REGIONAL TRENDS IN ELECTORAL SUPPORT IN BRITAIN, 1950–1983∗

Analyses of the geography of British elections have typically stressed the continuity in patterns of party support. This paper challenges that conclusion. Employing an alternative method of analysis, it identifies significant regional trends in the Conservative and Labour vote between 1950 and 1983. Pro-Labour trends in Scotland and Northwest England are contrasted with secular changes favoring the Conservatives in non-metropolitan Southern England. These long-term trends have not been associated with growing regional polarization in party support. While the findings are specific to Britain, the method of assessing electoral change might be usefully applied to patterns in other countries.     

The conservation of Britain's limestone cave resource

 Limestone caves are an important scientific and recreational resource in Britain. During the mid- to late 1970s, cavers and statutory conservation bodies cooperated in a review of cave resources which resulted in the designation of 48 caves or cave areas as Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). During the same period, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 was introduced to provide more effective planning controls on activities such as agriculture carried out within SSSI boundaries. In one case, at Priddy in the Mendip Hills of Somerset, landowners prevented access to a number of caves in protest over the new, tougher restrictions on agriculture. Faced with the closure, and perceiving that their recreational use of caves might also be controlled, local cavers joined the landowners in opposing the proposals for SSSI designation. As a result the proposals were reviewed, three caves were excluded from the site and controls on the remaining area were relaxed. The case emphasized a need for an effective system to take account of all factors affecting cave conservation, a need which has led to a more constructive dialogue between nature conservation bodies, caver organizations and other interested parties. Received: 1 June 1995 · Accepted: 4 December 1995     

Coiled nautiloid cephalopods from the British Silurian

Coiled nautiloid cephalopods from the British Silurian are described and their taxonomy revised. The Order Oncocerida is represented by a single specimen of Oxygonioceras oxynotum. Twelve species from the Order Tarphycerida (within which is here subsumed the Order Barrandeocerida) are described: one of Trocholites, two of Ophioceras, two of Catyrephoceras, three of Lechitrochoceras, one of Peismoceras, two of Systrophoceras, and one of Uranoceras. Their distribution, stratigraphical and geographical, is indicated.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Books reviewed in this article: USA, Eine Geographische Landeskunde , Vol. I, Der Grossraum in Strukturellem, Wandel, 3rd Ed. Helmut Blume . Introduction to Remote Sensing . James B. Campbell . The Sounds of People and Places: Readings in the Geography of American Folk and Popular Music . George O. Carney , ED. Development and Underdevelopment . John Cole . Mobility and Employment in Urban Southeast Asia: Example from Indonesia and the Philippines . Michael A. Costello , Thomas R. Leinbach , AND Richard Ulack . Soviet Asia: Economic Development and National Policy Choices . Leslie Dienes . The Third World City . David Drakakis -Smith . Scholars' Guide to Washington, DC for Cartography and Remote Sensing Imagery (maps, charts, aerial photographs, satellite images, cartographic literature and geographic information systems). Ralph E. Ehrenberg . Population and Development in the Third World . Allan AND Anne Findlay . The Early Mapping of Hawaii . Gary L. Fitzpatrick . Energetics of Physical Environment: Energetic Approaches to Physical Geography . K. J. Gregory , ED. Wildland Recreation: Ecology and Management . William E. Hammitt and David N. Cole . Agricultural Commercialization and Government Policy in Africa . J. Hinderink AND J. J. Sterkenburg . The Dynamics of American Housing . James W. Hughes AND George Sternlieb . Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation State . Charles F. Keyes . Resolving Locational Conflict . Robert W. Lake , ED. Lands at Risk in the Third World: Local-level Perspectives . Peter D. Little and Michael M. Horowitz , EDS. Nathaniel Southgate Shaler and the Culture of American Science . David N. Livingstone . Regions: The Economics and Politics of Territory . Ann R. Markusen . Wetlands . William J. Mitsch and James G. Gosselink . Historical Geography: Progress and Prospect . Michael Pacione , ED. Loess and Periglacial Phenomena . Marton P$eacsi and Hugh M. French , EDS. Regional Management of Metropolitan Floodplains, Experience in the United States and Abroad . Rutherford H. Platt , ED. Human Cartography: Mapping the World of Man . Janos Szegö . Atlas of Great Lakes Indian History . Helen H. Tanner , ED. The Botany of Mangroves . P. B. Tomlinson . Urban Spatial Traffic Patterns . Rodney Vaughan . The Night After … Climatic and Biological Consequences of a Nuclear War . Yevgeni Velikhov , ED. Industrial Geography . H. D. Watts . Dictionary of Quotations in Geography . James O. Wheeler and Francis M. Sibley . Vermont Townscape . Norman Wiliams , Jr. , Edmund K. Kellogg and Peter M. Lavigne .     

The need for soil conservation in Britain – revisited

Evans' (1971) seminal paper was the first to describe contemporary erosion in Britain in the uplands, and erosion due to wind and water in the arable lowlands. Since then, the emphasis of publications on British erosion has shifted to the quantification of water erosion on arable land and to off–site impacts, including property damage and pollution of watercourses. The need for soil conservation in Britain, originally advanced by Evans, is now primarily interpreted as a need for protection against muddy runoff.     

Holocene alluvial fan and terrace formation in the Bowland Fells,Northwest England

In the Bowland Fells, Lancashire, northwest England, in the headwater valleys of the Hodder river system, is a suite of Holocene fluvial landforms. Debris cones and alluvial fans at tributary junctions, and river terraces along the main valleys post-date late Pleistocene forms and pre-date the modern valley floor alluvial forms. Eight ¹⁴C dates from wood samples incorporated within the terrace and fan deposits have allowed two main phases of Holocene erosion to be identified with debris cone/fan deposition taking place after c. 5400 BP but before c. 1900 BP and again at c. 900 BP. Some of the fans and cones are complex with deposits attributable to both phases; others are simple and attributable only to the later phase. In the headwaters an upper terrace at c. 5400 BP pre-dates the cones and a lower terrace is contemporaneous with the first debris cone phase. Lower downvalley the youngest of three terraces date from c. 5000 BP or earlier indicating that the sequence is less complex downstream.