Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865.

44 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
distance of nearly 500 miles; and that this sediment was brought by the Yellow
river and the tributaries of its upper course.
We have seen that the immediate cause of the formation of these lake basins is
probably to be sought in the dislocation forming the plateau wall to the north of
them, the descent of the land previous to that event having probably been toward
the Gobi, in which direction also the Yellow river flowed, if it existed at that time.
The waters of the Yellow river filled the chain of basins thus inclosed between the
plateau and the mountains forming the southern wall. There are now two channels
by which the drainage of all this area finds its way to the Yellow sea, the Yang Ho
gorge in the far east which opens on to the great plain west of Peking, and the
deeply cut channel through which the Yellow river flows between Shansi and Shensi.
Whether both of these outlets existed during the lake period, or only one of them,
is a question of much interest in a physical-geographical point of view, for if all,
or part, of the waters of the Yellow river flowed through the Yang Ho gorge, they
found their way to the sea through the lower Pei Ho, a stream with which the
Yellow river has united within historical times, after having flowed in an entirely
different course, viz. its present one, in part, to the west and south of Shansi.1
The Yellow river flows, from Pauteh (chau) to the mouth of the Wei river, nearly
300 miles, almost due south, traversing, in deep gorges, two important mountain
ranges which seem to be great anticlinal ridges of the limestone, and several minor
ones. Considering these things, the regularity of its course is striking when compared with the winding courses common to rivers that cross parallel ranges, and the
inclosed longitudinal valleys. The thought is suggested that the course of this
channel may have been determined by a great crack.
In connection with this subject, I will add that it is certainly remarkable that
the Chinese traditions of two great floods, often cited in the west, toward proving
the universal belief in a general deluge, all point to this region. The earliest of
these traditions is allegorical and goes back to a time, about 3100 B. C., when the
yet barbarous founders of the nation were still living west of Shansi. "Kingkung
fought with Chwanchio for the empire of the world; in his rage he struck, with his
horn, the mountain Puchiau, which supports the pillars of heaven, and the bands
of the earth were torn asunder. The heavens fell to the northwest, and the earth
received a great crack in the southeast."2
The other tradition, preserved in the Shuking of Confucius, refers to a later date,
and partakes of a more historical character. According to this account,3 there was
a great flood in the 61st year of the reign of Yao (2297 B. C.); the waters of the
Yellow river mingling with those of the Yangtse Kiang, and threatening to overflow
the mountains. A skilful engineer, Pekuen, worked nine years, without success,
See Chap. V.' Klaproth, Ritter's Asien, I, 158. Klaproth, in Asia Polyglotta, p. 28, comparing the dates of
Hebrew, Brahminical, and Chinese traditions of deluges, obtains: Samaritan text, B. C. 3044,
Brahminical date, B. C. 3101, Chinese, B. C. 3082.
3 Ritter, Asien, I, p. 159. Compare Deguignes, Gesch. der Mongolen, Einleit. p. 4; and Mailla,
Ilistoire generale de la Chine.