22 THE GROWTH OF THE YANGTZE DELTA 



livers and then submerged: in other places, the layer at 

 about this depth is of marine character indicating an old 

 sea bed. 



Egypt has been called the gift of the Nile, and in the 

 same sense, the great plain of Kiangsu is the gift of the 

 Yangtsekiang. 



The Delta is still in a state of flux and growth, as intense 

 as ever, and the processes at work form a most interesting 

 study. On the plain, Nature's great forces are at work in 

 the same manner as has prevailed for thousands of years, 

 and are enough to create or obliterate vast stretches of 

 land in a comparatively short period, and open new river 

 outlets and close old ones within a couple of decades. 



As a landscape, this rich and fertile plain makes little 

 or no appeal to the aesthetic sense nor does it offer much 

 scope for the exercise of the talent of the painter, but it 

 has charms for the student of Nature's forces. 



The history and the romance of the fights of the mud 

 dragons of the Yangtse with the dragons of the China Sea, 

 and the triumph of human endeavour over the floods and 

 tides which again and again broke the ever-advancing dykes 

 of the earlier inhabitants, who bravely pushed their puny 

 works of sea defence outwards on the rising sands, is surely 

 full of human interest. 



The viewpoint from which I have studied the "Romance 

 of the Yangtse Delta" has been that of the river engineer — 

 probably the least romantic side of all. Nevertheless, this 

 study has given me much pleasure and has compelled me- 

 to consider the historical and geological viewpoint — both 

 distinctly more romantic, particularly if you leave your 

 imagination a free rein. 



Perhaps I had better explain the reasons why it has 

 been and is necessary for me, as the engineer to the Whang- 

 poo Conservancy Board, to study the Yangtze Estuary. 



The Huangpu, to which Shanghai owes its greatness as 

 a port, is largely dependent on the Yangtze. Not only is it 

 a tributary, but being practically without slope, it depends 

 for its ebb and flow on the changing level of the larger river; 

 in other words, the Huangpu fills and empties as the Yangtze 

 rises or falls, and as nine-tenths of the Huangpu water is 

 tidal, one-tenth only being drainage from its own basin, 

 its dependence upon and relation to the Yangtze are obvious. 

 The Yangtze is largely responsible for the silt in the 



Huangpu. 



The Yangtze is the approach to the port of Shanghai 

 and the Fairy Flats, 25 miles outside Woosung in the 



