FORESTS AND FLOODS IN CHINA 



837 



to the sea the enormous discharge of water in times of the rights of private individuals to do as they pleased 



of flood. regardless of the welfare of the nation or posterity. 



2. That this condition is tremendously aggravated by The brief account given by Lin of the great Chihli 

 the great quantities of silt carried down by the torrents, flood of 1917 may visualize the tragedy resulting from 

 which the streams are forced to deposit as soon as their this selfish shortsightedness. 



velocity is checked by the low gradient of the plains. "While in Tientsin during the months of November 



3. That it is impossible ever to improve these chan- and December of 1917, I had the opportunity of going 

 nels by deepening or by levees so that they will through the flooded sections of this city, and it was a 



carry these floods and silt, 



4. That the volume of 

 water and silt must be di- 

 minished at its sources in 

 the mountains, so that not 

 only will the flow be ex- 

 tended in point of time and 

 diminished in velocity, but 

 that by so doing the carry- 

 ing power of the stream 

 will be proportionately les- 

 sened and the load of silt 

 diminished. 



5. That there are but 

 two means of securing this 

 result — the erection of bar- 

 riers, dams and reservoirs, 

 and the reforestation of the 

 denuded slopes. 



6. That the 

 construction of 

 dams and res- 

 ervoirs is not 

 only enormous- 

 ly e X p e nsive, 

 but will not 

 solve the prob- 

 lem, since these 

 reservoirs will 

 rapidly and 

 completely fill 

 up with silt, 

 requiring their 

 renewal p e r - 

 petually. 



7. That the 

 r e f o restation 

 of the slopes 

 offers the only 

 hope, and the 

 most practica- 

 ble method for 

 checking this 

 erosion of soil, and that without reforestation the plains 

 of China will continually be subject to floods of greater 

 and greater severity. 



Few of us have any conception of the problem which 

 the Chinese have brought upon themselves by their short- 

 sighted destruction of these mountain forests — a result 

 due directly to the complete absence of government 

 ownership and control of these lands and by the exercise 



TYPICAL SCENES IN CHIN.^ 



Taken in Wu Tai Slian, Shansi, the upper picture shows starkly naked mountains, completely deforested, 

 while the lower picture shows the consequent erosion at the foot of the hills and a caravan crossing 

 through the dry river heds. 



terrible sight indeed ! The 

 boatman who took us 

 around through the flooded 

 streets would indulge in 

 pointing out to us the 

 highest marks made by the 

 flood water on the different 

 walls, and also tell us that 

 millions of natives were 

 rendered homeless, that 

 thousands had already per- 

 ished, and that coffins were 

 seen floating in the flooded 

 area. The country which 

 was under crop ready for 

 the harvest is now a great 

 inland sea with boats plying 

 between points or islands 

 formed by rising ground. 

 The damage 

 that has been 

 done to crops 

 and houses, 

 the loss caused 

 by stoppage of 

 trade, interrup- 

 tion of railway 

 traffic on the 

 Peking - Han- 

 kow and the 

 Tientsin - Pu- 

 k o w railways 

 — this has been 

 e s t i m ated at 

 h u n d r eds of 

 millions of dol- 

 lars. It is fur- 

 ther estimated 

 that in the city 

 of Tientsin 

 alone there are 

 more than 

 1 20,000 flood 

 suft'erers, but thank goodness, most of these sufferers are 

 being properly taken care of by different organizations 

 and for their shelter thousands of mud huts have been 

 put up. 



"According to the latest report of the general Relief 

 Committee, which gives detailed information of each of 

 the hsien that has suffered from the floods, we learn that 

 there are altogether 103 hsien or 17,646 villages affected 



