. China, in a series of views : displaying the scenery, architecture, and social habits of that ancient empire . r waters to swell thoseof the great recipient; and again directing its power eastward, it recrosses the Great Wall,traverses the northern provinces for hundreds of miles further, and enters Honan in thesame parallel of latitude in which it has its source. In Kiang-nan it is augmented bya vast contribution from Lake Hong-tse, after which the majestic volume moves moreslowly towards that part of the eastern ocean to which it imparts both its turbid cha-racter and expressive name. It i
. China, in a series of views : displaying the scenery, architecture, and social habits of that ancient empire . r waters to swell thoseof the great recipient; and again directing its power eastward, it recrosses the Great Wall,traverses the northern provinces for hundreds of miles further, and enters Honan in thesame parallel of latitude in which it has its source. In Kiang-nan it is augmented bya vast contribution from Lake Hong-tse, after which the majestic volume moves moreslowly towards that part of the eastern ocean to which it imparts both its turbid cha-racter and expressive name. It is its intersection with the imperial canal—the junction of Lake Hong-tse, theafflux of the Salt river—that is considered to be the mouth of the Hoang-ho; and hereit is that commerce has formed a rendezvous for shipping, and here also superstitionhas erected an altar to her worship. Descending with rapidity through a constant slope,of two thousand five hundred miles, the stream of the Hoang-ho acquires a momentum thatrenders the crossing from shore to shore always a perilous undertaking. At the efflux of. l^ 1 ^ ^ \ ^ <^ K 1 ENTRANCE TO THE HOANG-HO. 35 Lake Hong-tse, and at the precise spot where the canal locks into the river, the velocityof the current is seldom less than four miles an hour, although that locality is not morethan twenty miles distant from the sea. It has been calculated from obvious data—thebreadth, mean depth, and velocity—that this famous river discharges into the Yellow seain every hour of fleeting time, 2,563,000,000 gallons of water, which is more than onethousand times as much as the Ganges yields. Nor is this immense volume its soledistinguishing feature, it has a second still move extraordinary,—the quantity of mudwhich it constantly holds in suspension, and which it carries with it into the sea insuch proportion as to disfigure its brightness, and give it amongst geographers a charac-teristic name. From an experiment cautiously performed
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1840, bookidchinainserie, bookyear1843
