Baiheliang (literally "White Crane Ridge") is a rock outcropping in Fuling District, Chongqing, People's Republic of China, that parallels the flow of the Yangtze. In the past it served as an ancient device for measuring water levels of the Yangtze in China, the equivalent of a hydrometric station. The horizontal rock ledge 1.6 km long and ten to fifteen meters wide, lay submerged under water most of the year, showing its upper face above water only during the low-water season of winter and early spring. The eyes of fish carved on the stone indicate the lowest water levels of the Yangtze River, which made the site a precious hydrographic marker. Baiheliang is being submerged to a depth of 30 m behind the Three Gorges Dam. Fuling District (涪陵) is a district of Chongqing Municipality, Peoples Republic of China. ... Chongqing (Simplified Chinese: 重庆; Traditional Chinese: 重慶; Pinyin: Chóngqìng; Wade-Giles: Chung-ching; Postal System Pinyin: Chungking) is the largest and most populous of the Peoples Republic of Chinas four provincial-level municipalities, and the only one in the less densely populated western half of China. ... Length 6,380 km Elevation of the source  ? m Average discharge 31,900 m³/s Area watershed 1,800,000 km² Origin Qinghai Province and Tibet Mouth East China Sea Basin countries China The Chang Jiang (Simplified Chinese: 长江; Traditional Chinese: 長江; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng; Wade-Giles: Chang Chiang... Length 6,380 km Elevation of the source  ? m Average discharge 31,900 m³/s Area watershed 1,800,000 km² Origin Qinghai Province and Tibet Mouth East China Sea Basin countries China The Chang Jiang (Simplified Chinese: 长江; Traditional Chinese: 長江; pinyin: Cháng Jiāng; Wade-Giles: Chang Chiang... This article or section may contain original research or unverified claims. ...

Engraved in the rock are 163 inscriptions and pictures, which include 114 hydrologic annotations, which give detailed records of water levels in the river over 1200 years, since the first year of the Tang dynasty Guangde era, 763; the assembled inscriptions and fish carvings, taken together, formed the longest such sequence in the world. One fish carving, originally carved in the Tang dynasty was recarved at a moment of lowest water in 1685: modern measurements recorded the elevation of their eyes, 137.91 meters, almost the same as that of the zero point of the modern water level gauge. For the band, see Tang Dynasty (band). ...

The fish carvings and hydrological inscriptions were virtually unknown in the West until the 1970s, when Chinese experts presented photos of these two fish and hydrological data of Fuling for the past 1,200 years at an international hydrological symposium held in the UK.

The best-known of the fish carvings was a 2.8-meter carp, carved from a section of freestone. Hundreds of poetical homages to the place were inscribed in rock faces, which have disappeared beneath the rising waters as the dam has been completed. In 2003, Xinhua News Agency, the People's Republic's official press agency, headlined the on-line story, June 10, "Accident-maker reef no longer threatens Yangtze navigation". Genera Abramis Aristichthys Barbodes Carassius Cirrhinus Ctenopharyngodon Cyprinus Epalzeorhynchos Henicorhynchus Hypophthalmichthys Labeo Mylopharyngodon and others A carp is any of various freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae. ... Front gate of the main building of Xinhua News Agency in Beijing The Xinhua News Agency (Simplified Chinese: 新华社; Traditional Chinese: 新華社; pinyin: ), or NCNA (New China News Agency), is the official press agency of the government of the Peoples Republic of China and the biggest center for collecting information and... In journalism, news agencies are bodies established to supply news reports to newspapers, magazines, and radio and television broadcasters. ...

See also

• Nilometer

– Herodotus Nilometer is the name given to one of several devices that are different in design but that all serve the same function: measuring water levels in the River Nile and thus allowing comparative historic records to be kept. ...

References

• China.org: Baiheliang: Ancient Hydrologic Station
• "Accident-maker reef no longer threatens Yangtze navigation"