Directory_and_Chronicle_1934 — Page 563

SHANGHAI

海 上 Shủng hái.

Although situated nearly midway between Hongkong and Tientsin, Shanghai was the most northerly of the "Five Ports" opened to foreign trade under the provisions of the British Treaty of Nanking, and for many years constituted the northern limit of the external trade of China. It lies in the alluvial peninsula 'formed between the main mouth of the Yangtze River and Hangchow Bay, in the extreme south-east of the province of Kiangsu, in latitude 31 14′ 29′′ N. and longitude 121° 29' east of Green wich, and at the junction of the Whangpoo River with the Woosung, the latter now reduced to the dimensions of an ordinary tidal creek, and known to foreign residents as the Soochow Creek. The Foreign Settlement is situated some twelve miles above" the junction of the Whangpoo with the most southern arm of the Yangtze. At this junction is situated the town of Woosung, wlrich some years ago the Chinese Govern- ment formally converted into a separate port open to foreign commerce. Except as a place of call for the large steamers, which now carry on the rapidly growing trans- Pacific trade of Northern China, and as a place of anchorage for the larger craft while waiting for favourable tides or weather, this convenience is not much availed of, owing mainly to the constricted and exposed nature of the anchorage" ground available within the entrance of the Whangpoo. In 1919 Woosung was connected with Shanghai by a inotor road 30 feet wide, and in the same year the Woosung Electric Lighting Company commenced its service. The project, however, for trans- forming Woosung into an important industrial centre makes slow progress. Two cotton mills have been erected there--one of them run by electricity-and land has been acquired in their vicinity for the building of a large sugar refinery. The value of land rose enormously in 1920 and, owing to the influx of population since, the establishment of the new mills, house accommodation has become scarce and rents have gone up in consequence, As a river the Whangpoo is of comparatively recent origin scarcely dating beyond the thirteenth century, before which it was merely an unimportant canal. Lower Kiangsu forms an immense plain, the gift of the Yangtsze, and is still growing at the rate of approximately two square, miles per annum; a few isolated hills, formerly constituting islands in the sea, alone rise from this plain, the nearest of which, the Fung-hwang-shan, consisting of some six detached summits, none exceeding 250 feet in altitude, and distant from fifteen to twenty miles, are visible from the higher buildings of Shanghai.

FLORA AND FAUNA

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This Kiangsu plain has been called the Garden of China, and the population is perhaps denser tlian in any other portion of the Empire of equal extent. Estimates vary, owing to the absence of any statistical sense in the Chinese as a people, but by foreigners the population is usually accepted as from eight hundred to a thousand per square mile. The soil, consisting entirely of alluvia carried down by the Yangtsze, is fairly fertile, and, the land being easily irrigated owing to the numerous waterways which traverse it in every direction, heavy crops of the various staples are grown. Owin

to the latitude and the fact that the rainfall is pretty well distributed through the year, two crops per annum are regularly produced, and these are of markedly different types; the spring crop, gathered in May or June, being similar to' that of the northern temperate regions elsewhere, while the autumn crop, gathered in September and October, is distinctly tropical or sub-tropical. The spring crops consist of wheat, two or three distinct varieties of barley, rape, and leguminous plants of various descriptions, beans and lucerne predominating. The latter are frequently ploughed into the land without gathering to make manure for the more valuable summer products. The summer crops consist mainly of cotton and rice; the cultiva- tion of the former having of late years, owing to the growing demand for use at home, and for export to western and northern provinces, as well as to Japan, where the cotton spinning and weaving industries have for some years past taken a firm hold- considerably increased, accompanied by a similar decrease in the acreage under rice cultivation. This decrease is, however, to a certain extent counterbalanced by an

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