A GRASP OF GEOLOGIC TIME. 161 



mighty river was changed from the neighborhood of Kai- 

 fung, three hundred miles above its mouth, and a new 

 channel was established, leading into the Gulf of Pe-chili, 

 three hundred and eighty miles in a straight line north- 

 west of its old outlet. But this channel has not been 

 established without the most terrible inundations of the 

 low and level delta of the Hoang Ho. This delta covers 

 all the northeastern portion of China south of the " Great 

 Wall" and north of Hangchau and Honan. 



Nor has this been the first nor the greatest occasion 

 when this unbridled and destructive river, fed by the 

 melting snows of the Mongolian plateaus, has deserted 

 its bed and sought out new outlets to the sea. Accord- 

 ing to the oldest Chinese records, the Hoang Ho, previous 

 to the time of the " Great Yu," which was about 2,200 

 years before Christ, pursued a totally different course from 

 the place of its crossing the northern boundary of China 

 into Mongolia. At this place it emptied into a vast lake 

 half the size of the Persian Gulf, which, in turn, connected 

 eastwardly with another vast lake, stretching to Peking, 

 from which the drainage found an outlet into the north- 

 western angle of the Gulf of Pe-chili, near Tien-tsin. The 

 " Great Yu " whether this be the name of a monarch or 

 the personification of a great nation turned the river 

 southward four hundred miles, between the provinces of 

 Shensi and Shansi, to Fuchau, whence he conducted it 

 eastward two hundred and seventy-five miles to Kaifung. 

 At Kaifung the river divided, one main outlet stretching 

 east-southeast to the Yellow Sea, and several others wind- 

 ing toward the northeast and debouching in the Gulf of 

 Pe-chili. The area included between the new and the old 

 channels was not less than 280,000 square miles, or about 

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