J. Poirot · 1913
This first installment reviews the 1910 second edition of the Atlas de Finlande and its accompanying text, concentrating on physical geography and biogeography. The reviewer praises the increased number of maps, the threefold expansion of the text, new subjects such as oceanography and agricultural statistics, and the revision of existing chapters. He commends the collective work’s consistency while noting repetition and the lack of an integrated geographical synthesis. The general map has been corrected in the north, but he considers it still below modern standards because precise geodetic measurements are lacking. The substantive survey follows the atlas’s explanations of relief, glaciation, postglacial uplift, drainage, marine circulation and climate, then examines vegetation zones, forests, wetlands and animal distributions. Footnotes identify corrections to hydrological figures and terminology, and the reviewer cautions that forest and wetland statistics are approximate because their categories overlap.
J. Poirot · 1913
This second review article examines the human-geography coverage of the second edition of the Atlas of Finland (Atlas de Finlande 1910), including population, agriculture, industry, commerce and communications. It traces settlement from prehistoric occupation through agricultural expansion to the growing concentration of population in industrial centres after about 1860. The reviewer relates uneven settlement to waterways and compares population-density maps with a communal income map derived from tax assessments. Agricultural coverage draws on the official 1901 inquiry, describing unequal landownership, the decline of swidden cultivation, and the shift from rye toward oats, fodder, livestock and cooperative butter production. Seventeen industrial cartograms document the location and scale of industrial centres. The reviewer explains the expansion of timber and paper production through resources, transport, market demand and the removal of restrictions on sawmills, while noting overcutting and technical and legal obstacles to greater hydropower use. The trade discussion describes an import surplus and exports dominated by timber, paper products and butter. Transport coverage addresses seasonal water and ice routes, canals, roads, maritime navigation and communications services; the reviewer criticizes early railway alignments that failed to attract settlement. Brief notices identify further maps on health, language, history, archaeology, education and urban development. In conclusion, the reviewer praises the atlas's broad coverage and Finland's achievements, emphasizing the social, political and legal conditions that enabled the use of natural resources.
