-Fros Our OWN ContesrowoEsT
Canton, Aug. 11.
The drainage basin of the West River, one pf the principal waterways of China extends over such an immense tract of land that the whole of Great Britain and Ireland, together with Denmark, could be Jost within it- To protect the lands of the farmers whose holdings order on this stream is but a small part of the work of the Board of Conservancy Works of Kuangtung. With. its tributaries, the West River drains practically all the Province of Kuangsi, eastern Yunan, southern Kueichow, and about one-tenth of Kuangtung. When floods occur, its waters rise rapidly, and at' the Kuangsi port of Wachow they reached 82.3 ft. above the lowest: known water level, and have been known to rise 32 ft, in 24 hours, Other important waterways of this portion of China are the Noxth River, rising in northern Kuangtung, the Pearl River, also altogether a Kuangtong. stream and on which stands the city of Canton, and the East River, whose head waters are in the mountains on and Fukien, of Kuangtung, Kiangsi All on occasion over~ flow their banks, and it this danger that the Conservancy Board has to be constantly on guard.
'At their lower ends, these four' streams form the delta, which ext up every way. by' channels canals, and arms of the sea. the streams which flow-through it carry heavy loads of silt which they deposit on the way, but mostly as reach "their the delta is extended farther out to sea, Silting causes these streams to change their beds when they are not confined to their channels by dykes, but all through the delta region and far beyond it upstream for at least 800 years the peasants we been protecting their fields inundation which comes. from shifting of banks and the oeeasional floods due to rainstorms which "swell the waters of these rivers.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.