In the recently published Bulletin Mensuel of the Sikawei Observatory for 1878, Father Dechevrens, under the heading of March, sketches in a few graphic sentences the almost incredible sufferings of the inhabitants of the famine districts. The Bishop of Shansi attests the public sale of human flesh, not the corpses of those dead of famine bat of victims slain for the market.
Husbands devoured their wives, parents their children, children their parents. The terrible exchange of services was witnessed whereby the father of ove family killed the children of another on condition of having his own killed la return. By famine and pestilence nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of Shansi perished, that is to say between seven and eight millions of human beings in this diocese alone. While drought was thus desolating the North, Kiangnan and eastern Chihli wore ravaged by locusts, and the south. ern provinces were devastated by inundations. It is impossible to conceive greater accumulation of disasters, and in fact, as acknowledged in the Peking Gazette, the Empire throughout its long history bad never experienced calamities so terrible. But as every occurrence has its physical antecedent, Father Dechevrens has devoted an elaborate memoir to the analysis of the observations, barometrical and other, made at Sikawei during the last two years, by which he demonstrates the existence of meteorological conditions sufficient to account for the simulta. neons occurrence of drought in North. China and inundations in the South, He has ascertained that in the upper regions of the atmosphere there existed for many months a deep, wide and rapid aerial current setting constantly in the direction of the earth's rotation, from west to east, and generally speaking corresponding to the course of the Yangtsze.
Whence arises this current? The volume of heated and damp air which at a great elevation flows from the Equator towards the Pole acquires inconsequence of the earth's rotation a north-easterly direction, while for the same reason the inferior cold stratum of air from the Pole appears to travel towards the south-west. But it is believed that under circumstances not understood, the north-easterly current bifarcates at a variable point of its course, a portion, more or less important, changing its direction to nearly due east, while the remainder pursues its northward journey. The former is the current which Father Dechevrens has investi. gated. The latter would probably have still borne a measure of fertility to regions north of the aerial barrier constituted by the former, were it not for the thorough destruction of all the forests which within living memory covered the mountains bordering the northern plateau, Aged natives assort that since their youth there has been a marked diminution in the frequency and amount of rainfall in ordinary years. When at its maximum of volume and velocity, the ousterly branch of the great equatorial air stream offers an impassable obstacle to every current passing from north to south or from south to north at its own elevation. But inasmuch as the north. ern provinces are destitute of great rivers or extensive lakes, the intercoption of vapour-laden currents from the Equator, upon which they are altogether dependent for rain, dooms them to drought with all its accompanying horrors. On the other hand these same currents thus arrested before reaching their destination are borne eastwards, and descending towards the surface of the earth are burried by the tropical
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.