226 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



capital city, the preservation of the West Lake as a water-supply, the 

 building of public roads, institutions of learning and canals, and, in 

 view of the present considerations the most worthy of all, the long 

 sea-wall which stands to-day as the greatest monument to his skill and 

 efficiency in caring for the public weal. Its erection was begun 

 probably about 911 or 915 a.d. It extends from Hangchow to Chuan- 

 sha near the mouth of the Whang-pu (the river on which Shanghai 

 is situated), a distance of one hundred and eighty miles. It is a 

 stupendous piece of work and deserves an equal share of fame with the 

 Grand Canal and the Great Wall of China, for its engineering diffi- 

 culties were certainly infinitely greater. 



Unfortunately there appears to be no record of how these diffi- 

 culties were really overcome, although as usual the native historian 



/.■in y***£ 



F» ? Iuih \frl< * 



Water-ways near Hangchow. The High-level Canals shown Dark. 

 (From Decennial Reports C. I. M. C, 1892-1901, Shanghai, 1906.) 



has felt impelled to leave a rather poetic narrative concerning an 

 achievement so vital to the inhabitants of so large a region. Con- 

 siderably abbreviated, it is to the effect that by petitioning Heaven 

 to withhold the tides for two months and inditing a poem to the Water 

 Dragon, beseeching the loan of the water's control for a brief time, 

 the energetic and dauntless Prince Ch'ien was enabled to prevent the 

 thousand sprites and the one hundred demons from bringing in the 

 tides by having five hundred skilled archers shoot three thousand 

 specially prepared arrows directly into the oncoming billows. Each 

 man took up six arrows, one for each billow, and when they had shot 

 five arrows straight into as many lofty waves, the waters suddenly 

 turned and fled! Wbereupon the Prince quickly drove great piles 

 along the river bank, among which strong creels of bamboo were woven. 



