Steady Progress Made in River Conservancy By 7. ¢, Tuo Director, Chekang Telephone administration Continuing the series giving account of his recent visit to. Kwan "invitation. of the pro 2 study "in this, of Rydraulie enpincering and water power development.
The area of the land under rice fields in Kwangsi has not yet been definitely measured but it is estimated that there are about 80,000,000 mow of rice eld of which sixty to seventy per cent. are dry fields and thirty to forty per cent. are water folds. The government, to guide the people has appointed hydraulic engineers to survey the land and plan cut the engineering part for irrigation, and this kind. of constructional work is Gnanced by the people themselves.
Wu-chow. Nanning, Liu-chow and Chen-nan there are many dams and reservoirs for irrigation purposes and in Liv-chen, where forestry is being attempted, there is a reservoir, costing about $8,000, which can supply 1,000 mow of field with water. Li-poo 3 also constructing a with irrigation ditches which cost altogether about $80.00. When finished, it will irrigate 15,000 mow of fields and, thus enable the people to gather an extra crop while the land value of the fields will be raised. For every mow, $3 is charged for engineering expenses but if carried out throughout the province, the dry folds may be gradually converted nto water fields and production increased. In the western part of the province the land is rather uncultivated but if it can first be used for posturing cattles so as to be naturally fertilized, and then properly irrigated. the future holds good prospects.
Hydrological Data To prevent floods, the river must be under control and for this reason the Provincial Government has dis-buted all kinds of instruments for recording purposes to different towns for use, so that almost all the towns stations to record of rainfall. Where there is a river, the height and the rate of the flow'is also taken, 'Among the most important' hydrophical stations are in Nanning, Liuchow, Kweihsien, Kweipin and Wushun' and they are administrated bby oticers appointed from the Eng-Ihering Department, The number such hydrological stations has ex-{ended to twenty and all have been built, quite recently. "Recently the provincial government built an observatory and began collecting information from missionaries and the conservancy in Kuangtung. A quite complete set of hydrological records dating back to 1914 has now been collected. On the average the annual rainfall in the province is about 1,000 rem. In Kwel-ling, Liuechow, Shang. ting and Yung-Fo, the average rainfall about 2,000 min.
River Regulation In order to utilize the river for lrunspertation purposes. the provincial government is planning to remove the sand beach along the west river between Nanning and Wuchow s0 as te straighten and deepen the river.
This requires investigation as where the river bends and the shore is convex, the removal of the beach can coly last for a short time before the sand will be collected again. Tt would be better if locks were used at different intervals along the river and only such reeks in the middle of the river be removed that have no in-nonce on the flow of the water. If the work of straightening the stream is done by human labour it will be rather costly and a cheaper way would be to build spur dykes on oth sides of the river so that the water can flow in the centre, The Livkiang has many winch that in passing Liuchow to Chol a distance of ten Li, on account of the twists and turn of the river, its length {s about ten li, The government plans to put up a hydro-electric power station there as the difference of the water-level. between Liuchow and Chela is about twenty metres and the rate of flow is about 100 cubic metres per second. If this is used it can produce more than 15,000 K.W. This scheme will naturally Inveive the problem of navigation and also the engineering part of the work must be studied more closely but if the hydro-electric power plant is realized, it will be move than enough to supply electrical power to all factories Liuchow.
The rapids in Ba-Ma-Shan near Liuchen are reported to be never dry li the year round. It is here where forestry is being studied, hydroelectric plant is also being talked about and the power from It is cexlimated to be between 1,000 to 2,000 horse power. The work is compara lively easier and it may be started frst. There is also Ba-Bou near Fu-Ho-Shun. The same plan was once considered but now it hag been decided to use the coal in Shewan to generate electricity. On the whole there are many rivers in -Kwangsi which can be utilized for power seethe next article of the series, appearing "next wesk wilt" deal with dustrial end commerce development in Kwangsi, ezeieet A quirt wedding took place in Pei ping last week in the home of Mes. Ingram, Teng Shin Kou, when Miss Margaret Ingrid Lelr, daughter of Mr. Knut Leis and Mrs. Lelt_ of Chicago, was married to. the Rev. Stuart John Gunzel of—Pailingmlao, Suiyuan, The ceremony wag per: formed by the Rev. T. J. Bach, gen: eral director of the' Scandinavian Alliance Mission of North America, of which mission Mr, Gunzel is a member, in the presence of a number of friends from Mongolia and North China, Mrs, Williams of the Methodist Protestant Mission at Kalgan acted as matron of honour, Miss Lewis of Paotingfu being bridesmaid, and Mr, Williams attend the bridegroom. Mr, and Ins. Gunzel are leaving for Pailingmiao in the course of a few days.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.