a 
\ 
Geological changes in China and Japan. 211 
The highest is but a few feet above the sea, yet it shows what 
kind of a change the surrounding area has recently unde one, 
and this is farther strengthened by the testimony of the 
Chinese, that ‘the harbor is slowly filling up.” 
It is seldom possible to obtain data that will give us the rate 
of such changes, and therefore the following statements 
kindly furnished me by the Rev. Mr. Metier at Tungchan, are 
the more valuable. 
“ T have learned with some degree of probability that in the 
Ming dynasty, some 250 years ago, the water from the sea 
include any place to build upon, but to be a safe depot, where 
pirates could not come.” : 
This elevation of at least 14,1, English feet in 250 years, gives 
@ mean rate of nearly five feet in a century, and to realize the 
whole elevation of the bed of the gulf of Pechili, we must add to 
this rising, an estimate of the quantity of sediment probably 
brought down by the Yellow river, the Peiho and minor streams. 
If this area had subsided 14 feet during the last two centuries 
and a half, instead of rising 14 feet, of course it would have 
been 28 feet below its present level, and probably one-third of 
x low, thickly populated parts of China would then be beneath 
sea, 
About Peking the plain of Pechili is composed of stratified 
clays, that form in the dry weather a fine, light dust, from two 
to five inches deep. When the heavy winds of autumn and 
winter set in with violence, this dust rises in one continuous 
mass to the very clouds, and forms the dust storms for which 
Peking is so justly famous. _ denis 
I journeyed over the plain, I- noticed in many places con-. 
_, As lj : 
siderable quantities of cla stones closely resembling brane 
corals, for which, indeed, they have been mistaken, But instead 
f being of marine origin, they are formed by the water trick- 
bd 
