ABSTRACT
The possessions of the ruling dynasty of China,—that portion of the Asiatic continent which is usually called by geographers the Chinese Empire,–form one of the most extensive dominions ever swayed by a single power in any age, or any part of the world. The form of the empire approaches a rectangle. It is bounded on the east and south-east by various arms and portions of the Pacific Ocean, beginning at the frontier of Corea, and called on European maps the gulfs of Liautung and Pechele, the Yellow Sea, channel of Formosa, China Sea, and Gulf of Tonquin. On the south of the Sialkoi range the desert-lands reach nearly to the Chang-peh shan, about five degrees beyond those mountains. The general features of this portion of the earth's surface are less forbidding than Sahara, but more so than the steppes of Siberia or the pampas of Buenos Ayres.
