promise was reported to be something sensational. The Government sent an official to examine the possibilities of the district, then joined it with the old Kuanyin-shan mines. In 1917 the chief of the branch office of the mine field at Tulu-ho gathered together a lot of lawless elements and organized them into a bandit army, which attacked the police and military guards stationed at the gold field. The disturbance drove away a considerable number of miners, and the field has not recovered from the effect of the trouble. North of Blagoveschensk, farther up the Amur, in the District of Huma, there is another field along the Humara River. Then, down this stream, some thirty miles southwest of the Huma District, is another gold field which caused a tremendous stir at one time. No less than 15,000 miners were reported to have rushed into this field of Yuchingkou, but of late, like so many other gold fields in North Manchuria, it has lost much of its drawing power. To-day there are not more than 500 miners washing in that district, according to a recent report. The river-bed of the Arakan, in the northwestern corner of Amur Province not far from the famous Moho field, might also be mentioned. Practically all these fields along the Amur and in the Argun valley might be said to have been worked and pillaged by the Russians. In the middle of the Eighteenth Century the criminal and adventurous elements among the Russians in Siberia stole over the Amur River into the Chinese Province of Amur. In those days the Russian Government did not permit individuals to engage in gold-mining in Siberia. These Russian exiles in Siberia looked down upon China as a weak, semi-civilized country; and they found in the gold-fields of Amur Province a happy hunting-ground after their own hearts' desire. In 1882 Li Hungchang succeeded in bringing about an understanding with Russia to make the gold-mining in North Manchuria a joint enterprise between the Imperial Houses of China and of Russia. Through this means the wily statesman planned to stop invasion by the Russian outlaws-not through the efforts and power of the Chinese army or police, but entirely through the efforts of the Russian officials, who would naturally wish to protect the interests of the Tsar. But all the fond hopes of old Li went the way of clay-pipe bubbles. For soon after that came the Sino-Japanese War, to be followed by the Boxer uprising through which North Manchuria suffered more than through any other disaster. Then a few years later came the Russo-Japanese War. Finally, in 1907, when the Chinese Government saw that most of the Russian outlaws and outlaw miners had cleared out of Amur Province, it succeeded in taking over many of the more important gold-fields of the Province and placing them under direct government control and supervision. GOLD-FIELDS IN KIRIN PROVINCE Amur Province by no means monopolizes the goldfields of Manchuria. About a quarter of a century ago inn-keepers along the road leading out of the head waters of the Sungari became curious about certain guests who happened to be all headed for Kirin and Mukden. They were farmers and farm coolies originally from Shantung mostly. There was something mysterious about their behavior. In the end the inn-keepers, who are among the best of detectives in that part of the country, found out that each and every one of the sojourners carried with him a bowl or two of gold dust. It was not long before Shanghai papers were broadcasting news of a Manchurian Klondike, and more than 2,000 miners rushed into a small patch not more than a sixth of a mile long, sloping gently from the foot of a hill at the head waters of the Sungari, where a creek was running. In Kirin Province, the gold-fields are along the riverbeds of the tributaries of the Sungari, in its upper reaches to the southeast of the City of Kirin, round about Huatien. Some are found in the Chientao District. Also the districts about the City of Sansing on the Sungari, in the northern section of the Province, have been famous for years for their gold production. The gold-fields of this section alone produced in the nine years from 1913-1921 more than 38,000 liang (a liang is about 1.315 ounce) of gold. That is the official figure, which means that the actual output of this region could not have fallen much below 70,000 liang of gold, as more than half of the actual production usually passes through canny Chinese fingers without official record. Perhaps the most noted of the gold-fields of Kirin Province is that of Chiapikou. That is the only goldfield mentioned in the exchange of notes between China and Japan of May 25th, 1915. Evidently Japan thought it about the only gold-field in South Manchuria worth any attention. It is some 125 miles southeast of the City of Kirin, in the District of Huatien. A logger stumbled upon it in the first year of Taokuang, 1821. It reached the apogee of its fame more than half a century ago. A miner named Han, a native of Fuchou, entered it some seventy-five years ago. He worked himself up from the ranks. His ability as an organizer and leader among his fellow workers asserted itself, and soon he was at the head of many devoted followers. With these he was successful in repulsing repeated attacks by hunghutze bandits and criminals who tried to raid the goldfields. In the end he became the master of a large section of the gold-fields which bear the name of Chiapikou. He built there a sort of small principality of his own. The Peking court itself thought it wiser not to meddle with his domain. Instead the Peking Government invited him to take in under his sway about threefourths of the District of Huatien. This little gold-field kingdom has since been handed down to his posterity. Minor gold-fields are also found along the banks of the Tumen some forty miles northeast of Hunchun, in the valley of the Suifen River, which flows into the Bay of Amur, on which the Port of Vladivostok is situated, and also along the tributaries of the Hurka River. In Mukden Province traces of alluvial gold are found at many points-near Kaiping, Hsiungyaocheng, Haicheng, Tiehling, Hailungcheng, Hsinking, Tunghua, Huanjen, and elsewhere. These fields seem to have been worked pretty thoroughly, so that the gold output of the whole province at the present time does not amount to anything worthy of mention, hardly more than twenty or thirty thousand yen a year in value. i COAL MINES The mineral wealth of Manchuria, however, does not depend on gold. Coal stands at the head of the list by a decisive margin. The total reserve of the Manchuria coal-fields cannot be much lower than fourteen billion tons. We have already seen that the Fushun bed is the thickest of all the world's known coal-seams. In that single field there is an estimated store of twelve billion tons. The total number of the coal-fields in Manchuria and Inner Eastern Mongolia reaches to fifty, taking in large and small. Of that number, there are only six coalbeds of importance. The Fushun field, those of Yentai, Penhsihu, Changchun, Kaiyuan, those along the line of the Chinese Eastern Railway, of Wafangtien in the Kwantung Leased Territory; and one field west of the Liao River. The story of the great Fushun mine has |