The Chusan archipelago forms a single district of which Tinghai is the capital; it is divided into thirty-four _chwang_ or townships, whose officers are responsible to the district magistrate. The southern limit of the group is Quesan or the Kiu shan islands, in lat. 29° 21′ N., and long. 121° 10′ E., consisting of eleven islets, the northernmost of which is False Saddle Island; their total number is over a hundred. Tinghai city lies on the southern side of Chan shan or Boat Island, which gives its name on foreign maps to the whole group. It is twenty miles long, from six to ten wide, and fifty one and a half in circumference. The archipelago seems to be the highest portion of a vast submarine plain, geologically connected with the Nan shan range on the Continent and the mountains in Kiusiu and Nippon; it is a pivot for the changes in weather and temperature observed north and south of this point along the coast. The general aspect of these islands and the mainland, is the same beautiful alternation of hills and narrow valleys, everywhere fertile and easily irrigated, with peaks, cascades, and woodlands interspersed. In Chusan itself the fertile and well-watered valleys usually reach to the sea, and are furnished with dykes along the beach, which convert them into plains of greater or less extent, through which run canals, used both for irrigation and navigation. Rice and barley, beans, yams, sweet potatoes, etc., are grown; every spot of arable soil being cultivated, and terraces constructed on most of the slopes. The view from the tops of the ridges, looking athwart them, or adown their valleys, or to seaward, is highly picturesque. The prevailing rocks belong to the ancient volcanic class, comprising many varieties, but principally clay-stone, trachyte, and compact and porphyritic felspar. The brief occupation of this island by the British forces in 1841 led to no permanent improvement in the condition of the people, and it has neither trade nor minerals sufficient to attract capital thither. Owing in part, perhaps, to this poverty, Tinghai escaped the ravages of the Tai-pings, and has now recovered from the damage sustained by its first capture. ~PUTO ISLAND AND ITS TEMPLES.~ Puto and a few smaller islands are independent of civil jurisdiction, being ruled by the abbot of the head monastery. This establishment, and that on Golden Island in the Yangtsz’ are among the richest and best patronized of all the Buddhist monasteries in China; both of them have been largely favored by emperors at different periods.