1850.
Showers of Sand.
3:29
color, and wholly unlike the dust which fell throughout this and the adjoining province of Kiángsú, March 15th, 1846. (See Jour- nal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and Chinese Rep., Vol. XVII. page 521). It was observed at sea, at Hangchau, and at Shang- hái.
Whence did it originate! The opinion of the Chinese on this subject may, I think, be regarded as correct. They assert that it comes from Peking. We know that the sand of Sahara is sometimes elevated by whirlwinds into the upper currents of the air, and deposited in the Atlantic twelve hundred miles, sometimes directly opposite to the trade winds. Over against the vast alluvial Plain of Eastern Asia is the ocean of sand-the Desert of Gobi or Shamoh, extending from near the sea westerly 2,300 miles, and 3 to 400 broad-including the con- terininous sandy districts. Like its counterpart in Africa, it is subject to whirlwinds which raise its fine dust like the waves of the sea, and doubtless at times waft it into the upper currents of air, and trans- port it to distant regions. I have been informed by intelligent natives of Kiángsí and Honán, that the phenomenon occurs in those provinces also. Assuming the Mongolian steppes to be the source whence these showers descend, the amount of sand which is annually conveyed hither must be prodigious to cover such an extensive area. Regard- ed in a meteorological and in a geological point of view, these showers possess no small interest; but if my conjectures respecting the part which they play in the economy of nature be well founded, they are of higher interest to the agriculturists of this most densely populated region. I would premise the suggestion with the remark that the Chinese, who from remote antiquity have been close observers of every- thing pertaining to agriculture, all agree in asserting that a shower of dust indicates a particularly fruitful season. They, it is true, never refer to the dust as the cause of good harvests, but such invariably following its fall. The humus of this great alluvial tract is extremely compact, and to some extent is probably segregated and looscued by the sand of Gobi being scattered over its fields. Those two great rivers, with several sinaller ones which drain the Plain, are ever bearing to the sea the lighter portions of the soil, and so tinging it as by its hue to give name to that part which laves these shores. These remark- able showers then are replenishing and diluting the soil which raius and rivers are ever impoverishing. It is not supposed that all the de- tritus which is conveyed to the sea is the sand which by these remar- kable showers is brought from the sterile wastes of the North, but there can be no doubt that much of the matter of the Yellow Sea is from that source, and also that the sand acts favorably on the soil.
VOL XIX. NO. VI.
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