Tunisia突尼斯

Forrest Shreve

This review assesses two complementary French publications on the vegetation of Algeria and Tunisia, both accompanied by Maire’s phytogeographic map. The region is divided into three natural zones: the lightly forested coastal belt, with evergreen and deciduous oaks, pines, cedar, olive, and associated trees; the interior steppes, characterized by grasses and Artemisia shrubs under 200–350 mm rainfall; and the Saharan desert, described as only ‘rarefied steppe.’ The concise atlas by Bernard and Roquevaire provides profiles and landscape photographs, while Maire’s memoir treats individual species with 60 illustrations. Together they establish a systematic phytogeographic framework for North Africa and reveal the ecological gradient from Mediterranean forest to desert.

R. de Flotte de Roquevaire

This presentation introduces the Atlas of Algeria and Tunisia, a cartographic project initiated by the Government General of Algeria with financial support from the Tunisian government, and submitted to the International Geographical Congress. The project responds to the need expressed by Bernard and Ficheur for reliable natural-resource maps to guide land use and agricultural development in Algeria. The Atlas is organized into seven sections: geology, hypsometry, climatology, vegetation, demography, economic geography, and administrative geography. At the time of writing, the first four sections had been completed, demography was nearly done, and the remaining sections were underway, with overall completion expected in 1932. Methodologically, the maps were constructed at uniform scales to ensure comparability. Hypsometric curves were derived from military survey maps through successive photographic reductions, avoiding arbitrary generalization. Climatological maps used data from 377 stations over 45 years (1876–1920), yielding precipitation averages accurate to about 3.5 percent, comparable to Angot's 3 percent for France. The phytogeographical map, prepared by René Maire, identifies major botanical regions; maps of rural indigenous housing and population density, based on the 1926 census, document human geography. Economic maps cover agriculture, notably viticulture, while administrative and historical maps trace the evolution of colonial administration since 1830. The author emphasizes that because all maps share common scales and comparable conventions, they are mutually explanatory; for instance, rainfall maps help account for population density, agricultural production, and settlement patterns. The Atlas is presented as a genuinely Algerian scientific and industrial achievement, illustrating the value of coordinated cartographic syntheses as tools for administration and development in North Africa.