Martinsburg herald. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1881-1920, 1888-01-07
THE GREAT FLOOD In CHINA.

For nearly three months past an
immense area of Northeastern Chi
ma which before was fertile, dense
ly populated plain is vast lake of
muddy water. Eleven cities are re.
ported inundated and an unknown
host of the teeming Chinese popula-
ton are without homes or means of
subsistence. The Chinese Govern
ment has taken steps to relieve the
distress, but suffering and death on
an enormous scale must inevitably
result from long continued food of
this magnitude in a region where
every rood Of ground that possibly
can be utilized for the purpose is
made to do its full share toward the
maintenance of human life.
The Hoang Ho, or Yellow River,
whose overflow is causing all this
desolation, is one of the great rivers
of the world. 1t is about as long as
and very much resembles our own
Missouri, but more turbulent and
unmanageable and more heavily la.
den with the det1ituS of its noun.
tain sources. The gravel, sand aud
clay which its swift waters carry III
suspension fill up its bed in its quie
ter months more rapidly than it can
pillow it out again in seasons of flood.
The result is a wide, shallow, unsta-
BILE ver,gradually rising higher than
the surrounding plain until the sedl-
ment finally succeeds in ejecting the
river from its bed altogether. Ac
coIding to Chinese records, the riv-
er has changed its course nine times
In the last $500 years. The last
change was made during the sue.
cessive floods of 1S51-53, when
the river left its channel 200 miles
from its mouth and made for itselfa
new one, entering the sea about 800
miles, in a straight line, further
North. 1t is as if the Mississippi
should desert its bed little below
Memphis and cut for itself a new
channel to the Gulf of Mexico,
reaching it in the vicinity of Pensa-
cola.
This evolution of new river bed
implies more or less protracted
period of general overflow. Instead
of leaving the land richer when 1t
lecedes, like the Nile and the Mis-.
sissippi, it leaves barren and un-
fruitful stretch of sand and clay.
In this way the floods of the Hoang-
HO are not not only present but a
permanent calamity, as the loss it
causes is irreparable. Engineers
have studied the river, and some of
them entertain the opinion that
system of levees, which would keep
the river in its channel and compel it
to scour out its channel, would pre-
vent these periodic overtlows. We
are persuaded, however, that science
will have to make considerable ad-
vance before trough can be con-
structed high enough and strong
enough to carry the stormy waters
of the Central Asian mountains to
the sea at all times without over
flow.
"The only infallible cure" says the
Chinese Times, " is to afforest the EN-.
pirc on complete scale" The mis-
chief is done IN the mountains,
which are being washed down by
the rains and melting snow with
result akin to the hydraulic mines in
California. Forests would stop this
rapid denudatlon which fills the river
bed far below, just as the American
river in California was filed and dis
placed by Stockings. Give us forests,
says the Chinese Times, "and the
Yellow River can he changed from a
curse. bearer to benevolent stream,
whose banks can be made to support
in security many millions OF prosper
Gus agriculturists who will be able
without fear to till the fertile fields.