The River, Where It Skirts Shan-Si, Is For The Most Part Difficult Both Of
Access And Of Passage, And Ill Adapted To Navigation, Owing To The
Violence Of The Stream.
Whatever there is of navigation is confined to the
transport of coal down-stream from Western Shan-si, in large flats.
Mr.
Elias, who has noted the River's level by aneroid at two points 920 miles
apart, calculated the fall over that distance, which includes the contour
of Shan-si, at 4 feet per mile. The best part for navigation is above
this, from Ning-hia to Chaghan Kuren (in about 110 deg. E. long.), in which
Captain Prjevalski's observations give a fall of less than 6 inches per
mile. (Richthofen, Letter VII. 25; Williamson, I. 69; J.R.G.S.
XLIII. p. 115; Petermann, 1873, pp. 89-91.)
[On 5th January, 1889, Mr. Rockhill coming to the Yellow River from
P'ing-yang, found (Land of the Lamas, p. 17) that "the river was between
500 and 600 yards wide, a sluggish, muddy stream, then covered with
floating ice about a foot thick.... The Yellow River here is shallow, in
the main channel only is it four or five feet deep." The Rev. C. Holcombe,
who crossed in October, says (p. 65): that "it was nowhere more than 6 feet
deep, and on returning, three of the boatmen sprang into the water in
midstream and waded ashore, carrying a line from the ferry-boat to prevent
us from rapidly drifting down with the current.
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