Correspondence

To the editor:

During my undergraduate years at Oxford we were served time and again an unsavory dish called “Shepherd’s Pie.” Finally, and in exasperation, a fellow student inscribed in the Junior Common Room complaint book the following: “Would the cook please find a higher quality shepherd for his Shepherd’s Pie?” I am asking no more of you in choosing your book reviewers.

In his review of my book The Sonoran Desert (November 1969) your reviewer, Conrad Bahre, has nothing to say about the thrust of the book other than that it is an “unusual regional synthesis,” as well as an effort to “contrast the disparate social and economic development” within this desert shared by Mexico and the United States. He says no more despite the obvious fact that this disparity is what the book is all about.

Instead, Mr. Bahre concentrates on what he considers important, e.g., that a few of the 120 photos have been used in another book. To his obvious delight of discovery, one was, in fact, miscaptioned. Regarding the maps, he states that a few “defy standard cartographic techniques.” As one who has personally invested considerable sums in computer-graphic mapping techniques in the last few years, I’d like to know, “What is ‘ standard’?” Maybe he knows—I could have saved some money.

Supposed errors of omission loom large. My failure to include “a description” of the coastal plain south of the Río Yaqui in Chapter 1 (“Land Forms”) is apparently significant, despite the fact that several paragraphs are devoted to the subject in Chapter 4 (“Vegetation”). More than 12 pages in Chapters 5 and 9 about the Colorado Delta likewise fail to compensate for my not dealing with it in Chapter 1. Hurricanes, obviously of consummate importance to the climate of the desert, were also not identified as such in the chapter where Mr. Bahre would like to have seen them spotlighted.

Far more serious, however, is his charge that “numerous errors . . . pervade” the book. Despite this charge, he has enumerated only three factual errors. In a book of over 400 pages surely there must be more, but let’s look at the three!

1. Mr. Bahre alleges that “much of the material on Mexican land tenure is erroneous (e.g., the author lists 1204 ejidos for all of Mexico when there are actually over 18,000).” It is obvious that he has failed to note the word “Irrigated” in the eaption, “Ejido Membership and Distribution by Irrigated Zones, 1957,” on p. 375. Nowhere does the caption state or imply “all of Mexico.” I would admonish Mr. Bahre that, in future assignments concerning deserts, the presence or absence of this word “Irrigated” is of critical significance.

2. Your reviewer claims that the mission frontier was north of the “mouth of the Yaqui River prior to 1620.” My map shows it on the south bank. As a frame of reference, it should be noted that in that same year another much better-known group set foot either on or near a rock at Plymouth, infinitely more familiar to Anglo historians. To avoid argument, your reviewer is right. I may be five miles wrong, but the same five will get you ten that the DAR is wrong about the location at Plymouth, probably more than five miles.

3. Finally, “the rainfall data on pp. 264 and 395” do not “contradict the isohyet map on p. 19,” unless your reviewer has difficulty with the English language, which I suspect he has. Even when he goes to the Appendix, he may or may not find a discrepancy of as much as 1½ inches rainfall between the statistics and the map. Cartographic generalization in an area of extreme orographic contrast accounts for this— not sloppy research.

A reviewer is entitled to his opinion of a book; he is not entitled to make erroneous statements—thus discrediting both the book and its author—because of his failure to read carefully or interpret correctly.

In conclusion, it can only be said that if I had researched and written a book of 400 pages in such a slipshod fashion as Mr. Bahre’s one-page critique, I would be applying for a reviewer’s post rather than writing this letter. It is you, however, who must find a higher quality shepherd for your Shepherd’s Pie.

Roger Dunbier

University of California, Irvine

Conrad Bahre replies:

Mr. Dunbier’s response to my review of his book, The Sonoran Desert, does not require lengthy comment on my part. However, since his rebuttal, like his book, contains numerous misinterpretations, errors, and distortions of fact, a few short remarks on some of his objections are in order.

In reaction to my comments that some of his maps defy “standard” cartographic techniques, Mr. Dunbier vaunts his expertise in computer-graphic mapping. I doubt that his cartographic work is indicative of the type of work being turned out by computer-graphics. It would have been helpful if he had put scales, map data sources, directional symbols, or latitude and longitude indicators, and in some cases legends on his maps. I would have suggested also that he use nomographs in determining dot sizes; differentiate between state and international boundaries; experiment with different line weights; utilize better “zip-pattern” combinations; re-evaluate some of his lettering techniques; and indicate whether or not his temperature figures are in degrees centigrade or Fahrenheit and his precipitation data in inches or millimeters.

With regard to Mr. Dunbier’s comment about the significance of hurricanes in coastal Sonora and Sinaloa, had he referred to works by Ronald Ives, Dean Blake, Gunnar I. Roden, and David A. Henderson, he could have added many valuable insights to his book.¹ However, Gottfried Pfeifer (1939), one of Mr. Dunbier’s references, discusses hurricanes. Granted, hurricanes are a minor aspect of the total climatic picture of the Sonoran Desert, but their omission is indicative of other omissions in Mr. Dunbier’s book. I might also add that the people of San Felipe, B. C., a town usually included in the Sonoran Desert, probably find hurricanes of “consummate importance,” especially since their village was nearly wiped out by one a few years ago. I also suspect that had Mr. Dunbier checked the climatic records of Yuma, Arizona, he would have noted the effects of a hurricane on that city in the early 1920s.

In my review I state “that the maps contradict information in the text and furnish misinformation,” for which I give two examples. Both of these disturb Mr. Dunbier.

1. The first example—“that the rainfall data on pp. 264 and 395 contradict the isohyet map on p. 19”—is countered by Mr. Dunbier, who retorts that “one may or may not find a discrepancy of as much as 1½ inches between the statistics and the map.” If Mr. Dunbier would refer to p. 264, line 9, which states “in the extremely dry region west of the Nogales-Guaymas highway where rainfall totals less than 5 inches annually,” and then to his isohyet map on p. 19, he would see that the Nogales-Guaymas highway would intersect the 15-inch isohyet (I assume 15 inches, though Mr. Dunbier does not designate whether the figures are in inches), and that at no place does the highway pass through an area having less than 8 inches of rainfall. “I would admonish” Mr. Dunbier “that the presence or absence” of 10 inches of rainfall in the desert “is of critical significance.” With regard to his appendix on p. 395, a place-name map showing all of his climatic stations would have been useful, for it appears that he does not know the locations of some of his data stations; in some cases, his discrepancies are not merely a matter of “cartographic generalizaion in an area of extreme orographic contrast,” but sloppy work. Take the “climatic station” Libertad, for example. Since there is no map showing it, I must assume that Mr. Dunbier is referring to Puerto Libertad, just south of Cabo Lobos in coastal Sonora. His average annual rainfall figure for Libertad is 3.8 inches, yet on his precipitation map p. 19 the 4-inch isohyet passes some 100 miles north of there near Puerto Penasco, placing Puerto Libertad in an area having 4 to 6 inches of rainfall. Also, in the same appendix, on p. 396, Mr. Dunbier records a Pinacate Plateau in Arizona at an elevation of 9900 feet with a precipitation amount of 5.61 inches. This could only be the Pinacates in northwestern Sonora, which are at considerably lower elevations.

2. Mr. Dunbier admits that my second example is correct—“Despite the information mapped on p. 122, the mission frontier had advanced north of the Yaqui River prior to 1620.” However, he attempts to minimize it with some remarks about the DAR’s location of “a rock at Plymouth.” What is most significant about my statement, is that Mr. Dunbier has included three important Sonoran missions on the Yaqui Delta (Belén, Huírivis, and Rahum) in his “1751 Advance,” when they should be in his “1620 Advance.” Since Mr. Dunbier does not list his map sources, one is led to assume that his “Advances of the Northwestern Frontier” are based on the dates of mission establishment. Curiously, he has not included the missions at Pitiquito, Caborca, and Bísani in the Altar area, or that at Sonoyta in his “frontier advances” (though these were frequently abandoned and rebuilt). Also, why is the large area between Hermosillo and Guaymas “zippedin,” since there were no missions in that area during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries?

The book lacks thorough research, and the author has no “feel” for the Sonoran Desert. Despite my criticisms, however, the book is the only “comprehensive” regional geographic treatment of the Sonoran Desert in existence. I realize that such an undertaking is intellectually taxing, but that is no excuse for the numerous errors and omissions which plague this book, derogating what might have been a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge on the Sonoran Desert.

The managing editor notes:

At the suggestion of the manuscript readers and the editors substantive changes, including the addition of two sentences, were made in the final draft of Benjamin Keen’s article, “ The Black Legend Revisited,” (November 1969). Professor Keen read the galley proofs, corrected certain items, and returned the article in the form printed. Because he was out of the country at the time and did not have this original manuscript at hand he unfortunately overlooked the addition of the last two sentences to the text. Professor Keen now requests that all interested scholars should delete these sentences from the article, since they do not accurately represent his views.