To the Editor of the "Nonra-Cutwa Dary News."
Si,—The self-help ideas put forward in the modified Huangpu Conservancy Scheme, by local shippers, evidently at the suggestion of their marine engineers, are excellent from their point of view, which is local, or to use the. political phrase of Mr. 'A. J. Balfour, "insular conception." These river doctors are merely local practitioners, and in such a Arastic, or, to continue the simile, such a surgical operation as is necessary to eliminate the humourous obstruction which is threatening the life of the Huangpu, and the shipping thereon, the surgeons who have been in continuous touch with such diseases or maladies in other places should be called in, to at least consult as to what operation should be performed, the best position, and the best time in which to operate. "The present scheme of local tinkering is about as good as attempting to remedy gangrene by covering the sore with gold-beaters' skin. "Like all diseases in the human, the diseases from which nature suffers have a historic origin, and if such origin be studied and understood, then so much the easier will be the medical or surgical treatment of the case. In the case of the Huangpu and its malady the cause must be fully understood, if any permanent cure is to be expected. The river is suffering from a local paralysis, so to speak, and in cases of local paralysis trepanning may bring permanent relief, provided the surgeon knows the bromal centre where the injury had its nativity.
Trepanning is an operation performed on the head, wherein rests the motor power of all action, energy, ete.; and so in the case of rivers, with their source of energy, current and action, lying in the head waters, any beneficial operation must take place at the head. Where is the head of the Huangpu outlet—not creek? A study of the detrital plain of the Anhui and Kiangsu provinces has revealed to all geological students in China, and writers on the topographical formation of the country, that the region bounded by Wuhu, Nanking, Woosung, and Hangchow is actually a delta in the mouths of the Yangtze. In an atlas called " Ancient and Modern," we can see this region marked " Mouths of the Yangize." The hill regions round Kapoo, Wuhu, and south of Nanking were only islands off the mouth of the "Long River" and acted as checks to consolidate the detrital sediment of that waterway, just as the Chusan Islands are operating at present.
Now the object of all this preliminary is to indicate that the Huangpu and the Soochow Creek were at one time actually mouths of the Yangtze, and depended on the outward flow of the waters of that river, and not on the rise and fall of the tide, for their scouring current. What has injured the natural effect of this scour can be traced to the numerous cross creeks and canals which intersect the country for irrigation purposes, But even to this day there is a continuity of creeks, by which one can reach Wuhu via the Tabbu in shallow-draft boats. Owing to the transection of these, as just mentioned, for irrigation purposes, there is not sufficient weight of water flowing to continue the scouring effect which made the Huangpu mouth of the Yangtze the deep waterway it once was. Now if we only go in for local remedies these must be continuous to be effective, as there is an enormous amount of sediment carried in the tidal waters which are deposited at each slack water, and the straightening of the river cannot act at these phases of the tide inst the laws of gravitating bodies.
however, a current from a head water is secured, it is continuous in scour at all phases of high or low water, while the current effects of tides are as a rule only superficial—a fact which the casual observer may note for himself, when looking at the Huangpu. The softest. of mud lies between us and a permanent and natural dredger of the Huangpu, the removal of which, though costly, would prove in the end far more remunerative than avy local application of sticking-plaster in the shape of Pootung bunds. There is absolutely no engineering difficulty in the way of deepening one line of creeks between the Huangpu and Wuhu into a ship thereby giving a remunerative ipping waterway through a rich and populous country. The dredgings would raise the land of the surrounding country, thereby increasing it in value by dim-finishing the chances of flood affecting it. Such a canal would in the flood season carry off such an excess of water, that besides saving the surrounding country from temporary destruction, it would have sufficient force naturally to cut a deep-water chanel through the Woosung bar. This would be a far more paying plan than any attempt to cut a way through to Hangchow Bay, as the tonnage dues on a new waterway tapping a rich country in a very few years would cover the cost. Continuous patching of the type proposed as local remedy, in the end is far more costly than one drastic scheme which is permanent in effect.
Tam, ete., 6th August.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.