68 Pi'of. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 



circumstances which must not be overlooked when considering the 

 origin of the great plain of Eastern China. 



The quantity of sediment brought down by this river must be, 

 from what I saw, very great. Barrow estimates it as being 2,000,000 

 cubic feet per hour. This quantity of material being continually 

 deposited near the mouth of the river, naturally tends to shallow 

 the ocean and to increase the present extent of the delta. As an 

 example of this increase, Mr. Pumpelly tells us that " in e.g. 220 

 the town of Putai is said to have been one li west of the sea-shore, 

 while in a.d. 1730 it was 140 li inland," which is equivalent to a 

 yearly increase of about 100 feet. 



Taking this with the facts already mentioned, we can readily carry 

 ourselves back to the time when the mouths of the Hwang Ho, and 

 with them the sea-coast, were much farther inland than they are at 

 present, and the province of Shantung was lying out at sea like a rocky 

 island. Since then there has been a gradual deposition of material 

 going on, and the coast-line has been encroaching on the sea. What 

 is more, I believe it probable that this action may have been 

 augmented by the operation of a slow elevation. The possibility of 

 an old sea-margin, although not advocated, is indicated by Mr. 

 Pumpelly as perchance existing, from the fact that the arms of the 

 Hwang Ho have not approached the western mountain border of 

 the plain. Taking this in conjunction with the evidence of recent 

 elevation existing in surrounding countries like Japan and Siberia, 

 that there has been such an elevation, although by no means proved, 

 is shown to be within the pale of probability. 



After crossing the Hwang Ho, we ascended the slope towards 

 the Shantung hills, which we had seen before us. In doing so, 

 we passed through several defiles in the alluvium which flanked 

 their sides. This alluvium, instead of being a homogeneous mass 

 of consolidated silt, like that we had been crossing in the plains, 

 now contained pieces of limestone and fragments of other rock, 

 evidently derived from the hills upon which it lay. The same 

 processes of degradation had in times gone by, just as at the present 

 day, been occupied in moving the detached stones of the hills 

 towards a lower level. On reaching the region where silt was 

 being deposited, they were gradually covered up and buried, and 

 in this way no doubt the greater number of stones we saw in 

 the alluvium arrived in their present position. On the sides of 

 the hills before us, and stretching up their valleys, we could 

 see terraces of ground which had been formed for purposes of 

 cultivation, reaching up to the very limits of the alluvium. As we 

 ourselves gradually ascended towards this limit, the loam grew 

 thinner, and assumed a slightly reddish tint. This colour I fancied 

 due to the strata of these parts having been deposited in shallow 

 water, where, by the action of the air and the sun's warmth, oxide 

 of iron was more readily deposited than it would have been in 

 deeper water, not containing so much oxygen, or being so near its 

 source. I noticed a case of this sort actually in operation along 

 the gravelly shores of the river Tom in Central Siberia. On a 



