252 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



notice of the people, but it has been far otherwise with the Yellow 

 River, whose irregular wanderings and destructiv^e floods have 

 gained for it the well-merited title of " China's Sorrow." 



All rivers, after they have worn out their channels to a certain 

 depth, have a tendency to deposit in their own beds a part of the 

 mud and sand they are bearing along, and this tendency is greatly 

 increased by preventing them from overflowing their banks by 

 artificial levees or dikes. The Po in this way has raised its bed 

 until the surface of its water is above the tops of the houses of 

 the peasants, and it has already once deserted its old channel and 

 formed a new one, and this is in short the whole history of the 

 Yellow River. When it had filled up its old channel to the south 

 of Shantunof and succeeded in making a breach through its arti- 

 ficial banks, it followed very nearly its previous course nortli of 

 Shantung to the Gulf of Pechili. The whole plain through 

 which it flows in the lower part of its course being of alluvial 

 origin, and completely interst^cted by streams and canals, its 

 waters would readily find a lower channel which their momentum 

 in coming down from the higher level of their old bed would 

 enable them to quickl}' enlarge. The elevation of the land along 

 the sea-coast, at the rate of 5 feet a century, would have a ten- 

 dency to render its current more sluggish, and consequently the 

 quantity of sediment deposited in its own bed greater than if it re- 

 mained stationary or was somewhat subsiding. But this tendency 

 may have been partially counteracted by an equal or greater rel- 

 ative elevation of the area along its upper course, and it is perhaps 

 worth remarking, in this connection, that one of the latest changes 

 that has taken place where the Asiatic continent joins that of Eu- 

 rope has been one elevation, and that the Aral Sea, the lakes 

 east of it being merely remnants of one great internal, depressed 

 sea, whose bed has probably undergone a considerable elevation. 



The last change in the course of the Yellow River occurred 

 when the Taiping rebels were approaching and threatening Pe- 

 king, and is supposed to have been caused by a breach made either 

 by them, or, as is more probable, by the Imperialists, to arrest the 

 progress of their formidable enemies. All accounts agree that 

 this change is complete, and that its old bed is dry ; but this is 

 merely another way of stating as fact what has just been assumed, 

 namely, that the river continued in its old channel until that had 

 become as high or higher than the surrounding country. 



Probably no other river within historic time has wandered so far 

 and so frequently from its old channels as this Yellow River, but 

 also probably no other river on the w^iole globe flows out on to a 

 plain of such wide extent at right angles to its own course, and, 

 at the same time, of such a perfect and continuous level. 



At Foochow and about the mouth of the River Min, he believes 

 there is an area that has for some time been slowly subsiding. 

 According to the Chinese, what is now the navigable branch of 

 the river, between the city and the foreign settlement, was some 

 900 years ago too shallow for junks and large boats. 



In the south of China, Dr. Legge states that along the East 



