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The approach to Niigata is dull and desolate, the open plains and environs being sandy and uninteresting. The town is very regularly built, the streets are clean, well-kept and rectilinear, and a number of canals keep the town in communication with the river. The population is estimated at over 50,000, and represents the entire commercial importance of all the West. It is at the same time the centre of pleasure and recreation for the whole of the district. The climate seems to differ sensibly from that of the other side of the Pacific; the heat is very great in summer, and the winter is cold and long. As is usual on this side of the Japan Sea the houses are all fronted with a covered verandah, which allows of exercise when the snow covers the streets. The roofs are built at very open angles and weighted with heavy stones. The typhoon which passed over Nagasaki and the South on the 20th August 1874 ended its course northwards, appearing in Niigata on the 21st from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. The maximum intensity was during the hour between 8 and 9 p.m. Every house was more or less injured, but the destruction was less severe than at Nagasaki on the night of the 20th. The typhoon swept the whole coast from south to north on the 20th and 21st.
The most serious bar to the ultimate development of Niigata is the existence of a very dangerous sand-bank at the mouth of the river. Besides the waters which come from Aidzu, which, on account of their volume, bring down vast quantities of sand, the river Shinano, the largest in Japan, flows through Niigata, gathering on its course all the waters of the central chain of the West, which again by their vast volume contribute to the blocking up of the port of Niigata. An attempt has been made to remedy this condition of affairs by the construction of a canal, which, however, has been abandoned or account of its defective plan.
The island of Sado, noted for its gold mines, is about 15 ri from the coast. Most of the junks in which the traffic between this island and Niigata is carried on, put
