Lecture Given to RAS. by Dr. Coching Chu The North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society held a mieoting in the Lecture Hall on March 26, when a lecture was delly ed by Dr. Coching Chu on "Clit Changes during Historieal Time China." Dr, Coching Chu, opened his lecture by saying that while variation of climate from geological era to another had been established beyond any doubt, the question of climatic changes during historical periods is still controvert sial. Recent study however tended to prove that there was a moderate variation in the amount of solar radiation during the last few centuries.
In deputing the climatic conditions ie China during. the past ages there were four main sources from which to draw material:—(1), Records in the Chinese classics; (2) accounts of floods and droughts in the Chinese annals; (3) date o€ the earliest frost and snow and the number of severe winters kept in the old chronicles; and (4) instrumental meteorological records, Dr. Chu then proceeded to enlarge considerable detail upon these four sources of information. For feven's of phenological signihieance, fand discussed them in relation tthe blooming. of the peach trees, first song of the cuckoo, and' the, [first appearance of the house swale low. "Dr. Chu then gave an account HMlustrated with tables, of the floods and droughts in Chinese history, with special reference to the Chinese chronicles from the Tang to the Ming dynasty.
He continued to say that the severe winters experienced in China from 600 A. to the fifteenth contury numbered leven, and quoted from a diary kept by' Kuo Tien-ai in 1909, with regard to earliest snowfall' in the districts of Hang-Jehow and Wusih. Speaking of [strumental records, Dr. Chu said that the rainfall measurement of China was made as early as the Han dynasty, but the earliest in. strumental meteorological record did not go back more than a hundred years. He then quoted from Dr, H. Fritsche and compared his series of observations with the data kept at the Central Observatory of Poking for the period of 1915-1924, in order to point out the difference and fluctuations of temperature and humidity, and the rainfall measures ment
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.