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which immediately border the river embankments, may be accounted for by the absence of embankments in previous years, when all the sediments which the river, when inundating its banks in high flood, carried along, settled nearest to those banks, while the more distant parts only received clear water.
Niigata is situated on the alluvial ground between the river mouth and a range of low sandy hills or downs W. of it; it is regularly built and has a neat appearance; the population, it is said, amounts to 60,000. It is, or was, renowned for its beautiful “tea-houses,” and princes from several parts of the country used to visit the place for the sole purpose of amusing themselves. Like Takada, the houses are provided with covered ways or verandahs, which offer an agreeable shelter, in winter against the snow, in summer against the burning sun. The lowest temperature occurs at the end of January or the beginning of February, the thermometer falling to—9° C. (1545° F.); the highest temperature in the shade, during the last days of July 1873, amounted to 33.5° C. (about 92° F.) When the weather is settled, in summer time during the night a land breeze always blows, while daily at about 9 a.m., a sea breeze seta in. In winter N. and N. W. winds prevail, interrupted by storms from S.W. to N. W., when, as soon as the wind changes to N., fine weather is re-established. I am indebted for the above data to Mr. Weber, who is a resident at Niigata and who makes daily meteorological observations.
To all appearances Niigata is splendidly situated for trade; the Shinanogawa being almost the only high-way for goods-traffic in Echigo, all goods which now go by pack-horses overland from the staple-places of trade, would be sure to go to Niigata if only that place were provided with good harbour accommodation. The bar which now lies before the mouth of the river and which has this year even silted up in such a degree that only 3 feet of water remains in the channel, is the cause that the trade of Niigata has in the last few years almost entirely disappeared; and there can be little doubt that
