Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-05-31
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
..wbere the Mountains Walked"

in Kansu. China, n the Noun
tains walked" -
Though the tremendous shaking
I'D occurred in December. 1920. tho
story is only now beginning to
| spread beyond the narrow deflcs
which guard the entrance to kansu
| province" says the article.
Mountains that moved in the
| night; landslides that eddied like
waterfalls, crevasses that swallowed
| houses and camel trains. and VIII
, lagos that were swept away under n
! rising sea of loose earth, werc a few
of the subsidiary occurrences
Ten Large Cities Shaker
"Mr. Josef w. Hall upton Close).
who visited the earthquake area
under the auspices of the 1nterna-
tional Famine Relief Committee,
has brought back one of the frat
accounts of the devastated country
and the strange things hat happen
| when the earth turns itself into a
| contortionist. The area of destruc-1
ton, 100 by 800 miles in extent, con-
tains ten large cities. besides numer-
Gus villages.
Zone of the most dramatic cpl.
| sodes of the disaster was the burial
Of Ma the Benevolent, a famous
Moslem fanatic. and 800 of his fol-
lowers, Just as they had met in con-
clave to proclaim a holy a The
cave in which they had gathered
was sealed by a terrific a~valanche,
while the group knelt on their
prayer-mats.
Watchman Alone Escaped
"By some miracle the Waterman
at the entrance to the cave escaped
with his life. but the others weri
buried so deeply that, despite
...,.L= 4f If1Cino nynr an 1raQ nf
a mile, the Moslems have failed to
the bodies of their leaders.
I'm another district Mr.. Hall ana
his party found that a whole noun
tam topped by a temple had slid
into a valley. A little beyond they
found that a road bordered by pop
lar trees had ridden the crest of 4
slide for th~ree-quarters of a mile.
without apparent damage to the
trees or even to the birds nests ic
their branches. One astonished peas
ant looked out of his window in the
morning to find hat a high hill had
moved onto the homestead, stopping
Its line Of march within a few feet
of his hut.
Caught in Jam OF Slides
1.-THE most appalling sight of all
was the Valley of the Dead. where
+! seven great slides crashed into a gap
in the hills three miles long, killing
every living thing in the area ex-
cept three men and two dogs.
I'm a small town on the highway
two strangers had put up at the inn
on the evening of the disaster. In
the terror and confusion that fol-
lowed the earthquake, the landlord
completely forgot his two guests. 1t
was not until several days later that
he remembered them. and when, af-
ter considerable digging. their room
was brought to light, both men were
| found alive. Stupefied by the shock
they knew nothing of what happen
| ed and imagined that they had slept
through an ordinary night. The
landlord, however, in spite of re-
monstrances, did not neglect to col
iect room rent for the full period of
their stay.
Dragon Waggles His Tail
THE subterranean dragon of
Chinese cosmology who. according
to the northwest China tradition.
waggles his tail every three hundred
years, this time played havoc. sue
as was never before recorded with
the face oe the earth and the habita-
tons of men. Likely no other earth
| quake in scientific annals ever
changed the physical geography of
the affected region to the extent of
the Kansu cataclysm.
1.-The remoteness of the district in
which the earthquake occurred can
not but intrigue interest. Although
the concurrent quakes in Chile and
Salvador, the tidal wave of zap ami
the eruption of Mt. Asama. Japan,
are all history, the Kansu disaster
is still news. What actually hap
pened in this frontier province Of
| China iS only nnuY through the re-
ports of the relief investigation ex-
petition of which Mr.. Hall was 1t
member. being made known in any
comprehensive way, even in China
capital and port cities.
Had the quake disaster struck
several hundred miles to the north.
west, or south, the loss of life would
lave been negligible. AS 1t happen
ed, it selected for destruction. in the
agricuiturally rich, terraced loess
country of the southern half of the
| affected area, the most populous
portion of the province; and to the
north, although this part is princi-
pally uninhabited grazing land, sew
eral of the largest Mohammedan
Chinese cities. which were leveled.
Life Loss May be 2OO,0 900
although the density of popula-
ton Is not tina one-tenth that
OF or the East emma plain,
the loss of life from landslides. col
lapsed cave homes and falling build
ings, together with death from ex-
posure of the unsheltered in mid
| winter in this high altitude, was, ac-
cording to official figures, 100000.
and according to the estimate of the
foreign investigators more than half
this number.
Following the Sianfu-Lanchow-
fu-Turkestan highway, we assembled
a small valley of steep grade direct
ly west of Tsingning. Suddenly the
| highroad for a length of a quarter
of a mile dropped out of sight. 1t
had been cut as il chopped off with
an axe, leaving the fifty-year old
| poplars and cottonwoods with which
it is lined partly unrooted, like SEN
tinels stricken at their post, upon
| the edge Of the sixty-foot gully
which occupied the position of the
road.
at was in this Valley of the Dead
| that the most arresting freak of the
cataclysm occurred. Two sections
| of the ancient, well-packed highway.
| accompanied by the tall trees which
| bordered it. were cut from the line
of road following the side hill,
swept hundreds of yards over the
stream-bed, and set, intact, upon an
angle on top of the heap of loose
foess."
- -.-- 49,. A. n,atxt.~~