GEOLOGY. 251 



Chews, and Formosa. In other words, this plain extonds out east- 

 ward to the mountain range which stretches along the proper 

 eastern edge of the Asiatic continent, the true Pacific basin begin- 

 ning only eastward of the islands just named. 



If the north of China were to be raised but 120 feet, the whole 

 Gulf of Pechili would become dry land, and if it were elevated as 

 much more, in place of the Yellow Sea there would be a continu- 

 ous plain from Peking to Corea, and such a change is now actually 

 going on. At Chefoo, on the northern side of the promontory of 

 Shantung, there is a long sand-pit extending out from the main 

 land to a high headland, and forming the western side of the 

 harbor. On this spit are seen two old sea-beaches as perfect as 

 the present one. The highest is but a few feet above the sea, yet 

 it shows what kind of a change the surrounding area has recently 

 undergone, and this is farther strengthened by the testimony of 

 all the Chinese that '* the harbor is slowly filling up." 



According to Rev. Mr. Metier, there has been an elevation of 14.1 

 English feet in 250 years, or nearly 5 feet in a century, of the bed 

 of the Gulf of Pechili. If this area had subsided instead of rising 

 14 feet, probably one-third of the low, thickly populated parts of 

 China would then be beneath the sea. 



In the Nankau pass, and for some distance about the place 

 where it opens out to the plain, there appear large quantities of 

 transported boulders. Tiiese were probably borne near to the 

 places the}^ now occupy by an old glacier that once filled up this 

 pass, and brought them down from the neighboring mountains, or 

 perhaps even from the southern borders of the high plateau of 

 Mongolia, on which this river of ice probably took its rise. But a 

 short distance from the mouth of the pass, in every direction over 

 the plain, these boulders completely disappear. Many of them 

 have been gathered by the farmers to make walls of their houses, 

 but as few are to be seen in the clay banks, the question naturally 

 arises, whether the materials that now fill the Peking basin have 

 not been so completely sorted and resorted b}^ the action of the 

 waves, as the land has risen and sunk from the level of the sea, 

 that the larger boulders are mostly resting on the rocky floor of 

 the basin, or at least at a considerable distance below the present 

 surface of the ground. 



As we followed the flanks of the mountains southward, we came 

 to a remarkable depression in the plain, evidently the bed of a 

 lake that had recently been drained off, not over the plain toward 

 Pekin, but through some rent in the mountains toward the west, 

 into the present channel of the Yang Ho, and along the course of 

 this river to the Gulf of Pechili. Farther down the Yang Ho a 

 small stream comes in on the south-west from a valley where are 

 located the coal mines of Mun-to-kow. This minor valley is 

 bordered with a terrace of 40 or oO feet in height. Besides these 

 evidences of the late presence of the sea in this region, he was 

 shown at Peking some shells from banks in the vicinity, and 

 believes they were all of the same species as are now to be found 

 in the Gulf of Pechili, 



All these changes have occurred without especially attracting the 



