THE GEOLOGIC HISTORY OF CHINA AND ITS IN- 

 FLUENCE UPON THE CHINESE PEOPLE.^ 



By Prof. Eliot Blackweldek, 

 Umversity of Wisconsm. 



[With y plates.] 



The Chinese Empire iiichides aji area larger than the United States 

 with the addition of Alaska and our insular possessions. A large 

 part of this vast area, hovv^ever, is made up of dependencies which are 

 but loosely joined to China proper, and are not essential to its in- 

 tegrity. She has lost and regained these dependencies from time to 

 time in the past, and the same process may continue. The accom- 

 panying map will serve to show the relation of these component parts 

 of the Empire to each other and to surrounding countries. 



Divested of its outlying possessions, China consists of 18 Provinces, 

 which may be compared in a general way to our States. The 

 Provinces are, however, generally larger than the States and, on the 

 whole, much more populous. There is still greater dissimilarity in 

 government because, whereas our States are representative democ- 

 racies, the Chinese Provinces were, at least until within a year or 

 two, satrapies ruled absolutely by imperial governors or viceroys. 



Not a few people in America picture China as a vast fertile plain, 

 perhaps like the upper Mississippi Valley, densely populated and in- 

 tensively cultivated. In fact, however, it is so generally mountain- 

 ous that less than one-tenth of its surface is even moderately flat. 

 On the west, especially, it is ribbed with cordilleras from which its 

 two great rivers, the Yangtze and the Hwang, flow eastward to the 

 Pacific. 



In addition to this diversity of surface, there is also much variety 

 of climate. In the northwest the conditions are dry and severe, like 

 those of Montana and central Wyoming, while in the southeast they 

 are humid and subtropical, approaching those of the Philippine 

 Islands. Such are the extremes. 



1 Repi-inted by permission, with author's revision, from the Topular Science Monthly. 

 February, 1913. All of the larger photographs and some of the smaller ones were taken 

 by Mr. Bailey Willis and are reproduced through the courtesy of the Carnegie Institution 

 of Washington. 



44863°— SM 1913 25 385 



