The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1878-05-01
FoR THE CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN.
THE TERRIBLE FAMINE NOW RAGING
IN CHINA.
BY REV. JOHN W. DAVIS, sooCHow.

f China which gives the boundaries of th
eighteen provinces of this vast empire, 20
will see in the west large province calle
SEE chuen North of this are two others
Kan.suh and Sben-si. East Of Shen-si ar
, Ho-nan and Shan-si. East of these ar
Shsn-tung and Pe-che-le. In these eigh
provinces famine is raging With greater o
less intensity in different places. The testi
mony to the wide spread'and awful suffering
of the people in this norther1' hslf of Chin'
is of the most reliable chsffssr Mission
Iaries who have visited these regions withir
the past few months, and have seen viii
their own eyes the things that they relate
tell in unexaggerated style of the way il
which thousands are perishing.
The grestsst suff ,ring is in Shan-si and
in Pc chele. LAST year the cry of wan
came from Shan,tung. 10 that province
there is, especially in the western end, much
suffering this year also. The population oi
these eight provinces may be called in round
numbers hundred and fifty millions. These
do not all suffer from famine, but they all fee
the effects of it in the high prices of food
Here in Soochow, the place from which
write, food is dearer than have ever known
it to be.
The cause of the famine is want of rain.
Drouth has followed drouth for several sue.
cesSive seasons, and the suffering has in
creased year after year for three years, till
matters have reached the present truly awful
crisis. To enable you to understand the
case will give few extracts from review
of Baron Richtofen's recent grand work on
China. This review appeared in the shape
of letter from q traveler printed in The
Celestial Empire, Shanghai, December 10Th,
1877. "Loess," says Baron Richtofen, "iS
solid but friable earth Of brownish yellow
color, and when triturated with water not
unlike loan, but differing from it by its
highly porous and tubular structure y
The loess spreads alike over high and low
ground, smoothing off the Irregularities Of
the surface, and its thickness often exceeds
thousand feet. 1t is full of fossil land
shells and contains boxes of quadrupeds, but
no remains either of marine or fresh water
shells" (Richtofen bgds that this loess is
scattered by the dusa orms which 50 often
take place in North China: loesS is a sub
ae :ial, not subaqueous depOsit) y = The
loess is peculiar to Northern China, and does
not spread over the Southern Provinces
Pe.che lie, with the exception of the alluvial
plain, Shan.si, northern Shen-si, Kan-suh
and northern Honan, are covered with it.
x Where its hills fringe the plain of the
lower Yellow River, they rise only few
hundred feet above the level of the sea. But
in climbing up to higher regions, one never
loses sight of the yellow soil. The southern
bank of the Yellow River consists entirely
of loess, and it is this which gives to the
river its yellow color. In Shan-si it largely
predominates over everything else, at all al
titudes up to 5000 feet, and is met with in
many places of greater elevation-on the
Wa.tai Shan at 5000 feet-yet its character
is always substantially the same" 4
Thus much in regard to the extent and
characteristics of the loesS which determines
the physical features Of an area of at least
250,000 square miles so that to describe
the loeSs is to describe that which distin-
guishes Northern China from the rest Of the
Empire, and that which influences and has
Influenced, more than almost anything else,
its productivenesS, its adaptedness for man.
kind, it's means of inter communication and
its history. x x
There are two causes which render it pro.
bable that loess, where it is normally and
largely developed cannot be exhausted
The first relates to the organic substances
required by vegetation. They are chiefly
carbonic acid and ammonia 1t is probable
that the great porosity of the loess, shared
by no other kind of soil in an equal degree
renders it capable of absorbing these gases
from the air in an extraordinarily large pro
portion. The second refers to the inorganic
substances. They are likely to be supplied
by process due to the same property of the
loess. In absence of any planes of stratif
cation, the rain water descends far into th'
porous loess, and meets the humidity re
tanned in it's lower portions, and in obedience
TO the we'll known law of the diffusion O
LIQUIDS. the substances which are kept in 30
luton below will be communicated to those
portions of water next to the surface, and b.
taken up by the vegetation so far as re
quired. THE want of a sufficient quantity o
rain sOiu therefore be dOubIy injurious for tn
zOess regions, and as a rule very good crop
change sOith very bad ones, gears of plent.
sOith gears of famine which is indeed the cas-
throughout the north" (The italics ar
mine.) -,
will give below some extracts from whic
you may see the nature and extent of tn
; distress.
FLEEING FOR LIFE.
In the region west of Tientsin on the Gul
of Pe.che.le, "within month of hsrvea
, they were living on grass and leaves. N
i; fuel in the yards, no food in many house
numbers dead already, emigration every
where on large scale. Not a pig see