AND BAROMETRICAL READING, &c, BY DR, MACGOWAN, The closing mouths of 1882 disclosed to the voyager on the Lower Yangtsze a sad spectacle: effects of the flood of the pro-coding summer, Steamers of the Chinn Merchiante' 8.N. Ca. are i charges e1 hand clothing from Shanghai and Chinkiang to Wulu and Anching, being contributions from the benevolent of Soochow, Hangchow, and cities adjoining, for sufferers by the floods of July and Auguat last. The Kiangfoo brought up in her last trip about a hundred bales containing some thirteen thousand suits of garments, Another evidence catastrophe is furnished by tensive areas of b and An-ching undrained. In addition to the immediate Joes of life occasioned by that unprecedented flood, there has been great suffering of the houseless from fever, ould, audgeneral impoverishment, which the authorities and the well-to-do have done much to mitigate, In the absence of statist al data, me quirers in China must fain resort to common report for information, which, if seldom valuable, is generally interesting. The prevalence of floods as a consequence of doforestisation is well known, fearful examples having been recently furnished in Hungary and Spain} and I have thought it worth while on this trip up the "Great Thiver" to institute inquiries to ascertain if this portion of China suffers from ti cause. China, though hoary with age, not xo old but that the process of denudi the hills of tre The treeless aspect of the hills of the Lo: Yanytse now attracts attention from every voyager, yet no referouco is made to their barren condition by Ellis or Davis in their narratives of Lord Ambhorst's Embassy (1816); but wooded hills are alluded to, particularly by the former writer, from which it would soam that deforestisation is recent. An elderly native of Nanking confirms this, saying that in his youth the hills of that ancient capital were well wooded. That extent of deuudation however could havenoappreciable effect:
producing Yangtsze floods; the inundaby which the lower country is fre que came from the Poyang Lake, which very little is accurately known either as regards ite floods or its rain-fall. It is known only that there is evidence of a great thinning out of forests on the mountains of Southern Kiangsi, although' it has not been carried to' the extent that Chéhkiang has experienced, where arboriculture is systematically pursued to meet demands for timber: extensive pineries being laid out every year in the southern that provi In the hills near the coast which are stript annually of yrass, ferns and bushes for fuel, the ps gradual denudation of th: distinctly observavle, The soil is never carpeted by
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.