The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1888-08-16
The Yellow River of China.

The Yellow river. from the enor-
nous rapidity of its volume when
swollen by melted snow, is the worst
OF offenders, says the London Spectator.
Its new bed, even in twenty-five years.
has risen far above the plain. and as
the dikes grow from hillocks into hills.
from mere walls into ranges of earth
works like fortress sides, hundreds of
miles long. the effort overtaxes the
skill of the engineers and the. perseyer-
ance even of Chinese laborers The
ablest engineers in India were beaten by
the DamOOdah, though it is, compared
with the Hoang-Ho, like trumpery
European stream, and though the labor
available could hardly be exhausted.
The truth of the matter is that in all
such cases the upper sections of the
dikes cost too much for complete re-
pair, and tend to be inadeqnate; and
when the Yello& river, gorged with
water from the mountains till it forms
in reality gigantic reservoir, averag-
ing mile broad, from three hundred
to five hundred miles long and seventy
feet deep, all suspended in air by
artificial supports, comes rushing down
in autumn, the slightest weakness in
the river was at its fullest, its speed
was at its highest, there was almost
certainly driving wind from the west,
bit of dixie gave way, the rent spread
for 1, 200 yards, and-our readers re-
member. for Charles Reade described
it, the rush into Sheffield of the Holm
firth reservoir. Multiply that. if you
can, by two thousand, add exhaustless
1ora 10 of fInx
five Danubes pouring from a height
of long valley with high sides which
can be reached, think of q vast, open
plain. flat as Salisbury plain, but stud
ded with three thousand villages, all
swarming as English villages never
swarm, and you may gain conception
of scene hardly rivaled since the
deluge. The torrent, it is known, in its
first and grandest rush, though throw
ing out rivers at every moment at every
incline of the land, had for its center a
stream thirty miles wide and ten feet
deep, travelling, probably. at twenty
miles an hOur-a force as irresistible
rs that of lava. No tree could last ten
minutes, no house five; the very soil
would be carried away as by a super
natural plowshare; and as for man-an
ant in broken stopcock in Il London
street would be more powerful than he.
Swim? As well wrestle with the Holly
head express. Fleep 1t takes hours
in such plain to reach hillock three
feet high, the water the while pouring
on faster than hunters gallop.
THERE'S no more escape from such a
flood than there is escape from the will
of God. and those Chinese who refused
even to struggle were the happiest of
all because the quickest dead. Over
territory of ten thousand square miles,
or two Yorkshires at least (for tile
missionaries report a wider area) over
thousands of villages-three thousand
certainly, even if the capital is not
gone, as is believed-the soft water
passed, silently strangling every living
thing, the cows and the sheep as we'll
as their owners, and for ourselves, who
have seen the scene only on a petty
scale, we doubt whether the "best-
informed European in Pekin" is not
right when he calculates the destruction
of life at seven million.