Geological changes in China and Japan. 215 
is far more probable that they are small areas not yet filled up 
with the alluvial deposits of which the whole plain is composed, 
and which has been brought down from the mountains mostly 
by the Yellow river and the Yangtse. 
At Foochow and about the mouth of the river Min, I believe 
there is an area that has for some time been slowly sub- 
siding. While all the other rivers in China flow out through 
a low delta, that they have formed themselves, the Min at once 
empties itself into the sea; no delta is seen, yet the Min has 
one, as much as the Peiho, the Yellow river, the Yangtse, the 
Tsientang by Hanchau and the Sikiang by Canton. Its delta 
consists in the small and dangerous banks about its mouth, 
and if the deltas of these other rivers were to subside as fast as, 
or faster than they are raised by the deposit of sediment over 
their surfaces, each would present a phenomenon strictly analo- 
gous to that of the Min. When I visited Foochow, I noticed 
these indications of a late subsidence, and Mr. Dunn, o 
& Co., kindly gave me these corroborative facts. In digging 
a well in their compound, “‘at a depth of from twenty-five to 
thirty feet below the surface of the ground, there were found 
two boards about four or five feet long and one foot wide, nailed 
at the ends to a post. At the same depth was found a quan- 
tity of broken crockery of the same kind as that now used by 
the lower classes of Chinese, and a number of pieces of half- 
decayed wood. The earth in which these things were found 
was a rather loose mixture of mud and sand, bearing a close 
resemblance to what is now seen along the river banks at low 
water. The impression upon my mind at the time, was that 
we had struck the remains of a Chinese house, and the work- 
sou 
then in general use. The long pea at the head of the island 
SeRcate the city of Foochow), and the remains of Ee and 
In the plain about Foochow, as indicated above, the river 
Min frequently ¢ its bed by washing away one bank and 
building up the opposite one. And at the foreign settlement 
a number of lines of stakes are placed in the edge of the river 
to catch thi ing sand and clay, and gain land on that 
side. At first it might appear that this post with its boards 
had simply sunk on one side of the river channel and been 
