GEOLOGY OF LEW CHEW. 185 



into a hill of some elevation, but so soft as easily to be cut by a hatchet. This granite is of a 

 grey color, sometimes almost white ; and its mica, which is black, lies scattered about in the 

 mass in beautiful six-sided crystals, giving it often a handsome appearance. 



The talcose slate has a strike of S. 10° W., and a dip to the W. of 60°. It is mixed with 

 quartz and other foreign ingredients of a hard character, and comes to the surface in sharp, 

 jagged edges ; very severe upon the feet. 



The argillaceous rock gives some marked features to the island. The rounded hills south of 

 Barrow's Bay are all of this. Being soft, it yields readily to foreign agencies, and is often 

 broken into bare faces, with perpendicular sides ; and thus, at the head of their valleys, some- 

 times presents us with beautiful cascades. It also forms the chief ingredient in the soil of the 

 island — in wet weather a very adhesive clay. 



But the limestone dykes are the distinguishing feature of, at least, this portion of Lew Chew. 

 They cross the island in ranges of N. 50° E. and N. G0° E., rising up into peaks and castellated 

 forms, often so much like ruins of ancient buildings as to make a near examination necessary in 

 order to undeceive ourselves. The rock is highly granular, but still has in it, not unfrequent 

 remains of marine animals. Sometimes it is sufficiently compact ; but, though always hard, it 

 is generally so vesicular as, when weather-stained, to have exactly the appearance of lava, for 

 which, indeed, it is often mistaken. Its vesicular character opens it to the action of foreign 

 agencies, and, in consequence, along the sea and bay shores it is often undermined by the waves, 

 or, if harder pebbles find their way there, is by their friction worked into kettle-shaped holes, 

 with ragged, knife-shaped edges between. Where the roads in Lew Chew are paved it is with 

 this vesicular rock ; and the pavement can be exceeded, in discomfort to the traveller, only by 

 the sticky mud, from which it is intended to be a protection. 



On the second day of our journey (Tuesday) we were, towards noon, travelling on the summit 

 of one of these limestone ridges, with precipitous sides descending on either hand. I was ahead 

 of the party and saw before me, by and by, a something, which I took, at first, to be the natural 

 rock crossing my road ; till, presently, I saw what looked like a window, or some such opening, 

 at its top. A nearer approach showed it, to my great surprise, to be this old deserted castle of 

 Chun-Ching. 



The builders had taken advantage of a spot where the two perpendicular faces of the ridges 

 approached each other sufficiently near ; and here, on the edges of the natural rock, had erected 

 their walls, giving to the sides of their castle a great additional height ; one end, also, was in 

 part protected by a similar bold face of the rock. The road by which I came was conducted along 

 outside of the main castle, though it was still carried through the fortifications, which it entered 

 and left through gateways in very thick walls. The walls themselves were in the style so com- 

 mon in Lew Chew, called in architecture the Cyclopean style, though the stones employed here 

 are much smaller than their architypes in the old Cyclopean walls of Greece. The builders of 

 Chun-Ching contrived also to give their walls that inward curve which seems to have been the 

 fashion in Lew Chew castellated buildings, and which we see also in the royal castle in Sheudi. 

 Since our return I have learnt, through Dr. Bettelheim, that Chun-Ching was once a royal 

 residence. There were, in early times, seven kingdoms in Lew Chew, each with its royal castle 

 or capitol, and Chun-Ching was one of them. The number was afterwards reduced to three, 

 then to one, as it at present remains. 



What I have marked as places for burning incense (a, a, &c.) are little oven-like buildings, 

 which are common, also, to their temples and hung-laoas, and which Dr. B. tells me are for 

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