Waning hopes for the building of the long-heralded railroad from—Chingtao received a stimulus several cee by the visit of a foreigner, said to be a German, who proceeded to a native: coal mine 25 south-west of the city and made some examination of. the place. He then went west to Ihsien city, presumably to examine the mines at that' place. Those mines, by the way, or one of them at least, are already operated by foreign machinery.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.