THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 



MONTHLY 



FEBRUARY, 1908 



A VISIT TO THE HANGCHOW BOR 



BY Dr. CHARLES KEYSER EDMUNDS 

 CANTON CHRISTIAN COLLEGE 



Introductory 



THE most striking thing, from a geographical point of view, which 

 is to be seen along the China coast is the recurrent phenomenon 

 which we are about to describe. The rugged coast line, the many bays, 

 the chain of islands fringing the coast, the whole gamut of geological 

 and geographical forms which one encounters in an intimate coastwise 

 journey, are all very striking and grand, and yet they are static — pas- 

 sive, after all. Notable as they are, they are but silent witnesses of 

 those restless and resistless forces which have brought them into 

 being. But when one beholds the mighty Yangtse and attempts 

 to form an estimate of the volume of silt carried seaward in the 

 rush of its muddy waters, and tries to judge of its land-forming 

 as well as its land-denuding powers, one stands in the presence of 

 dynamic grandeur, which to our mind exceeds the passive greatness 

 as of the " everlasting " yet silent hills. It is this appreciation of 

 dynamic greatness which overwhelms an observer of the tidal bore 

 as it sweeps in from Hangchow Bay and rushes past Haining, a solid 

 wall of water from two and a half to three miles wide, perhaps ten, 

 twelve or even twenty feet high, with a speed of ten to twenty miles 

 an hour, according to the intensity of the tide. Imagine, if you can, 

 one and three quarter millions of tons of water passing by you each 

 minute, the rush to continue several tens of minutes, and you will 

 have no difficulty in believing that this inrush of water makes itself 

 felt still as a big wave at Hangchow, thirty miles farther inland, and 

 even for some miles beyond. 



VOL. LXXII. — 7. 



