Geography of the Land. 33 
ditions to a condition of inactive conservatism, that seems almost 
to preclude the possibility of material advance in centuries to 
come. The population of this empire is so great that the density 
has been averaged at two and three hundred persons per square 
mile, and in some districts that it is as great as seven hundred. 
We can readily conceive the poverty that must exist in such an 
average population for such an extended area. And we may 
realize the cries of distress that come from great calamities by 
the experiences in our own history, even modified as they have 
been by our superior facilities for affording relief, and the com- 
parative insignificance of the numbers who have required assist- 
ance. Recall for a moment one of the great floods of the Yellow 
river, where thousands have perished and tens of thousands have 
been rendered destitute within a few hours, and conceive the 
sufferings, hardships, and greater number that must yet succumb 
before those who survived the first great rush of the waters can 
be furnished relief ; remembering that the means of intercommu- 
nication are the most primitive, and that the immediate neighbors 
of the sufferers are in no condition to render more assistance than 
will relieve the most urgent necessities of a comparatively insig- 
nificant number. May we not, then, if only from a humanita- 
rian point of view, greet with pleasure the reception of the 
imperial decree authorizing the introduction in the empire of 
useful inventions of civilized man, and directing the construc- 
tion of a great railroad through the heart of the empire, with 
Pekin as one of the termini. This road will cross the Yellow 
river, affording relief to this populous district in time of disas- 
ter ; and it is understood will eventually be extended to traverse 
the empire, forming a means of rapid communication between 
distant provinces. We may believe, also, that in time it will be 
the medium of opening to us a new region for geographic 
research, not in the celestial empire alone, but also in the rich 
fields of central Asia that are now being occupied by Chinese 
emigration. 
Doubtless the greatest geographic discoveries of the age have 
been made in central Africa. It was but a few years ago that 
we were in doubt as to the true sources of the Nile, and the loca- 
tion of the mouths of great rivers that had been followed in the 
interior, was as much a mystery as though the rivers had flowed 
into a heated cauldron and the waters had been dissipated in mist, 
by the winds, to the four corners of the earth. It was then that 
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