in the lower peaks and hilltops are mostly in a disintegrated form." There are mountains of limestone of a very fine quality and a great variety of colors. If the natives want lime for any purpose, they have only to bring a few stones and burn them, and the lime is at hand. Much of it is crystallized into marble which takes a fine polish and would be of much commercial value.
The mountains are well watered, abounding in springs which flow away in the form of brooklets, giving life and verdure to the valleys below; The soil even of the mountains is often very fertile and clothed with a great variety of shrubs and trees, the scrub pine predominating in most places. Many people who have been only to some of the ports on the western and southern shores go away with the idea that there is no timber in Korea, which is far from the fact, as every one knows who has traveled much in the interior. Many of the hills along the southern and western coasts are composed of disintegrated granite which washes away so readily that nothing can grow upon them. This is the exception, and not the rule for the whole country. Even this disintegrated granite is capable of sustaining much vegetable matter in places where it is not so easily washed away by the rains.
The political divisions are simple, there being thirteen provinces at the present, though no one can tell how many there may be six months from now, since there is talk of making a change by returning to the old number, which was eight till after the Japan-
