tailieunhanh - MANCHURIA AND KOREA

The 39th parallel of latitude lies just south of Tientsin; followed westward, it crosses the toe of Italy's boot, leads past Lisbon in Portugal, near Washington and St. Louis and to the north of Sacramento on the Pacific. We were leaving a country with a mean July temperature of 80 deg F., and of 21 deg in January, but where two feet of ice may form; a country where the eighteen year mean maximum temperature is deg and the mean minimum deg; where twice in this period the thermometer recorded 113 deg above zero, and twice 7. | MANCHURIA AND KOREA The 39th parallel of latitude lies just south of Tientsin followed westward it crosses the toe of Italy s boot leads past Lisbon in Portugal near Washington and St. Louis and to the north of Sacramento on the Pacific. We were leaving a country with a mean July temperature of 80 deg F. and of 21 deg in January but where two feet of ice may form a country where the eighteen year mean maximum temperature is deg and the mean minimum deg where twice in this period the thermometer recorded 113 deg above zero and twice 7 deg below and yet near the coast and in the latitude of Washington a country where the mean annual rainfall is inches and all but inches falls in June July August and September. We had taken the 5 40 A. M. Imperial North-China train June 17th to go as far northward as Chicago --to Mukden in Manchuria a distance by rail of some four hundred miles but all of the way still across the northward extension of the great Chinese coastal plain. Southward out from the coldest quarter of the globe where the mean January temperature is more than 40 deg below zero sweep northerly winds which bring to Mukden a mean January temperature only 3 deg above zero and yet there the July temperature averages as high as 77 deg and there is a mean annual rainfall of but inches coming mostly in the summer as at Tientsin. Although the rainfall of the northern extension of China s coastal plain is small its efficiency is relatively high because of its most favorable distribution and the high summer temperatures. In the period of early growth April May and June there are inches but in the period of maximum growth July and August the rainfall is inches and in the ripening period September and October it is inches while during the rest of the year but inch falls. Thus most of the rain comes at the time when the crops require the greatest daily consumption and it is least in mid-winter during the period of little growth.