12 ART. 1 — B. KOTO: 



III. OROGRAPHY. 



The fundamental features of the topography of Korea, as in other 

 lands, are the result of internal geologic structure. Indeed the penin- 

 sula was the battle-ground of earth-movements of two directions — 

 the Sinian and the Liau-tung. In the south of the lava-drowned rift- 

 valley of Chyuk-ka-ryöng, already mentioned, the axes of crust- 

 folds are mainly N.N.E. — S.S.W., i.e. the Sinian. In the extreme 

 north (in the Kai-ma plateau), the. fold-mountains run from W.S.W. to 

 E.NYE, in the Liau-tung direction. The earth-movements had folded 

 the core of gneiss-granite together with the overlying mantle of 

 normal gneiss and mica-schist. The kernel of South Korea is the 

 wedge-shaped massive of Chi-ri-san at the boundary of Chyol-la Do 

 and Kyöng-syang Do. That of the north is also the wedge-shaped 

 massive of Kai-ma Land. These Sinian and Liau-tung massives, 

 together with their overlying mantles meet each other with their 

 apices, and struggle for the supremacy in north-eastern Ham-gyöng 

 Do, thus leaving between them the third wedge of low neutral land. 



Therefore, the peninsula is divisible orographically into 3 gigantic 

 wedges. The south, embracing the whole of South Korea, is the old 

 land of The Three Hans. North Korea is again divided into the 

 Kai-ma plateau, and the intersertal wedge, — the land of old Chyo-syön 

 or Paleo-Chyo-syön. 



I have still to mention a third clement. This time the earth- 

 movement did not produce folds, but ruptured and dislodged 

 the crust, tilting up the edge. The main edge runs N.N.W. to 

 S.S.E., at the margin of the Sea of Japan, facing its high scarp to. 

 the deep shore. This tectonic disturbance, relatively of young age, 

 produced prominent ridges which constitute the backbone and deter- 

 mine the present topography. The outline of the peninsula is due in 



