THE  PROVINCES  AND  THE  TREATY  PORTS  209
and  Newchwang,  and,  when  the  line  from  Sinmingfu  is
extended,  will  also  And  direct  outlets  at  Chinwangtao  and
Tientsin.  Outlets  may  also  be  found  through  Vladivostok
and  Irkutsk.  The  population  is  estimated  at  250,000.
Antung  (40 o  8'  N.,  124 0  14'  E.)  23  miles  above  Tatungkow,
  at  the  mouth  of  the  Yalu  River  which  separates
Manchuria  from  Korea,  and  Antung,  25  miles  farther
up,  which  were  on  the  point  of  being  opened  as  treaty
ports  in  March  1907,  will  tap  the  wealth  of  timber  standing ­
  on  the  mountains  flanking  the  river,  and  will  provide
an  outlet  for  the  silk  of  eastern  Shengking,  which  now
goes  by  junk  to  Chef00  and  Dalny.  Antung  will  be  a
station  on  the  line  of  railway  connecting  Korea  with
Manchuria.
Harbin,  the  junction  of  the  railways  from  Irkutsk  to
Vladivostock,  and  from  Harbin  to  Kwanchengtze,  where
it  joins  the  Japanese  line  to  Dalny,  is  made  the  seat  of  a
Custom  House  to  control  the  railway  traffic.
Chihli
The  metropolitan  province  of  Chihli,  with  an  estimated
area  of  115,000  square  miles,  and  a  population  of  which  the
estimates  range  from  21,000,000  to  29,000,000,  may  be
roughly  divided  into  a  northern  half,  mountainous  and
thinly  peopled,  lying  mainly  outside  the  Great  Wall,  and
a  southern  part,  densely  populated,  of  flat  alluvial  plain,
robbed  in  the  course  of  ages  from  the  waters  of  the  Gulf
of  Pechihli  by  the  detritus  carried  down  by  the  Yellow
River,  and  the  loess  borne  on  the  winds.  The  hill  country
contains  much  mineral  wealth,  of  which  the  bituminous
coal  mined  at  Tongshan  and  the  anthracite  of  the  hills  west
of  Peking  are  conspicuous  examples.  The  plain  is  a  vast
hive  of  human  industry  on  which,  as  everywhere  on  the
plains  of  China,  man  is  pitted  against  the  forces  of  nature,
and,  with  no  other  appliances  than  those  possessed  by  their
remote  ancestors,  the  men  of  the  hive  win  out.  This  is  a
part  of  the  country  running  from  Tientsin  to  Chinkiang
through  seven  degrees  of  latitude,  and  traversed  by  the
14