China in Outline (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from China in Outline<br><br>China: "The Middle Kingdom," "The Flowery Land," "Far Cathay," the "Land of Sinim," studied in any aspect is full of interest.<br><br>I. - It is a Vast Country.<br><br>For more than 3000 miles its shores are washed by the ceaseless surges of the sea. It encloses a desert, vast as any over which sterility ever reigned; it embraces plains as exuberant as were ever pressed by foot of man. The area of its largest plain is greater by one-half than all the German Empire.<br><br>Great rivers drain and irrigate the land. The Hoang-Ho is almost three times the length of the Ohio, while the Yang-tse is longer than the Mississippi, and drains a basin more extensive than the whole territory of the Republic of Mexico. One-tenth of the population derive their food from the waters of the country. According to the official catalogue of the world's exhibition in 1851, the extent of its coal-fields was more than twenty times greater than those of all Europe, being 419,000 square miles, and side by side with the coal is iron ore. It has all degrees of altitude from the sea level to the perpetual snow line. Between Canton and Peking, the great road winds through a pass 8000 feet above the ocean. It has all varieties of climate.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.