fertile.  Its mineral wealth is enormous.  Iron, copper, and coal abound in vast quantities; has coal-fields that, it is said, if they were worked, “would revolutionise the trade of the world.”  The most important manufactures are of silk, cotton, and china.  Commerce is as yet chiefly internal; its inter-provincial trade is the largest and oldest in the world.  Foreign trade is growing, almost all as yet done with Britain and her Colonies.  Tea and silk are exported; cotton goods and opium imported.  About twenty-five ports are open to British vessels, of which the largest are Shanghai and Canton.  There are no railways; communication inland is by road, river, and canals.  The people are a mixed race of Mongol type, kindly, courteous, peaceful, and extremely industrious, and in their own way well educated.  Buddhism is the prevailing faith of the masses, Confucianism of the upper classes.  The Government is in theory a patriarchal autocracy, the Emperor being at once father and high-priest of all the people, and vicegerent of heaven.  The capital is Pekin (500), in the NE.  Chinese history goes back to 2300 B.C.  English intercourse with the Chinese began in 1635 A.D., and diplomatic relations between London and Pekin were established this century.  The Anglo-Chinese wars of 1840, 1857, and 1860 broke down the barrier of exclusion previously maintained against the outside world.  The Japanese war of 1894-95 betrayed the weakness of the national organisation; and the seizure of Formosa by Japan, the Russo-Japanese protectorate over Manchuria and Corea, the French demand for Kwang-si and Kwang-tung, enforced lease of Kiao-chau to Germany, and of Wei-hai-wei to Britain (1898), seem to forebode the partition of the ancient empire among the more energetic Western nations.

CHINA, THE GREAT WALL OF, a wall, with towers and forts at intervals, about 2000 m. long, from 20 to 30 ft. high, and 25 ft. broad, which separates China from Mongolia on the N., and traverses high hills and deep valleys in its winding course.

CHINAMPAS, floating gardens.

CHINCHA ISLANDS, islands off the coast of Peru that had beds of guano, often 100 ft. thick, due to the droppings of penguins and other sea birds, now all but, if not quite, exhausted.

CHINCHILLA, a rodent of S. America, hunted for its fur, which is soft and of a grey colour; found chiefly in the mountainous districts of Peru and Chile.

CHINESE GORDON, General Gordon, killed at Khartoum; so called for having, in 1851, suppressed a rebellion in China which had lasted 15 years.

CHINOOK, a tribe of Indians in Washington Territory, noted for flattening their skulls.

CHINSURA, a Dutch-built town on the right bank of the Hoogly, 20 m.  N. of Calcutta, with a college; is famous for cheroots.

CHINZ, a calico printed with flowers and other devices in different colours; originally of Eastern manufacture.

CHIOGGIA (25), a seaport of Venetia, built on piles, on a lagoon island at the mouth of the Brenta, connected with the mainland by a bridge with 43 arches.