Danger of Breaking its Banks and Making a New Channel to the Sea Peking, July 21.
Following an inspection of the bank protection works of the Yellow River in Shantung, Yr. Mee Chow, Chief Technical Expert of the Ministry of the Interior, has submitted a report upon their present condition and the improvements required. He estimates that the expenditure of $400,000 will be necessary in order to render the banks only temporarily safe. This sum would be devoted to the repairing of dykes, reconstruction of groins, and construction of new groins, and would include the cost of both labour and material, That portion of the river flowing through Shantung, the report explains, consists of a series of curves Tunning east and west, and is much narrower than in Honan, In many places the river-bed is silted up, while the velocity of the current tremendous, particularly in the flood season, and the river consequently scours its banks, which are general-of a sandy nature, rather heavily.
protection works usually consist of stone or reed groins constructed on the concave side of bends to deflect the current, while the banks are otherwise protected by a double line of dykes, of which those farthest from the river banks have been allowed to fall into serious disrepair.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.