Butler citizen. [volume] (Butler, Pa.) 1877-1922, 1888-05-18
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. It's new bed, even in
twenty-five years. has risen far above
the plain, and as the the dikes grow
from hillocks into hills, from mere
walls into ranges of earthworks like
fortress sides, hundreds of miles long,
the effort over taxes the skill of the
engineers and the perseverance, even
of Chinese laborers. The ablest engi-
neers in India were beaten by the
Damoodah, though it is, compared
with the Hoang-Ho, like q trumpery
European stream, and though the
labor available could hardly be ex-
hausted. The truth of the matter is
that, in all such cases. the upper sec-
tions of the dikes cost to much for
complete repair, and tend to be mad
eauate; and when the Yellow River,
gorged with water from the mount
aims till it forms in reality q gigantic
reservoir, averaging . mile broad,
from 800 to 500 miles long and 10
feet deep, all suspended In air by ar
ti6cial supports, comes rushing down
in autumn, the slightest weakness in
those supports is fatal.
On September 81, the river was at
its fullest, there was almost certainly
a driving wind from the west, bit of
dixie gave way, the rent spread for
| 300 Yards, and-our readers remem-
Der, for Charles Reade described it,
the rush into Sheffield Of the Holm
firth reservoir. Multiply that, If you
can, by 1000, add exhaustless renew
ais of the water from behind--fve
Danubes pouring from q height for
two months on end-and instead Of
long valley with high sides which
can be reached, think Of q vast, open
plain, fat as Salisbury plain, but
studded with 5000 villages, all
swarming as English villages swarm,
and you man gain Q conception OF Q
scene hardly rivaled since the deluge.
The torrent, it is known, in its first
and grandst rush, though throwing
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 20
miles an hour-a force as irresistible
as that of lava. No tree could last
ten minutes, no house FIVE, the very
soil would be carried away as by
supernatural plowshare, and "a for
man-an ant in o broken stop cock in
a London street would be more pow.
erful than be. Swim? As well
wrestle with the Holyhead express.
Flee? 1t takes hours in such plain
to reach u hillock three feet high, the
water the while pouring on faster
than hunters gallop. There is no
more escape from such 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 q
territory OF 10000 square miles. OF
two Yorkshires at least for the mis-
sionaries report wider area). over
thousands of yillages-3000 certain
ly. even if the capital is not gone, a
is believed-the soft water passed
silently strangling every living thing,
the cows and the sheep as well Of
their owners; and for ourselves, who
have seen the scene only on petty
scale. we doubt wheth the "best in
formed European in Pekin," is mol
right wheE be calculates the destruc
ton of life at 7,000'O00.-The Spec
tatOr London.