Hangchow, Aug. 23.
Plans for the deepening of the West Lake have been submitted to the Hangchow Municipality by Mr. Arthur M. Shaw, consulting eng-incor to the Chekiang Provincial Government.
Tt may be of interest to students} of geology to know that the entire fiat in the vicinity of Hangchow was at one time an arm of the sca which was gradually filled up by sediment brought down by _the Chien Tang River. The original bar en which now stands the city apparently shut off @ small area of water which now forms the West Lake.
One characteristic of the material in the Lake is that it is chiefly formed from decaying vegetation, principally aquatic plants. This Vegetable matter will be thoroughly studied so that the trouble may be Tessened er even controlled.
After dwelling briefly on the history of the Lake, Mr. Shaw's report describes the diftculties that encountered in the dredging pro: cess. The chief difficulty seems to be the character of the material to be taken out as, once disturbed, it will remain in suspension for a long time. To meet this diffcully Mr. Shaw suggests the use of piles and hydraulic dredges.
One interesting point in the plan.
that it is expected to employ the mud from the dredging process to fil in certain parts of the Lake, thus reclaiming some new land and at the same time rounding out certain unshapely portions of the Lake shore and beautifying it, This will create about 3,200 mow of new land besides improving other _portions. The sale of the land will go to help defray the expenses of the project, It is estimated that the ma inery will cost about $200,000 while the cost of dredging will be about five cents per cubic yard of material taken out, or say $5,000 per mow.
When the -work is completed, the Lake will have a depth of six feet which should suffice for a long tim in spite of the inevitable gradual filling in from various sources Kuo Min,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.