POPULOUS 
AND BEAUTIFUL SZECHUAN 
15) 
> 
— 
en Ss 
Photo by Rollin T. Chamberlin 
A WOMAN SMOKING A PIPE IN A VILLAGE NEAR PI HSIZEN : NOTE THE WHEELBARROW 
Kuan Hsien is located at the immediate 
foot of the front range, which the imagi- 
native natives have sty led the Azure 
Wall. One begins hill climbing even be- 
fore passing out of the city gate on the 
Alpine side. The city wall runs along a 
steep hogback ridge, which extends from 
the mountain side to the river’s edge, 
where it has been cut off sharply in a 
nearly vertical cliff. This ridge is due to 
the resistance of a hard reddish con- 
glomerate, which stands at a high angle 
and marks the border of the mountain 
folds. The strata, which beneath the 
Chengtu plain lie essentially horizontal, 
are suddenly and sharply upturned at 
Kuan Hsien, and give rise to the front 
ranges of tilted sedimentary rocks, be- 
hind which rise the loftier granite peaks 
that form the heart of the Szechuan 
Alps. 
We passed over the frontal ridge and 
followed the east bank of the Min to the 
magnificent temple, commemorating 
the two engineers Li, which I have al- 
ready mentioned. Close by the temple, 
we crossed the river on a suspension 
bridge of a pattern common enough in 
the mountains of China, but unique to 
an American. It consisted of a swaying 
boardwalk, supported by heavy bamboo 
ropes suspended on stone towers. Four 
loops were required to span the broad 
Min, Just above the bridge is the dam 
of wicketed bowlders, annually renewed, 
which controls the system of irrigation 
for the plain of Chengtu (see p. 1096). 
Continuing upstream, on the west bank 
of the river, we found the strata all 
standing nearly vertically, with the Min 
crossing the hard resistant formations 
near Kuan Hsien nearly normal to their 
strike and flowing southeastward, as it 
does also on the plains beyond. But 
after a couple of miles of resistant beds 
a much softer formation follows in the 
