The next axis east begins at the Tushih Gate, and goes S.W. to the Nankau Pass, both of them in the Great Wall, and thence across Shansí to the elbow of the Yellow River, and onward to Western Sz’chuen, forming the watershed within the bend of the Yangtsz’. In the regions between these two axes are found coal deposits. A central axis succeeds this in Shansí, crossing the Yangtsz’ near Íchang, and passing on S.W. through Kweichau to the Nan ling; going N.E., it runs through Honan and subsides as it gets over the Yellow River, till in Shantung and the Regent’s Sword it rises higher and higher as it stretches on to the Chang-peh shan in Manchuria, and the ridge between the Songari and Usuri rivers. Between the last two ranges lie the great coal, iron, and salt deposits in the provinces, and each side of the central axis huge troughs and basins occur, such as the valley of the Yangtsz’ in Yunnan, the Great Plain in Nganhwui and Chihlí, the Gulf of Pechele, and the basins of the Liao and Songari rivers.
The coast axis of elevation is indicated by ranges of granitic mountains between Kiangsí and Kiangsu on the north, and Chehkiang and Fuhkien on the south, extending S.W. through Kwangtung into the Yun ling, and N.E. into the Chusan Archipelago, thence across to Corea and the Sihota Mountains east of the Usuri River. An outlying granitic range, reaching from Hongkong north-easterly to Wănchau, and S.W. to Hainan Island, marks a fifth axis of elevation.
Crossing these anticlinal axes are three ranges, coming into China Proper from the west in such a manner as to prove highly beneficial to its structure. The northern is apparently a continuation of the Bayan-kara Mountains in a S.E. direction into Kansuh, and south of the river Wei into Honan, under the name of the Hiung shan or ‘Bear Mountains.’ The centre is an offset from this, going across the north of Hupeh. The southern appears to be a prolongation of the Himalaya into Yunnan and Kwangsí, making the watershed between the Yangtsz’ and Pearl river basins.
THE DESERT OF GOBI.
Between the Tien shan and the Kwănlun range on the south-west, and reaching to the Sialkoi on the north-east, in an oblique direction, lies the great desert of Gobi or Sha-moh, both words signifying a waterless plain, or sandy floats.[7] The entire length of this waste is more than 1,800 miles, but if its limits are extended to the Belur-tag and the Sialkoi, at its western and eastern extremity, it will reach 2,200 miles; the average breadth is between 350 and 400 miles, subject, however, to great variations. The area within the mountain ranges which define it is over a million square miles, and few of the streams occurring in it find their way to the ocean. The whole of this tract is not a barren desert, though no part of it can lay claim to more than comparative fertility; and the great altitude of most portions seems to be as much the cause of its sterility as the nature of the soil. Some portions have relapsed into a waste because of the destruction of the inhabitants.
The western portion of Gobi, lying east of the Tsung ling and north of the Kwănlun, between long. 76° and 94° E., and in lat. 36° and 41° N., is about 1,000 miles in length, and between 300 and 400 wide. Along the southern side of the Tien shan extends a strip of arable land from 50 to 80 miles in width, producing grain, pasturage, cotton, and other things, and in which lie nearly all the Mohammedan cities and forts of the Nan Lu. The Tarim and its branches flow eastward into Lob-nor, through the best part of this tract, from 76° to 89° E.; and along the banks of the Khoten River a road runs from Yarkand to that city, and thence to H’lassa. Here the desert is comparatively narrow. This part is called Han hai, or ‘Mirage Sea,’ by the Chinese, and is sometimes known as the desert of Lob-nor. The remainder of this region is an almost unmitigated waste, and north of Koko-nor assumes its most terrific appearance, being covered with dazzling stones, and rendered insufferably hot by the reflection of the sun’s rays from these and numerous movable mountains of sand. Nor in winter is the climate milder or more endurable. “The icy winds of Siberia, the almost constantly unclouded sky, the bare saline soil, and its great altitude above the sea, combine to make the Gobi, or desert of Mongolia, one of the coldest countries in the whole of Asia.”[8]
The sandhills—kuzupchi, as the Mongols call them—appear north of the Ala shan and along the Yellow River, and when the wind sets them in motion they gradually travel before it, and form a great danger to travellers who try to cross them. One Chinese author says, “There is neither water, herb, man, nor smoke;—if there is no smoke, there is absolutely nothing.” The limits of the actual desert are not easily defined, for near the base of the mountain ranges, streams and vegetation are usually found.
Near the meridian of Hami, long. 94° E., the desert is narrowed to about 150 miles. The road from Kiayü kwan to Hami runs across this narrow part, and travellers find water at various places in their route. It divides Gobi into two parts—the desert of Lob-nor and the Great Gobi—the former being about 4,500 feet elevation, and the latter or eastern not higher than 4,000 feet. The borders of Kansuh now extend across this tract to the foot of the Tien shan.
The eastern part, or Great Gobi, stretches from the eastern declivity of the Tien shan, in long. 94° to 120° E., and about lat. 40° N., as far as the Inner Hing-an. Its width between the Altai and the Ín shan range varies from 500 to 700 miles. Through the middle of this tract extends the depressed valley properly called Sha-moh, from 150 to 200 miles across, and whose lowest depression is from 2,600 to 2,000 feet above the sea. Sand almost covers the surface of this valley, generally level, but sometimes rising into low hills. The road from Urga to Kalgan, crossing this tract, is watered during certain seasons of the year, and clothed with grass. It is 660 miles, and forty-seven posts are placed along the route. The crow, lark, and sand-grouse are abundant on this road, the first being a real pest, from its pilfering habits. Such vegetation as occurs is scanty and stunted, affording indifferent pasture, and the water in the small streams and lakes is brackish and unpotable. North and south of the Sha-moh the surface is gravelly and sometimes rocky, the vegetation more vigorous, and in many places affords good pasturages for the herds of the Kalkas tribes. In those portions bordering on or included in Chihlí province, among the Tsakhars, agricultural labors are repaid, and millet, oats, and barley are produced, though not to a great extent. Trees are met with on the water-courses, but not to form forests. This region is called tsau-ti, or Grassland, and maintains large herds of sheep and cattle. It extends more or less northward towards Siberia. The Etsina is the largest inland stream in this division of Gobi, but on its north-eastern borders are some large tributaries of the Amur. On the south of the Sialkoi range the desert-lands reach nearly to the Chang-peh shan, about five degrees beyond those mountains. The general features of this portion of the earth’s surface are less forbidding than Sahara, but more so than the steppes of Siberia or the pampas of Buenos Ayres. The whole of Gobi is regarded by Pumpelly as having formed a portion of a great ocean, which, in comparatively recent geological times, extended south to the Caspian and Black Seas, and between the Ural and Inner Hing an Mountains, and was drained off by an upheaval whose traces and effects can be detected in many parts. “It appears to me,” he adds, “that the ancient physical geography of this region, and the effects of its elevation, present one of the most important fields of exploration.” It will no doubt soon be more fully explored. Baron Richthofen describes Central Asia as properly a shallow trough, 1,800 miles long and about 400 miles wide, whose bottom is about 1,800 feet above the ocean; its ancient shore-line extended between the Kwănlun and Tien shan ranges on the west, from 5,000 to 10,000 feet high, and gradually falling to 3,600 feet in its eastern shore. This is the Han-hai; eastward is Sha-moh, and outside of both these wildernesses are the peripheral regions, where the waters flow to the ocean, carrying their silt, the erosions from the mountains. Inside of the shore-line nothing reaches the oceans, and these results of degradation are washed or blown into the valleys, and the country is buried in its own dust.[9]