ON THE COLORATION OF THE CHINA SEA. 71 



with sea-salt, so frequently drawn up, as is well known, hy 

 the evaporation of sea-water, and thus present the reaction of 

 soda, without it being necessary to seek for the carbonate of 

 soda in the deserts of Tartary, or the lakes in the interior of 

 Cliina, as Mr. Piddington suggests. If, further, the extreme 

 frequency of fogs in the China Sea, and their density, be 

 remembered, which caused the author of the history of Lord 

 Macartney's embassy at the end of the last century to relate 

 that in the Yellow Sea it was difficult to see from one end of 

 the ship to the other, it is to be presumed that the phe- 

 nomienon observed and described by Mr. Bellott is not unfre- 

 quent, and that there will very probably be opportunities of 

 studying it anew and in a more complete manner. 



It appears to me then, if not entirely deinonstrated, at least 

 very probable, that the Trickodesminm, which colours the 

 waters of the China Sea to the soutli of the canal of Formosa, 

 colours those also to tlie north of the same canal, and tliat this 

 phenomenon is produced on a large scale. But it is pos- 

 sible that this phenomenon extends further still, and that it 

 occupies in the sea a region limited to the south by the 15° 

 of latitude, and to the north by the 38°, or in other words an 

 extent of nearly 25°, It is quite natural to suppose that the 

 name of Hoang-Hai (^Yelloio Sea), which the Chinese give to 

 the sea that washes the northern shores of China and the 

 western shore of the peninsula of Corea, is attributable to the 

 existence of similar phenomena. All geographers attribute 

 the colour of this sea to the existence of a yellow mud carried 

 into its waters by the Yellow River (^Hoang-Ho). Sir G. 

 Staunton, who has given us the account of Lord Macartney's 

 embassy, relates that, during the voyage of the English 

 squadron through this sea, the vessels, although they had 6 

 fathoms water, carried away such a large quantity of mud that 

 they left a trace of yellow brown in their wake for nearly lialf 

 a mile. Now, that is precisely the appearance of the muddy 

 deposit which was formed in the glass where I kept the water, 

 the study of which forms the subject of these remarks. 



All authors who have written on the geography of China, 

 speak of the shallowness of the Yellow Sea, and of its shoals, 

 formed in part of sand, and in part of the mud of which we 

 are speaking, the deposition of which appears to be con- 

 stantly going on. They cite, as an example of its rapid in- 

 crease, the little island of Tsung-Ming, situated at the mouth 

 of the Yang-tse-Kiang. This island is not marked upon the 

 map of China, pieserved at Venice, which was drawn from 

 the rough draught of the celebrated traveller Marco Polo ; 

 whilst the island of Chusan, situated in its neighbourhood, is 



