Tux letter from a Correspondent at Peking, which we publish to-day, gives the substance of all the Memorials which at its date bad been presented to the Emperor on the great outbreak of the Yellow River. The Government has been compelled to reconsider the whole ques tion how to keep this calamitous stream under control. Thirty years ago Dr. Macgowan in our bazes was the fir to draw attention to the last outbreak a hundred miles to tke east of the present one. Qu that occasion it was the North Bank which gave way and the river was in consequence forced to return to the Gulf of Pechili, Troublous times prevented vigour in managing the obstinacy of the strewn several rebellions had to be put down tind their suppression absorbed the energy of the Government during many years. After this the system on which the provinces are ruled and the comparative inertness of the central Guvernment prevented a vigorous system of engineering, Each Governor of a province is possessed of enormous power; he ought in dealing with floods to have yinpathy with the people in distress, firm will to check corruption and a clear intellectual grasp of the situation. a Governor wants these three things the Yellow River will not be kept in control. But at last the banks were reported to be in sound condition between the and Kai-fang Fu.
This we learn from Mr. Kingsiill's statements; he ca fully swveyed for the Government this part of the river amounting to a hundred miles in length or more. 'I'b course below the canal which is 150 tiles long is still far from being in a satisfactory state, and this means that hundreds "of villages suffer ann: from floods. At this juncture the ne and equally great outbreak which by oveurred may be said to have done fo the people in the vicinity of the northern Jnanch what: special commissioners and their own governors failed to do for them. Nature now decides the que: tion that there shall be a south as well as a north branch. proposition made to him by the Nan-The Emperor has assented to the
king Viceroy and others as to the mode of repairing this new disaster. The swollen stream which is now flowing from Cheng-chow to the south of Kai fung Fu, continues in a course two Indred miles south and east till it reach Here passing F yang-fu it enters the Hung-tse lak sheet of water fifty miles favourably situated for ches inundation. The distance from the Hung-tse lake to the point where the Canal crosses the old Yellow River is a anere trifle. The plan arrived at after consultation by four high officials of red button rank was to open two channels to carry off the surplus water from the lake to the old channel and allow none to go to the Yangtse-kiang. The reason of this is that the two thickly populated prefectures of Yang-chow and Hwai-an would thus be safe from floods.
The plan has been accepted and will proceeded with at once, so as to be finished by the end of December by relays of coolies working night and day, the object in view being to carry off the water of the overflow, and it would, it was hoped, be effected at an expense of 10,000 taels which the treasuries of Kiangsu and Nganhui would supply.
This work undertaken in Kiangsu province is entirely independent of the Honan governor's work. On him devolves the duty of closing up the outbreak, which being more than a mile wide and the water sixteen feet deep, will be no slight undertaking. In 1843 there was a similar overflow of the Yellow River a little to the east of the present one. It took place in early summer and the works were finished in January 1845. The amount of devastation now to be repaired is probably much greater and will require more than a year anda half. It does not appear that on that occasion Yangchow and Hwai-an were in danger. Honan has for thousands of years been the province where the Yellow River outbreaks most frequently occur. The delta of the river has its apex between Kai-fung Fu and Honan Fu and is about 350 miles from the Gulf of Pechili on the north east and the same distance from the Yellow Sea on the east. The land along these two lines is all flat and formed by silt from the river. 'The Shantung promontory before the delta formed would be a large island the " Yellow River' silt has rined two-thirds of Chihli, two-thirds of Shautunz, half of Honan and a fourth of Kiangsu. The same causes which make a river meander when traversing a flat country, have ca this historic stream to overflow its banks sometimes on the north side and at other ties on the south, The amore branches there are the better as a rule, because they divide the stream and diminish its power to do mischief. The more lakes there are the better the same reason. The engineer-w which conveyed the river by nine ouths to the sea four thousand years ago was wise, and the Chinese history records no material change in the river's. course for a long term of years. After this, about B.C. 600, there was a great change. Then in B.C. 100 there was another great change. Gradually the river shewed a tendency to teave the Shansi mountains farther and farther away lat last in the is thirteenth century it left its northern course entirely and moved farther south. There is a reason for th The other rivers flowing from the Shansi and Mongolian mountains are always making the land higher on the north. The tendency therefore is to force the Yellow river south where there is more room and a lower level.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.