THE CHANGES OF COURSE OF THE HWANGHO
1938 Volume 50 Issue 11 Pages 517-530,15
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1938 Volume 50 Issue 11 Pages 517-530,15
From olden times the Chinese held the Hwangho (Yellow River) as the sole representative of the Chinese rivers so that when they said ho (river) it meant the Hwaugho. This is quite intelligible when we think the ancient Chinese civilization has developed in the basin of the same river. Geologically as the basin of the river consists of loess which is yellow-coloured, this colour made a great impression on a Chinese mind. A stretch of fertile plain along the river was not only the joy of the ancient tillers of the soil, but at the same time the dread because of the inundations of the river which were formidable. Indeed, this joy and dread created many myths concerning the source of the river.
The first information about this source was given by Chang Chien of the Chien Han Dynasty in the 2nd century B. C.. According to his writing, the Tarim River in Chinese Turkestan is mentioned as the origin, the water at first flowing into the Lob-nor, then running underground for some distance finally emerges into Koko-nor district, where it flows into the Hwangho, although the exact places where the water disappears and again comes out are not given. This is the so-called theory of complex sources. However the increase of the geographical knowledge of Tibet in the 8th. century gave birth to a theory of simple source, which held Odun. Tala, in Koko-nor for the real source of the river. In the 13th. century this theory was confirmed, the waters flowing into the present Oduu Tala having been actually seen, though there still remained bilievers in the theory of complex sources. At the beginning of the 18th. century the theory of a single source became more certain, a map made by the actual survey of the land in the reign of Emperor Kanghsi of the Ching Dynasty having been published. At the end of the 19th. century, Prschewalski, a Russian explorer, scientifically proved the truth of the single source theory.
The Hwangho was, as it is now, narrow in its lower course, and the river-bed has a remarkable tendency to rise owing to the deposition of sediments carried.
