Korea is decidedly a mountainous country, and has few plains deserving the name. In the north there are mountain groups with definite centres, the most remarkable being Paik-tu San, which attains an altitude of over 8,000 feet, and is regarded as sacred. Farther south these settle into a definite range, following the coast-line at a moderate distance, and throwing out so many ranges and spurs to the west as to break up northern and central Korea into a congeries of corrugated and precipitous hills, either denuded or covered with chapparal, and narrow, steep-sided valleys, each furnished with a stony stream. The great axial range, which includes the “Diamond Mountain,” a region containing exquisite mountain and sylvan scenery, falls away as it descends towards the southern coast, disintegrating in places into small and often infertile plains.
The geological formation is fairly simple. Mesozoic rocks occur in Hwang-hai Do, but granite and metamorphic rocks largely predominate. Northeast of Seoul are great fields of lava, and lava and volcanic rocks are of common occurrence in the north.
The climate is undoubtedly one of the finest and healthiest in the world. Foreigners are not afflicted by any climatic maladies, and European children can be safely brought up in every part of the peninsula. July, August, and sometimes the first half of September, are hot and rainy, but the heat is so tempered by sea breezes that exercise is always possible. For nine months of the year the skies are generally bright, and a Korean winter is absolutely superb, with its still atmosphere, its bright, blue, unclouded sky, its extreme dryness without asperity, and its crisp, frosty nights. From the middle of September till the end of June, there are neither extremes of heat nor cold to guard against.
The summer mean temperature at Seoul is about 75° Fahrenheit, that of the winter about 33°; the average rainfall 36.03 inches in the year, and the average of the rainy season 21.86 inches.[2] July is the wettest month, and December the driest. The result of the abundant rainfall, distributed fairly through the necessitous months of the year, is that irrigation is necessary only for the rice crop.
The fauna of Korea is considerable, and includes tigers and leopards in great numbers, bears, antelopes, at least seven species of deer, foxes, beavers, otters, badgers, tiger-cats, pigs, several species of marten, a sable (not of much value, however), and striped squirrels. Among birds there are black eagles, found even near Seoul, harriers, peregrines (largely used for hawking), pheasants, swans, geese, spectacled and common teal, mallards, mandarin ducks, turkey buzzards (very shy), white and pink ibis, sparrow-hawks, kestrels, imperial cranes, egrets, herons, curlews, night-jars, redshanks, buntings, magpies (common and blue), orioles, wood larks, thrushes, redstarts, crows, pigeons, doves, rooks, warblers, wagtails, cuckoos, halcyon and bright blue kingfishers, jays, snipes, nut-hatches, gray shrikes, pheasants, hawks, and kites. But until more careful observations have been made it is impossible to say which of the smaller birds actually breed in Korea, and which make it only a halting-place in their annual migrations.
The denudation of the hills in the neighborhood of Seoul, the coasts, the treaty ports, and the main roads, is impressive, and helps to give a very unfavorable idea of the country. It is to the dead alone that the preservation of anything deserving the name of timber in much of southern Korea is owing. But in the mountains of the northern and eastern provinces, and specially among those which enclose the sources of the Tu-men, the Am-nok, the Tai-döng, and the Han, there are very considerable forests, on which up to this time the woodcutter has made little apparent impression, though a good deal of timber is annually rafted down these rivers.
Among the indigenous trees are the Abies excelsa, Abies microsperma, Pinus sinensis, Pinus pinea, three species of oak, the lime, ash, birch, five species of maple, the Acanthopanax ricinifolia, Rhus semipinnata, Elæagnus, juniper, mountain ash, hazel, Thuja Orientalis (?), willow, Sophora Japonica (?), hornbeam, plum, peach, Euonymus alatus, etc. The flora is extensive and interesting, but, with the exception of the azalea and rhododendron, it lacks brilliancy of color. There are several varieties of showy clematis, and the mille-fleur rose smothers even large trees, but the climber par excellence of Korea is the Ampelopsis Veitchii. The economic plants are few, and, with the exception of the Panax quinquefolia (ginseng), the wild roots of which are worth $15 per ounce, are of no commercial value.
The mineral wealth of Korea is a vexed question. Probably between the view of the country as an El Dorado and the scepticism as to the existence of underground treasure at all, the mean lies. Gold is little used for personal ornaments or in the arts, yet the Korean declares that the dust of his country is gold; and the unquestionable authority of a Customs’ report states that gold dust to the amount of $1,360,279 was exported in 1896, and that it is probable that the quantity which left the country undeclared was at least as much again. Silver and galena are found, copper is fairly plentiful, and the country is rich in undeveloped iron and coal mines, the coal being of excellent quality. The gold-bearing quartz has never been touched, but an American Company, having obtained a concession, has introduced machinery, and has gone to work in the province of Phyöng-an.
The manufactures are unimportant. The best productions are paper of several qualities made from the Brousonettia Papyrifera, among which is an oiled paper, like vellum in appearance, and so tough that a man can be raised from the ground on a sheet of it, lifted at the four corners, fine grass mats, and split bamboo blinds.
The arts are nil.