Fúzhōu

Fuzhou stands where the Wu River joins the Yangtze, amid the hills of eastern Sichuan. In the river nearby lies White Crane Ridge, a long natural stone outcrop that emerges when the water falls low. Its carved stone fish and inscriptions became a remarkable record of the river's changing levels. The earliest fish were carved before 763, and later generations added inscriptions whenever exceptionally low water exposed the ridge. Officials, scholars and travellers left words beside the marks, recording years of drought as well as their own visits. Across the centuries the stone gathered a history of the Yangtze's low waters, written in the riverbed itself.