266 Dr. Cantor on the Flora and Fauna of Chusan* 



phyry assumes a slaty or laminated structure, and appears 

 to be quarried extensively, both for use on the island and 

 for exportation to the main-land, affording excellent slabs for 

 paving and for floors, and good blocks for common building 

 purpoises. A coarse conglomerate is also to be seen interve- 

 ning between beds of the claystone, imbedding angular frag- 

 ments of many descriptions of igneous rocks and workable 

 porphyry, which is also quarried and made use of for pillars, 

 blocks for corn-mills, basement slabs, &c/^ — Calcutta Journal 

 of Nat, Hist, vol. ii. p. 136. 



As characteristic features in the island, may be mentioned 

 the absence of rivers, lakes and forests. The valleys are fer- 

 tilized by numerous streamlets communicating with narrow 

 canals, which traverse the island, and serve both for agricul- 

 tural purposes as well as means of communication for want 

 gf carriage-roads. All the canals, at least in several miles di- 

 stance round Ting-hae, the principal city of the island, dis- 

 charge their surplus into a common canal, which passing 

 through the city communicates with the sea. 



The entire absence of forests appears to be of a comparative 

 recent date, to judge from certain passages in a letter written 

 by Mr. Cunningham in the year 1701, in which deer are men- 

 tioned as being in abundance, which circumstance would pre- 

 suppose a woody appearance of some part of Chusan at least. 

 The writer says, " The island in general abounds with all sorts 

 of provisions, such as cows, buffaloes, goats, deer, hogs, wild 

 and tame geese, ducks and hens, rice, wheat, calavances, cole- 

 worts, turnips, potatoes, carrots, beetach and spinach. Here 

 also the tea grows in great plenty on the tops of the hills, but 

 it is not in such esteem as that which grows on more moun- 

 tainous islands. Although this island is pretty well stored 

 with people, it is far from what it was in P. Martini's time, as 

 he describes Chusan. The rest of the circumjacent islands 

 are either desert or meanly inhabited by a few people, but all 

 of them stored with abundance of deer, for it is not long since 

 Chusan began to be peopled. It is true in Martini's days, 

 about fifty years ago, it was very populous for the space of 

 three or four years, at which time the fury of the Tartar con- 

 quest was so great that they left it desolate, not sparing so 

 much as the mulberry-trees (for then they made a great deal 

 of raw silk here) ; and in this condition it continued till about 

 eighteen years ago.'' — Extracted from Harris's complete col- 

 lection of Voyages in Chinese Repository, vol. ix. p. 133. 



Chusan, as well as most of the smaller islands, presented on 

 our first approach in July 1840, a striking and novel appear- 



