Ir is to be hoped that the numerous missionaries who are engaged in the good work of aiding the unfortunate victims of the great overflow of the Yellow River will find time before long to give us some certain accounts of the inundation itself, and of the efforts that are being made by the government to recover control of the river, and to protect the country from the freshets that are expected in the Spring. All we know for certain is that the river broke its right bank at the end of September last some distance above Kaifeng-fu, that it has flooded a great plain over an area variously estimated at 7,500 to 12,000 square miles, that it has entirely deserted its recent outlet in the Gulf of Pechili, no longer flowing northward from Kaif ud that its surplus waters are now finding their way to the sea partly to the east, by the Hwai river, and partly to the south into the Yangtze. The widest diversity of opinion exists on nearly all the points ceted with the river; this diversity arising from the fact that it has never been surveyed as a whole by foreigners, and that each foreign observer readily generalises from the little bit of the river that has come under his personal observation. Mr. Kingsmill told us most confidently in a recent letter that the lower portion of the river has no valley, and does not flow through any alluvial bed. This statement is entirely contradicted by Richtofen's geological wap of the country through which the lower course of the Hoang-ho lies, and by a later writer in our columns. Baron Richtofen's map shews that the great plain of eastern Honan and northern Neanhui and Kiangsu, is almost entirely made up of alluvium and loess, and it is obvious that if it were not so, it could not make good its claim to being one of the richest plains of China. "The yellow colour which, has given the Hoang-ho its name is attri-uted by Richtofen to the loess which it holds in suspension, while a recent well-informed writer declares that it due to the drift from the Mongolian sand mountains through which five hundred miles of its early course are made. If the deposit held in suspension by the river be lees: stated by Richtofen, it should be valuable to the farmer; if it be sand, another terror is added to the river's overflows, for the inundated land must be ruined when the water leaves it. Here Mr. Kings-will's assistance is useless, for he merely tells us that the sediment the river brings down " differs considerably in condition from that of the Yangtze," an extremely safe statement. If we look again at Richtofen's map we shall ly conclude that the deposit: which the river brings down is of great value to the farmer, for it is evident to the Hoang-ho is due the rich ally I svil that covers a great part of Chilli, Weste Shantung, Basten
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.