river in the prefecture of
Hwai-k'ing. Leaving this river it takes a course a little to the east
of south, and passing west of Ju-ning Fu, in the province of Ho-nan,
it turns in a more easterly direction as far as Luchow Fu. From this
prefecture an arm of the plain, in which lies the Chao Lake, stretches
southward from the Hwai river to the Yangtsze-kiang, and trending
eastward occupies the region between that river and Hangchow Bay. To
the north of this arm rises a hilly district, in the centre of which
stands Nanking. The greater part of this vast plain descends very
gently towards the sea, and is generally below the level of the Yellow
river, hence the disastrous inundations which so often accompany the
rise of that river. Owing to the great quantity of soil which is
brought down by the waters of the Yellow river, and to the absence of
oceanic currents, this delta is rapidly increasing and the adjoining
seas are as rapidly becoming shallower. As an instance, it is said
that the town of P'utai was one Chinese mile[2] west of the seashore
in the year 200 B.C., and in 1730 it was 140 m. inland, thus giving a
yearly encroachment upon the sea of about 100 ft. Again,
Sien-shwuy-kow on the Peiho was on the seashore in A.D. 500, and it is
now about 18 m. inland.

Mountains.

Some of the ranges connected with the mountain system of central Asia
which enter the western provinces of China have been mentioned above,
others may be indicated here. In the eastern portion of Tibet the
Kuen-lun range throws off a number of branches, which spread first of
all in a south-easterly direction and eventually take a north and
south course, partly in the provinces of Sze-ch'uen and Yun-nan, where
they divide the beds of the rivers which flow into Siam and French
Indo-China, as well as the principal northern tributaries of the
Yangtsze-kiang. In the north-west, traversing the western portion of
the province of Kan-suh, are parallel ranges running N.W. and S.E. and
forming a prolongation of the northern Tibetan mountains. They are
known as the Lung-shan, Richthofen and Nan-shan, and join on the
south-east the Kuen-lun range. The Richthofen range (locally called
Tien-shan, or Celestial Mountains) attains elevations of over 20,000
ft. Several of its peaks are snowclad, and there are many glaciers.
Forming the northern frontier of the province of Sze-ch'uen run the
M