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PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY. 129
steppe or desert. East and south-eastwards the Pacific Ocean washes the seaboard,
which develops a semicircular coast-line over 2,000 miles in extent. Lastly, on
the south mountain ranges, plateaux, marshy tracts, difficult river gorges, separate
China from the Trans-Gangetic peninsula. Here, however, the frontier-line is often
purely conventional, and in this direction China merges more gradually than elsewhere
with the border-lands. It occupies in the extreme east of the continent a
space of almost circular form, with one semicircle traced on the mainland, while the
Fig. 52. Tan NIHB PROVINCES ACCORDING TO THE Yuxuuo.
Scale 1 : 22,000,000.
E of G ISO'
B
Mountain* mentioned in the Yuknng.
Given
Marshes, tracts subject to im'iidatkns.
Range and probable density of tie ( liii.tsi population.
Capital of tlie Empire under shun.
(The figures I. to IX. represent the decreasing fertility of the land.)
.^____^____^^^^_^^_ noo Miles.
other is formed by the Pacific seaboard. Thus circumscribed, China represents
about one-half of the empire, and comprises the eleventh part of the whole main-
land, with a population estimated at about 400,000,000.
PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY.
For thousands of years the Chinese have been making observations on the
form and relief of the land, at least in its general features. The Shuking, or