided into categories, water‐birds, raptors, etc., it is found to have much the same proportional composition as the Australian mainland avifaunas with which it is compared, though it consists of many fewer species.The vegetation types of the colder and wetter areas of Tasmania house far fewer species of birds than the drier and warmer habitats. The 104 breeding species include 14 endemics, which are considered in detail, and 27 endemic subspecies. As shown by comparison with other islands, the total proportionate endemism is extraordinarily high for a recent continental island (though it is actually lower than that in the remote ecological island formed by the sclerophyll of southwestern Western Australia). A contributory cause may be that Tasmania is not regularly visited by land‐birds from the continent (though at least one‐fifth of the Tasmanian species are partial or total migrants in winter). The most noteworthy endemics are two monotypic genera,LathamusandAcanthornis, and the Native HenTribonyx mortierii, which has become flightless apparently in the face of a formidable array of local predators.Considerations of climate and habitat suggest that at least half the avifauna, including 19 of the endemic subspecies and six of the members of superspecies, arrived in Tasmania some time after the amelioration of the Last Glaciation began, some 18,000 years ago. Geographical considerations suggest that four of those six members of superspecies existed in their present form when the land‐bridge to the mainland was cut, 12,000 years ago. Certain habitats, widespread over southeastern Australia during the glaciation, are now virtually confined to Tasmania where they form the stronghold of certain species, such as the Pink RobinPetroica rodinogaster, which occur only as relicts on the mainland. The endemic Scrub TitAcanthornis magnusis practically confined to such habitats, where its ecology suggests it would have been well adapted to glacial conditions.Among the local endemics there is a strong tendency for colouration to be more saturated than on the continent of Australia (Gloger's rule) but there is less consistency in tendency to greater size (Bergmann's rule). A noteworthy proportion of the Tasmanian species have duller plumage than their mainland relatives, usually with an assimilation to female or juvenile plumage—unexpected in an island as big as Tasmania with so considerable an avifauna.

Law and Custom in the Australian Territory of Papua and New Guinea

XUSTRALIA IS committed by the United Nations Charter to the political, economic, social and educational advancement of the inhabitants of Papua and New Guinea. Although that commitment extends formally only to what was originally German New Guinea, the Australian government is applying it equally to the Territory of Papua.' In 1949 the trust territory of New Guinea and the Australian Territory of Papua were united in an administrative union. Since that time their administration has been carried on as one government.2 In recent years much has been heard about self-government for emerging peoples in underdeveloped areas of the world. This article outlines two matters that confront those concerned with assisting primitive communities to emerge as self-governing peoples: The relation between the law that courts know and the customs of the communities served by that law; and the role that courts play as social and economic structures become more complicated. At the outset a background understanding of existing conditions in the area is necessary, and in particular it must be established that interference and assistance from an advanced civilization is required. The Territory of Papua and New Guinea covers a land area of more than 180,000 square miles and many thousands of square miles of sea. It supports an indigenous population estimated at about two million persons. The con-

The White Settler's Role in Kenya

AT the dawn of the twentieth century, a railway, widely re /- garded as a project either of crazy quasi-idealism or rash ** ^ imperialism, was telescoping its way from Mombasa on the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria, leaving a pile of problems in its wake. The decision to undertake this great and arduous enter prise had been made for a number of reasons. It was prompted partly in order to discharge Britain's responsibilities under the Act of Brussels to put an end to the slave trading by establishing law and order in the interior; partly to make possible the reten tion of Uganda?where missionaries of the Church Missionary Society had been precariously settled since 1876?as a British sphere of influence and later as a Protectorate; and partly to secure Britain's position at the source of the Nile waters on which the Sudan and Egypt were so greatly dependent. In reaching the decision to build the railway no heed was paid to the possible development of the Highlands of Kenya. In 1894 the British Government declared a protectorate over part of Uganda and in 1895 over the rest of East Africa. At the same time it leased a coastal strip, ten sea miles in width along the littoral of Kenya, from the Sultan of Zanzibar. That strip remains today the Protectorate of Kenya. The rest became the Colony of Kenya, by formal annexation, in June 1920. The deficits on the Protectorate and the railway had to be borne by the British taxpayers, by way of grants-in-aid from the Treasury. The only way whereby both Protectorate and railway could be set on a sound economic basis was by the development of the raw and almost empty lands on either side of the railway. If that task had been left to the Africans there would have been little chance of the railway paying its way within 20 years. The subsistence economy of the African tribes was so precarious that they did not even produce surplus foodstuffs as an insurance against the recurrent famines. Many of the native tribes were pastoral and of nomadic disposition; and those tribes which did till the soil with wooden digging sticks had little or nothing to offer to the world's markets. Moreover, the African population was mainly concentrated around the shores of Lake Victoria, in the Kavirondo country, and in the Kikuyu country from the skirts of

MIGRATION ACROSS THE SEA

Summary. 1 Small passerine species regularly migrate across at least 600 miles of sea, and some take longer journeys, notably the Greenland Wheatear. Disputes concerning the crossing of the Gulf of Mexico, Mediterranean and North Sea are summarized. 2 Pre-migratory fat seems enough for a continuous Bight of 24–36 hours and perhaps more. Most of it is lost after drift. 3. Diurnal migrants tend to coast into the wind before setting out to sea, especially in weather rather unfavourable for migration. Their following of coasts has no “guiding” significance. Sometimes they coast after crossing the sea. Night-migrants do not normally follow coastlines. 4 The track of migrants over the sea by day and night is normally the resultant between their heading and the wind. This type of drift is not usually responsible for big “falls”, which are often associated with overcast weather. In overcast weather at sea migrants can sometimes maintain their heading, while at other times they are disoriented (so drift with the wind). That they turn to fly down-wind is extremely doubtful, but there are still various puzzling features about drift. 5 Redetermined movements occur after drifted migrants have landed. 6 Some other problems are discussed, and problems for future work are suggested.

Horizontal Atmospheric Transmittance Measurements with a Thallous Sulfide Cell Transmissometer*

Measurements of horizontal atmospheric transmittance were made over 1.24- and 4.07-sea-mile paths with an automatically recording near-infrared transmissometer. The transmissometer comprised a tungsten source, modulated at 60 cps, and a thallous sulfide cell receiver. The visual transmittance was simultaneously recorded with a photomultiplier-tube receiver using the same source. New results of total transmissivity per sea mile in the 0.7- to 1.1-micron region of the spectrum are presented and compared with results of the Naval Research Laboratory and the Admiralty Research Laboratory in the visual and infrared regions of the spectrum. A graph of transmissivity versus wavelength from 0.3 to 12 microns was made. This graph is useful in finding the transmissivity in the “windows” of the infrared spectrum when the transmissivity has been determined at a particular wavelength or for a small band of wavelengths.

The Visibility of Stars and Planets During Twilight

From known values of twilight sky brightness, atmospheric transmission, and eye sensitivity, the visibility of planets and stars of magnitudes −2.5 to +4.5 is calculated for the twilight period. The results of the calculations are given in charts which can be applied to various altitudes of the observer and various conditions of observation. The twilight belt is about 1100 sea miles in width, from the sunset or sunrise meridian to full night. The charts show that under good conditions in the first 200 miles of the belt the brighter planets and Sirius become visible, in the next 200 miles first magnitude stars appear, and beyond 500 miles practically all navigational stars can be seen.

The Influence of Field of View on Measurements of Atmospheric Transmission*

When transmittance of the atmosphere is determined by comparing the irradiancy of a distant light source to the calculated value for the irradiancy in vacuum, the result obtained is dependent on the field of view of the receiver. Measurements of this dependence over water have been made at sea level. For an uncollimated source, the results for any wavelength in the visible and near ultraviolet regions of the spectrum are represented approximately by the relation Tθ=T+0.5(1−T)(1−e−θ),where Tθ is the transmittance at a particular wavelength measured with an instrument having a field of view θ radians in diameter, and T is the transmittance which would be obtained if unscattered light alone were accepted by the measuring equipment.Observations have been made in several wavelength regions between 3600A and 6235A for atmospheres in which the transmission for visible light was between 0.35 and 0.85 per sea mile. Two-mile and nine-mile optical paths were used. Observations of Tθ through the nine-mile path were made with a fixed field of view 13.5 degrees in diameter, and those through the two-mile path were made with several values of θ between 5° and 25°.

Visual Measurements of Atmospheric Transmission of Light at Night

Measurements of the visual transmission of the atmosphere were made at night across Chesapeake Bay over a period of two years. A visual telephotometer was used to measure the illumination produced at a distance of 8.77 sea miles by a series of calibrated light sources. With this range it was possible to measure atmospheric transmission values between 0.4 and 0.9 per sea mile corresponding to daylight visual ranges from 4 to 40 sea miles with an accuracy of ± 2 percent. Under stable atmospheric conditions the data obtained at night were in good agreement with direct observations of the daylight visual range made before sunset and after the following dawn.

日本南海における大気と海洋との熱交換

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the heat exchange between sea and atmosphere at the Southern Fixed Point (Lat. 29°N, Long. 135°E) 300 sea miles south off Shiono-misaki, Japan, based upon the meteorological and oceanographical observations carried out by the research ships of C. M. O. from June 1950 to May 1951.From these results the following conclusion was obtained.(1) On the yearly average, the heat of evaporation amounts to more than the radiation from the sun and sky, especially in winter the former is two or three times as much as the latter, for the sake of the strong North West Monsoon.(2) About twenty per cents of the yearly radiation from the sun and sky is lost by the conduction of sensible heat from the sea to the atmosphere, and in summer it is negligibly small but in winter it is comparable with the effective radiation (the radiation from the sun and sky minus the back radiation).(3) As the annual amount of the heat transported into this region by ocean currents is of the same order as the annual effective radiation, it plays an important part of the heat balance of this sea, but its seasonal variation is irregular.

Atmospheric transmission in the 1 to 14 μ region

The transmission of the atmosphere for radiation of wave-lengths between 1 and 14 μ has been determined at sea-level, and its dependence on meteorological conditions investigated. Measurements have been made over paths of 2264 and 4478 yd., and the correlation with visibility and humidity studied in detail at four chosen wave-lengths, 2.18, 3.61, 10.01 and 11.48 μ ,. Spectral transmission curves for typical conditions have been recorded for the complete range 1 to 14 μ and, in addition to the numerous absorption bands due to water vapour arid carbon dioxide, some bands caused by the rarer constituents, in particular N 2 O and HDO, have been observed. Throughout the wave-length range investigated, the transmission varies with the visibility, the effect being less marked at the longer wave-lengths. For example, when, under typical conditions, the visual transmission falls from 75 to 50% per sea mile, the corresponding change at 2.18 μ is from 85 to 73%, and at 10.01 μ from 87 to 83%. At the latter wave-length there is a strong dependence on the quantity of water vapour in the path. Assuming that the observed variations of infra-red transmission with visibility are due to the scattering of radiation by salt nuclei the characteristics of a suitable size distribution have been calculated. As the humidity increases the nuclei absorb moisture and increase in size. The distribution is in agreement with the limited observations on size and concentration that have been reported. For a visual transmission of 40% per sea mile the radius of the most frequently occurring droplet is calculated to be 0.4 μ .

Government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands

tered by that country until their capture by United States forces during 1944. The Territory represents a great zone of thousands of small islands scattered over 5,000,000 square miles of sea. The United States Navy on occupation instituted military government in these island areas. Since the termination of hostilities, the Naval Establishment has continued supervision of the government administration of the islands. On April 2, 1947 the United Nations Security Council approved a trusteeship agreement designating the United States as the administering authority for these former Japanese island areas, and naming them officially the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands.

Colorado beetle in the Channel Islands, 1947 and 1948.

Colorado beetles can survive up to 10 days in sea water and still be capable of flying when the temperature reaches 80° F. (26·67° C.). The beetles that reached the Channel Islands in May 1947 and in May 1948 prove that they can travel across about 30 miles of sea, the approximate distance of Guernsey from the Cherbourg peninsula. The invasions occurred as a result of migrant beetles from the Cherbourg peninsula which dropped on the sea between the Channel Islands and the French coast and drifted ashore.

V.H.F. cross-channel communication

A description is given of the experimental determination of the practicability for service purposes of v.h.f. cross-channel communications. The frequency band allocated was 85–95 Mc/s. Crystal-controlled transmitters and receivers were employed, the transmitter power being 100 watts, and the receiver sensitivity 6.0 microvolts input for 20 db signal/noise ratio. The aerial heights were approximately 700 ft and 50 ft, and the maximum distance was 83 sea miles, the optical distance being 36 sea miles. When the investigation was begun in January, 1943, no measurements were available of the transmission of 85–95-Mc/s radiation over such distances.The experimental results showed that 20 db signal/noise ratio could be expected for approximately 60% of the time.The network employed in the invasion of Normandy is described. This was successful in providing communication for almost the whole period of its operation.

Man or Gannets

A CIRCULAR letter, signed by Sir Montagu Sharp, chairman of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, and Mr. John M. Crosthwaite, honorary secretary of the Scottish Society for the Protection of Wild Birds, has been received by NATURE and has been widely circulated in the daily newspapers. It states that the inhabitants of Lewis capture and preserve for winter food some two thousand nestling gannets, after a journey over some 40 miles of open sea to the uninhabited islet of Sula Sgeir ; sarcastic comment is made on “the apparent plight of the inhabitants... that of necessity they have to eat Gannets”, and suggests that this wilful destruction of these birds for human food should be stopped. The letter further states, inaccurately, that such slaughter is without precedent in Great Britain. This is scarcely correct. Historically, the use for human food of the nestlings of the birds which frequent certain bird rocks in Scotland in great numbers is an ancient practice which throughout centuries has made no appreciable difference to the bird populations. In Edinburgh the nestlings of gannets from the Bass Rock used to be sold in the streets, as a luxury and not as something which suggested the plight of starvation or lack of “sufficient food of a more ordinary and palatable kind”, as the signatories describe it. At the time when St. Kilda was most prosperous, its people preserved and fed annually upon, not two thousand, but many thousands of fulmar petrels, and if the stoppage of that source of food supply has had any effect upon the fulmar population, it has been to threaten to make that bird a nuisance on certain parts of the coast of the mainland.

Living in Espiritu Santo

DR. BAKER has already given a full account (1935, p. 209) of our joint work on Oxford University New Hebrides Expedition, for six months August to January I933-34. In February I934 expedition returned to England; some one had to stay, and feeling satisfied with life volunteered, and was left in charge of expedition's base at Hog Harbour, where was joined by Australian member of expedition, Jock Marshall. We were to complete year's breeding season and meteorological observations, which had been primary objects of expedition. did not however spend all of this time at Hog Harbour, but made expeditions all over island, including those parts not previously touched by expedition. Every few weeks returned-to assist or relieve Marshall. Thus during my six months as unofficial member of Oxford Expedition was able to cover new ground. Though primarily an ornithologist, accumulated much anthropological information. here concentrate on south Santo-Malo-Omba-north Malekula area of central New Hebrides, which have been least described. The accounts of Rivers (I913) and Baker (I929, p. 305) cover Banks Islands and north-east Santo; Deacon (I93I) and Miss Cheesman (I933) have described south Malekula; Layard Atchin-Vao-Walla islets (forthcoming); and Pentecost has been worked by Tattevin (I926). My more technical anthropological data will be published elsewhere, as also a complete human census of all these islands, and a great deal of ornithological material. Inland in larger islands of New Hebrides natives, dark-skinned, curly-wooled Melanesians, live in a primitive way. Though purely material and physiological effects of even passing white men along distant coast have been so great that no tribe keeps all its original culture, e.g. stone axes, mental upset may be slight; many rituals and psychology behind them remain unimpaired. Government reports describe these areas as a closed book (Joy, I93I). Baker (I935, p. 209) remarks that the natives of interior of Espiritu Santo are scarcely influenced by white people on their shores, and there are few places in world to-day where primitive society can be studied so well as in interior of Espiritu Santo. In interior of Malekula conditions are even more primitive, for cannibalism and magic, first traits to go down before white influence, there survive and thrive. That should continue within never more than 25 miles of sea, in two places within Io miles of wireless station, hospital, and government post, is astonishing to those who are unacquainted with Condominium. The whole white history of group, since Quiros discovered Espiritu Santo and thought it was Australian continent in i606, right up to present time, has been one of cultural and physical sabotage, vandalism, exploitation; a savagery exceeding anything within natives' imagination or experience. And as Bishop Wilson says: I suppose no place in world is so badly governed in interest of native as New Hebrides. Therefore natives have grown to distrust or to

Prof. Max Weber, For.Mem.R.S.

THE election of Prof. Max Carl Wilhelm Weber as a foreign member of the Royal Society gives well-deserved recognition to one whose influence on biological science is of outstanding importance. After earlier work on Crustacea, Prof. Weber soon entered upon his studies of fish, which were eventually to bring him into the front rank of ichthyologists of the day. His contributions to our knowledge of fish fauna have been very great and resulted from his personal travels into the far north, South Africa and the East Indian Archipelago. The fruits of his researches culminated in his comprehensive joint work with L. F. de Beaufort on “The Fishes of the Indo-Australian Archipelago” published in three volumes between 1911 and 1916. But to biologists in general, Max Weber is probably better known for his able leadership of the Dutch Siboga Expedition in 1899–1900. This expedition covered a distance of about 12,000 sea miles in the different basins of the East Indian Archipelago, and was equipped with the best oceanographical apparatus of the time. The reports of the Siboga Expedition edited by Max Weber form one of the major contributions to the science of oceanography, and have filled a large gap in our knowledge of the fauna of that region. Weber himself undertook the study of the fishes collected by the Siboga Expedition and published in 1913 his great volume, in which no less than 131 new species were described and 240 species recorded for the first time in the Indo-Australian Archipelago. This work he dedicated to his wife, Mme. Dr. A. A. Weber-van Bosse, who accompanied him on his travels and is herself a botanist of great distinction. Prof. Weber is also the author of the most comprehensive textbook on the Mammalia to be found in any language. The first edition of this work, “Die Saugetiere”, was published in 1904 in one volume; the second and latest edition, in two volumes, appeared in 1928. Taking a general view of the work, it is the most complete account in existence of the taxonomy and structure of mammals, living and fossil.

Arctic Weather of April 15-16, 1928: With Some Observations on Polar Weather in Relation to the General Circulation

HE reports of Sir Hubert Wilkins' flight across the polar region from Point Barrow to Spitsbergen and the additional information obtained from the Geophysical Institute of Tromso give a flash-light picture of polar weather in April. Keeping the geographical pole on the left and the magnetic pole on the right, the course passed within 350 sea miles of the chief center of geographical attraction. It is an interesting region for a geographer to traverse; the deviation of the point of the compass from the geographic north, what sea folk call the variation, changed through 3I3?, from 330? of north at the start (compass pointing 30? E. of N.) at Point Barrow to 17? west at Spitsbergen. The flight from Point Barrow to the first landing at Spitsbergen took 2014 hours of impartial civil time, but it would count as a day and a quarter, 3034 hours, according to true solar time as kept by sailors at sea.

Hydrography of the South Atlantic

THE cruise of the ex-monboat Meteor terminated at Wilhelmshaven at the end of May last, after traversing 67,535 sea miles anc croing the South Atlantic, times between Africa south American. This is the only survey of th hysical and chemical conditions of an ocean on such an extensive scale.