914 A. S. Bickmore on the recent 
ran 
markably low and how uninterruptedly level the surface of this 
plain must be. No other country has ever had such an artifi- 
cial water communication, but what other has such wondrous 
natural facilities for one of such a length, and like this at_right 
angles to the courses of its two greatest rivers? While the Mis- 
sissippi, the Ganges and the Nile flow out through many 
mouths, the Hwang Ho now confines itself to one, though a part 
of waters appear to escape southward through the Imperial 
can 
Farther southward, the region about the mouth of the 
Yangtse Kiang has also been lately raised, though it may now 
be in a state of rest. This change is clearly shown by the bank 
of recent shells, described by Dr. Lamprey in his paper on the 
ain 29 
G : 
The mouths of the Yangtse themselves have changed greatly, 
and Tsung Ming island, which now has a populatién of half 
a million, did not exist in the fourteenth century. 
The Tunting and Poyang lakes, which act as immense reser- 
voirs for this river, receiving a part of its surplus waters during 
the floods and pouring them out again during the dry season, 
adjoinin 
e, | ma 
: land for more than twenty miles 
The basins of these, and the other lakes scattered over the 
great plain, may be places of a slight local subsidence, but it 
