American Geographical Society

Obituary: John Fillmore HayfordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 15, No. 3 (Jul., 1925), p. 500Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/208572 .

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500 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

the University of Stockholm, gives an interesting review of one of the most interest- ing phases of recent geographical work in Scandinavia.

Of widest general interest is 0. E. Baker's paper, "The Potential Supply of Wheat." Consideration of the food problem of the future based on present trends leads to an estimate that the production of wheat would have to be trebled in the next century. Examination of the physical conditions of wheat production indicates a possibility (as regards climate, topography, soil) of extension of the area from the 500,000 square miles now under cultivation to 5,500,000 square miles dis- tributed roughly in the following (per cent) proportion: North America 25; South America 9; Europe 27; Asia 27; Africa 9; Australasia 3. Economic principles, how- ever, would not permit of such a development. From a study of the geography of production figures are arrived at for the world's potential production. The world production in 1923 was about 4 billion bushels; future production is forecast at something over I2 billion bushels. Dr. Baker's paper, as indeed all of the papers, is lavishly illustrated.

Following the articles are sections devoted to Book Reviews, to the contents of contemporary numbers of American magazines of geography and related fields, and to News Items. Wallace W. Atwood is Editor; 0. E. Baker, Clarence F. Jones, Samuel J. Brandenburg, Associate Editors; W. Elmer Ekblaw, Managing Editor.

OBITUARY

JOHN FILLMORE HAYFORD. John Fillmore Hayford, director of the College of Engi- neering at Northwestern University, died March I0, I925, aged 57. Dr. Hayford's name is specially associated with the theory of isostasy. " Its establishment was due more to Mr. Hayford than to any one man," said the President of the Royal Geographical Society in making him the award of the Society's Victoria Medal in I924. On this occasion his report, "The Effect of Topography and Isostatic Com- pensation Upon the Intensity of Gravity," presented at the I909 meeting of the International Geodetic Association, was described as "a classic of geodesy." A more complete statement made with the collaboration of Dr. William Bowie appeared in I9I2 as Coast and Geodetic Survey Special Publication No. Io. In the general statement to this paper reference is made to the bearing of isostasy on deter- minations of the figure of the earth. Dr. Hayford's computation (I910) was adopted as the standard figure at the Madrid meeting of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics at Madrid in I924. A further list of Dr. Hayford's writings on the subject may be found in the " Bibliography of Isostasy " compiled by Adolph Knopf and issued by the Division of Geology and Geography of the National Research Council.

Dr. Hayford's earlier work included service on a commission to determine the boundary between Panama and Costa Rica; his later work an investigation (com- menced in I9iI) of the laws of evaporation and stream flow undertaken for the Carnegie Institution of Washington. The Great Lakes furnished the experimental material, and important results had been achieved, some of which are given in the Institution's publication " Effects of Winds and Barometric Pressures on the Great Lakes" (I922). The studies had direct bearing on local problems of navigation and power and on the question of the Chicago Drainage Canal, as Dr. Hayford outlined in his paper "The Best Use of the Waters of the Great Lakes," in the December, 1924, number of the Scientific Monthly.

HENRI CORDIER. On March i6, I925, occurred the death of a great student of the history of exploration and one of the foremost Orientalists of recent times, Henri Cordier, Professor at the Itcole des Langues Orientales Vivantes in Paris. Recognition of Cordier's contributions to geography came at the end of a long life

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