evidence: Shandong is dominated by two hill masses to the east-northeast of the Grand Canal and to the south-southwest of the present course of the Huang He. These hills are formed mainly of ancient crystalline shales and sedimentary rocks on their flanks and of hard, very ancient rocks with granitic intrusions in their core. Both masses are detached remnants of China’s most ancient geologic core. The easternmost (peninsular) mass is connected to the Liaodong Peninsula (Liaoning province) by a submerged ridge that extends northward from the Penglai area of the Shandong Peninsula and emerges periodically between the Bo Hai and Yellow Sea as the Miaodao Archipelago. In fairly recent geologic times, the Shandong hill masses stood as islands in an inland sea that separated them from the Taihang Mountains of Shanxi province to the west. [...] Shandong’s drainage is predominantly radial and subject to the prevailing configuration of the mountains. The only navigable river (other than portions of the Huang He) is the Xiaoqing River, which emerges from a small spring-fed lake in a limestone outcrop zone near Jinan and flows parallel to the Huang He before emptying into Laizhou Bay. The southern hills, in contrast, are drained by several rivers in arable valleys and eventually terminate in the marshy plain east of the Grand Canal in Jiangsu province.