Sey 
Se eae mam Se a eee Bes - . Be th 
eae ee et 0 5 et as ee r Pe a 
Fo a Ie ae ge: 
+ ie 
2 ¥ : Bae aha WE gg : 
a ps eae? ‘ ® Pa gp SS i a i 
9814 DJ. Macgowan on the Eagre of the T'sien- Tang. * com 
; oe 
took. the work. Offering a thousand copper cash for every bushél 
of earth brought for the embankment, he induced laborers to cole 
lect in immense numbers, who on being required to bring stomes 
instead of earth, soon disappeared. From this circumstance the ug 
work was called Tsien-tang, the cash or money dyke—a name 
subsequently applied to the district, and finally to the river, its 
present designation. 
to the Prince Wii Shuh, 930 a. p., whose court was at Hang-chau. 
This Viceroy, according to the records of the Sung dynasty, also 
with large stones ; and on the foundation‘thus laid, the embank- 
superior to that of this prince. The contrivance is not unlike 
that which western engineers have*found most effectual in pro- 
tecting river banks. dis 
is work endured only sixty years ; a tide carried much of it 
away, laying the country under water, and occasioning devasta- 
tion. An imperially appointed officer, aided by the military, was 
occupied seven years in vain attempts to construct a nt 
embankment. At length he was dismissed, and his successor, by 
employing the method mentioned above, completed the work in 
one year. Jt however was not owing to superior skill or energy 
that he accomplished it, but to one of those sudden shifts of the 
loose bed of the estuary, which have given rise to so many SU- 
perstitions. According to the statement he made to the emperor, 
who had expressed a desire to know how the work had been so 
quickly finished, the engineer, after praying to Wi T’sa’-si, had 
the satisfaction of procuring his aid; for the next day the waters 
retired, having raised several miles of yellow sand, which ena- 
€ 
