SSE-TCHOUEN, or the four valleys, also written Sze-chuen, is the largest province in China, and perhaps also the finest. Its tempera ture is moderate, both in winter and summer. The Yang-tze-kiang traverses the province from S,1V. to N.E. Its fertility is such that it is said the produce of a single harvest could not be con sumed in it in ten years. Numbers of textile and tinctorial plants are cultivated. On the hills are fine plantations of tea, of which all the best kinds are kept for the province, and the coarsest are sent to Tibet and Turkestan. Pharmacists from all the empire send their travellers to Sse-tchouen to lay in their stocks of medicinal plants. The worclers of Sse-tchouen are the Yen-tsbag and Ho-tsing, wells of salt and wells of fire. M. Imbert, for many years a missionary in this pro vince, but subsequently appointed Vicar-Apostolic in Corea, where he was martyred in 1838, says there are dozens of salt wells in a tract of country of about ten leagues long by four or five broad. The water of these wells yields 20 to 25 per cent. of salt of very acrid quality, so much so as often to inflame the throat to a painful degree. The air that issues from these wells is highly inflam mable. If when tbe tubeful of water is near the
top you were to present a torch at the opening, a great flame, twenty or thirty feet in height, would be kindled. This does happen sometimes through the imprudence of workmen, or in some cases from a malicious desire to commit suicide in com pany. Wens from which fire only, and no salt, is obtained, are called Ho-tsing, fire wells. A little tube of bamboo closes the opening of the vvell, and conducts the inflamruable air to where it is required ; it is then kindled with a taper, and burns continually. The flame is of a bluish colour, three or four inches high, and one inch in diameter. IIere the fire is not sufficient to boil the salt, but at about forty leagues off there are much larger fire wells. Showmen often fill bladders with it, and carry it about the country ; they make a hole in the bladder with a needle, and kindle it with a taper, to amuse lookers-on. This is no doubt what the chemists call carburetted hydrogen. Sse-tchouen province counts nearly 100,000 Christians, zealous and faithful in the fulfilment of their duties.—Huc's Chinese Empire, i. pp. 288 to 303.