Korea is preëminently a mountainous country. With the exception of the alluvial plains at the mouths of the rivers, low ranges of mountains with narrow intervening valleys are found everywhere, and are characteristic. The main chain, forming the back-bone of the peninsula, is not clearly defined, as it is formed principally by the overlappings and intersections of minor chains, so that it is quite irregular as to direction, but a glance at the sources of the rivers, considered with reference to the intervening line of water-sheds, shows that it springs from the mountains of Siberia at the north, follows for some distance the line of the eastern coast and then strikes inland, trending to the southward and westward until it reaches the shores of the Yellow Sea. The loftiest ranges, therefore, are in the northern and eastern provinces. At the centre of the northern boundary is Paik-du-san, the "white-headed mountain," in whose slopes rise the Yalu, Tuman, and Songari rivers, the two former defining the western and eastern sections of the frontier, the latter a tributary of the Amur, an important stream of southern Siberia. According to Messrs. James, Younghusband, and Fulford, of the British Indian and Consular services, who visited it in May, 1886, Paik-du-san is "a recently extinct volcano with a lovely pellucid lake filling the bottom of the crater, surmounted by a serrated edge of peaks rising about 650 feet above the surface of the water. The height of the loftiest of these was found to be about 7,525 feet above the level of the sea."
Besides the rivers of the frontier are others of the interior that deserve a passing mention. The mountainous nature of the country, as well as its proximity to the sea, implies the existence of numerous secondary water courses, but these as a rule are insignificant in size and so shallow as to permit of navigation only throughout limited portions of their extent. Among the larger streams that lie wholly within the country is the Taidong, flowing through Phyöng-an-do, the northwestern province, rising in the central ranges of the peninsula and flowing into the Yellow Sea. During the greater part of the year it is navigable as far as the city of Phyöngyang for native craft of the largest size. In midsummer its waters rise rapidly during a short rainy season; then quickly subside, the river resuming its former limits. To this sudden shoaling may be attributed the loss of the schooner Sherman, captured by the Koreans in 1871, the vessel going aground without warning at a place where a few hours before abundant water had been found.
The Han, the river of the capital, lies about one hundred miles to the southward of the Taidong, and flows westwardly in a nearly parallel direction thereto, from the central ranges of the peninsula into the Yellow Sea. Its many branches join in a common estuary near the centre of the Yellow Sea coast, and their collective drainage area comprises a large portion of central Korea. Still farther to the southward is the Keum, traversing a fertile rice-growing country, while at the extreme south is the Nakdong. The latter is one of the most important streams of Korea, and the facilities that it affords for communication and interchange have done much towards rendering the district through which it flows one of the most fertile and prosperous of the land.
The coasts of Korea are forbidding to the mariner and seem well adapted for the preservation of the seclusion that it has been so long the national policy to maintain. On the east, facing Japan, unbroken lines of steep hills, void of harbors, bend abruptly into the deep waters of the Japan Sea. To the westward countless outlying islands extend seaward many miles, liberally interspersed with rocks and shoals, between which eddy swift streams of tide-water. The terrors of the Maelstrom would find their counterpart in many a Korean whirlpool, which, forming in the vicinity of some submerged ledge, will cause a large vessel to heel suddenly well over, and will swing her many points off her course in a way to make the stoutest hearted captain tremble for the safety of his charge.
The climate of Korea exhibits wide ranges of temperatures and hygroscopic conditions. In the northeast province, Ham-kiung-do, the winter is as rigorous as that of Nova Scotia; at the extreme south, on the island of Quelpaert, it somewhat resembles that of Louisiana. The warmth of Quelpaert is due to the proximity of the Kura-siwo, or Black Stream of Japan, the Gulf Stream of the Pacific, part of which is here turned into a cul-de-sac, from which it escapes with difficulty. One result of this is the creation of a stormy region near the island, where the mariner may at all times look for a hard blow. A characteristic feature of Yellow Sea coasts are the Chang-ma, or mid-summer rains, which set in with fair regularity in July and during their month's duration resemble in phenomena and general effects the periodic rains of the tropics. The winters, in all but the southern parts of the country, are long and severe and set in with great suddenness. As an illustration of the rapidity of this change I remember that on one occasion I was ferried across the Han river near the capital at a time when the only indication of cold weather was a film of ice along the river banks, and that within forty-eight hours afterwards I rode back across the river ice on horseback, over the line of the former ferry.
Careful meteorologic records have now been kept at the open ports for more than five years; at Che-mul-po, on the Yellow Sea (the seaport of the capital, Söul); at Fusan, to the south; and at Gensan, to the northeast. Stations are needed on the Yellow Sea coast farther to the northward, at the extreme northeast, at points in the interior, and especially on the island of Cheju, or Quelpaert, whose weather reports may some day prove as valuable to the Japanese as those from Bermuda would now be to the navigator of the western waters of the Atlantic. All the above mentioned places are easily accessible and doubtless soon will receive attention. In fact, to the navigator of these regions this island of Quelpaert is almost of the importance that Hatteras is to the navigator of our own coast.
As an important factor of Korea's future prosperity, and one that will enter largely into the determination of her future position among the nations of the east, may be mentioned her mineral resources. These yet remain in an almost undeveloped condition. The most easily accessible deposits and out-croppings, which are worked by the natives in primitive ways, afford evidence of an abundant and varied supply of the useful ores and minerals widely distributed throughout the whole extent of the land. Many localities, moreover, are well known to the people for their especial products. Thus the Phyöngyang province, in the northwest, facing China, possesses abundant deposits of coal, iron, and lime. Samples of this coal, which is but little used by the people, were collected several years ago from twelve different localities, and I remember that some of the Phyöngyang gatherings were tested on board the U. S. S. Alert, but were found to have suffered so greatly from exposure to the weather as to be comparatively valueless, even for experimental purposes. Limestone is common in this district, and in the town of Phyöngyang I have noticed the use of caustic lime in the streets as a disinfectant. The iron produced at Yöngpyön, fifty miles to the northward of this city, which is reduced in the native way with charcoal, is remarkable for its malleability and purity. Inasmuch as all these deposits are of very great extent and lie near the sea coast, and in proximity to waters easily navigable by larger craft, it may be assumed as probable that the time will soon arrive when the iron of Korea will largely supply the ship-yards and machine shops of northern China. Silver is found in at least four localities; copper is worked in paying quantities in two; galena is widely distributed; and zincblende has been found near the capital. Sulphur is said to occur in Kyöng-sang-do; no ore of mercury is known to the Koreans, who import their supplies of the metal and its preparations from China.
At the time of the opening of Korea by treaty, 1870–80, an impression seems to have prevailed quite generally that the country was extremely rich in gold, that great quantities of the precious metals were soon to be exported, or that mines of great richness would be found and worked. The years that have elapsed since this date have partly served to prove the fallacy of these assumptions, yet the doubt is not yet fully removed. Gold is now known to occur in many places in moderate quantities: in alluvial deposits, from which it may be washed by simple mechanical process, and in quartz veins, from which it is extracted in small quantities by crude and laborious methods of rock-pulverizing and washing. A small constant demand for the metal has always existed, for jewelry and gilding—the latter quite a common decorative process, which up to the present seems to have required the use of pure gold even for the crudest applications. The mines remain for the greater part unworked, however, for three reasons: (1) the native dislike for altering the geomantic conditions of any locality by digging holes in the ground; (2) the laws forbidding the search for the metal, for gold mining in Korea is a government monopoly; (3) the inability of the peasants to find a market for the gold that they surreptitiously work. There has always existed a chance of disposing of it by crossing the border into China, and there has probably long been a small steady export in this way; and a port has been opened near the capital where reside Chinese and Japanese merchants who must find a way of converting the Korean copper cash into some medium of exchange easily negotiable abroad, and who for this purpose have been known to purchase gold from the Koreans at a considerable premium. I have examined a number of specimens of Korean gold which had been brought to Che-mul-po and had passed into the hands of foreign merchants there. In several cases I found small pieces of quartz clinging to flat laminated grains of the metal of considerable size.
In answer to inquiries that I made from time to time during a residence of more than a year in Korea I was told by the Koreans of a number of localities where gold was supposed to be abundant. I have endeavored to show these collectively upon a small map (Fig. III) giving the Korean names of the towns and districts with their English equivalents and the names of the provinces of the kingdom in which the places are situated. I was told repeatedly that the metal was most plentiful at Tan-chhön, in the Ham-kiung province. Concerning this locality our Korean geographer says, "at Ma-un, west of Tan-chhön, much gold is found. The mountains there are lofty and precipitous."
