WHANG-HO, HoAsto-llo, or YELLOW RIVER, one of the principal rivers of China, about 2,400 m. in length, and the area of its basin being not less than 700,000 sq.miles. It rises in a marshy plain lying between the Bayan-kara and Kwaalun mountains, in a lake called Ala-nor, in lat. 35' 30' n., long. 93' east. Its course is so crooked that after it leaves Ala-nor, it turns first s. 30 in., then e. 160, then westward 120, winding about the gorges of the Kwanlun, then n.e. into the province of Kansuli, next it proceeds northward for 430 tn., till it is bent eastward by Inshan, oil the edge of the table-laud, where it incloses within its great bend the country of the Ortous Mongols. At the Peh ling it is deflected s. where it divides the provinces of Shanse and Shense for 500 miles. At the south-western corner of Shan=e, it receives its largest tributary, the Wei-ho,400 length; from this point the Yellow river flowed until recently eastward to the ocean, 650 in. distant, in lat. 34°. It is little used for navigation, Chinese vesselsbeing unable to stem its impetuous current. In some parts of its eastern course it is above the great plain through which it passes. The embankments requisite for averting inundations are a source of never-ending expense to the government, and their yielding to Hoods a frequent cause of desolation to extensive districts of country. Dr. Macgowan announced some years ago, in the North China Herald, that this wayward and turbulent stream had suddenly shifted its course turning off near Kaifnug-foo in a north-eaSterly direction, discharging its waters into the rivers of Chihle, which disembogue in the gulf of Peh cluck, the mountainous province and promontory cf Shantung intervening between its former and its present mouth, a distance by coast-line of about 500 miles. More recently,
it was announced that the old bed of the Yellow river, for more than 200 m. from its mouth, was a belt of sand, which, since 1853, has been, to use the Chinese term applied to it, " as dry as (lust." The change seems to have been gradual. As there were frequent slight shocks of earthquakes in the great plain of China in 1852-53, Dr. Macgowan sug gests that these contributed to effect the phenomenon, another cause being neglect of the dykes by the imperial government. There is a bar with only five feet of water across the new mouth of the Whaug-ho. Its present channel is probably same as in an cient times; for it has shifted its bed at different periods of Chinese history. The vast quantity of sediment conveyed to the sea by this river, giving it its color and name, is taken up in that part of its course which lies between the provinces of Shanse and Shense; beyond which its waters are remarkably clear. Whang-ho is held in great veneration by the Chinese.