ung-p'ing
Fu to Shan-hai Kwan, the point where the Great Wall terminates on the
coast; and a fourth which trends in a south-westerly direction to
Pao-ting Fu and on to T'ai-yuen Fu in Shan-si. The mountain ranges to
the north of the province abound with coal, notably at Chai-tang,
T'ai-gan-shan, Miao-gan-ling, and Fu-tao in the Si-shan or Western
Hills. "At Chai-tang," wrote Baron von Richthofen, "I was surprised to
walk over a regular succession of coal-bearing strata, the thickness of
which, estimating it step by step as I proceeded gradually from the
lowest to the highest strata, exceeds 7000 ft." The coal here is
anthracite, as is also that at T'ai-gan-shan, where are found beds of
greater value than any in the neighbourhood of Peking. In Suean-hwa Fu
coal is also found, but not in such quantities as in the places above
named. Iron and silver also exist in small quantities in different parts
of the province, and hot and warm springs are very common at the foot of
the hills along the northern and western edges of the province. The
principal agricultural products are wheat, kao-liang, oats, millet,
maize, pulse and potatoes. Fruits and vegetables are also grown in large
quantities. Of the former the chief kinds are pears, apples, plums,
apricots, peaches, persimmons and melons. Tientsin is the Treaty Port of
the province.

CHIHUAHUA, a northern frontier state of Mexico, bounded N. and N.E. by
the United States (New Mexico and Texas), E. by Coahuila, S. by Durango,
and W. by Sinaloa and Sonora. Pop. (1895) 260,008; (1900) 327,784. Area,
87,802 sq. m. The surface of the state is in great part an elevated
plateau, sloping gently toward the Rio Grande. The western side,
however, is much broken by the Sierra Madre and its spurs, which form
elevated valleys of great fertility. An arid sandy plain extending from
the Rio Grande inland for 300 to 350 m. is quite destitute of vegetation
where irrigation is not used. There is little rainfall in this region
and the climate is hot and dry. The more elevated plateaus and valleys
have the heavier rainfall, but the average for the state is barely 39
in.; an impermeable clay substratum prevents its absorption by the soil,
and the bare surface carries it off in torrents. The great Bolson de
Mapimi depression, in the S.E. part of the state, was once considered to
be an unreclaimable desert, but experiments with irrigation have shown
its soil to be highly fertile, and the conversio