ON THE PAGODA STONE OF THE CHINESE. 399 



Yangtse. They are got from the cliffs by the side 

 of the river, but are plentiful in elevated and low 

 positions all over the district, so that good specimens 

 may be picked up by the vv^ayside. The district is 

 wild and mountainous, full of bold cliffs and sharp 

 fantastic peaks. 



Though there are coal beds in the province of 

 Hupeh, none are worked within fifty miles of this 

 limestone. As in other countries there must also 

 be numerous faults in these beds, for the coal is 

 exposed at the surface in the gorge of the Yangtse 

 and its affluents in several places,* so that it becomes 

 very difficult to form any accurate idea as to the 

 true position of the limestone in question without 

 more exact evidence as to its relation to the car- 

 boniferous or the old red sandstone (Devonian) 

 rocks. Mr. Cockburn has sent a fragment of an 

 Orthoceras picked up from the debris at the foot of 

 one of the cliffs, and along with it from the same 

 place a Brachiopod; but from a single species it 

 would be rash to determine whether the Orthoceras 

 belonged to the Silurian, Devonian, or Carboniferous 

 beds. In the meantime it must be left, as it stands 

 in the British Museum, labelled " Devonian ? " j 



The peasants at idle seasons prospect the lime- 

 stone ; and when a fine large Orthoceras is found, 

 the stone is cut out in a block, and sawn on the 

 spot into plates or longitudinal sections. They are 

 polished and taken into I'chang, where about half-a- 

 dozen carpenters, in addition to their ordinary busi- 

 ness, deal in them. They are then varnished and 

 mounted in carved frames on stands, and are much 

 admired as handsome and appropriate ornaments 

 wherewith to decorate reception-rooms and temples ; 

 in the latter they are sometimes inlaid in the floor. 

 The stock in hand is very small, as Mr. Cockburn does 



* A. Little, loc. cit. 



t Since reading this paper I have shown the Brachiopod to 

 Mr. Etheridge, F.R.S., who says it is a Spirifera, very Hke S. 

 glabra. 



F 



