CHINA, MONGOLIA, AND JAPAN. g 



On the other hand the E. W. system of trends, which is so important in Central 

 Asia, exercises an influence which is apparent much farther eastward.^ 



A range of mountains, said to have several snow-covered peaks, originatino- in 

 Southern Kansuh, runs due east, separating the waters that enter the Yellow river 

 through the Wei and the Loh, from those that flow to the Yangtse throuo-h the 

 Kialing and the Han, and finally disappears in western Honan. Another rano-e, 

 with a mean E. by S. trend, is given by Klaproth as forming the boundary between 

 Sz'chuen on the south and Shensi and Kansuh on the north. 



It is not improbable, that the country included between these two ranges in Shensi 

 and Kansuh, is an elevated table-land. The courses of the Han and Kialing rivers 

 and the communication between their waters, as indicated by Chinese authorities, 

 seem to favor this idea. 



In the south, the Nanling mountains, a range said to have peaks that reach above 

 the snow-line, rise in Yunnan, and, branching, form, in the northern member, the 

 boundary between Kwangsi and Kweichau, while the southern member trends 

 oft* into Kwangsi. The mfluence of the northern branch of the Nanling, is apparent 

 as far as Fuhkien, in the probably comparatively low watershed north of Kwangtung. 

 The higher portion of this range seems to be along the southern boundary of 

 Kweichau, Avhere it has lofty peaks and fertile elevated table-lands,^ which, from 

 difficulty of access, have been for ages the home of the aboriginal Miautsz, a race 

 unconquered by the surrounding civilization. The two passes that cross this range 

 in Hunan and Kiangsi, where it is called the Meiling, cannot be very high, as the 

 portage between the head of boat navigation on the two flanks is only a few miles. 

 According to Biot,' the members of Lord Amherst's embassy give the height of the 

 Kiangsi pass as 3000 feet. The great map of Kanghi gives an iminterrupted water 

 communication between the headwaters of the Siang river of llunan and those of 

 a tributary of the Si river, that flows through the city of Kweilin. 



I have here attempted to trace only those ridges which seem to be the most 

 important, as exhibiting the general conflguration of China. To the E, W. ranges 

 is due the fact, that the mean courses of the great rivers of the empire lie east and 

 west. But the total length of each river is made up of N. E. reaches, where it 

 flows through broad and fertile longitudinal valleys, and of southeasterly or southerly 

 reaches in which it traverses, by deep and narrow gorges, the N. E. S. W. ridges. 



* All that is known of these two systems, the N. S. and the E. W. is derived from the Jesuit 

 maps and from Chinese writers. 

 ^ Chinese Repository, I. 40. 

 ^ Recherches sur la hauteur, etc., Journ. Asiat., 1840. 



