GEOLOGIC HISTOEY OF CHINA — BLACKWELDEE. 393 



country is not too rough, the two-wheeled cart is the usual conveyance 

 for merchandise. Over the mountain passes, however, and in many 

 of the smaller valleys, roads are so narrow that carts can not be used, 

 and so here pack animals, particularlj^ horses and mules, are sub- 

 stituted. The traveler in this part of China is often reminded of his 

 proximity to Mongolia by the frequent sight of camels. They are 

 nevertheless not indigenous beasts of burden and the inhabitants 

 themselves do not use them. 



In consequence of the swampy state which prevailed in this part of 

 China far back in the carboniferous period, thick deposits of coal 

 were formed. These are now exposed in the deep valley slopes be- 

 tween beds of limestone and sandstone, and the circumstance has 

 made Shansi Province the principal coal-producing district of China. 

 The coal is mined by very primitive methods and as there is still no 

 adequate system of railroads in this or any other part of the empire, 

 the product can be transported only in carts or on pack animals. 

 Either of these modes of carriage is so expensive that it becomes un- 

 profitable to transport the coal more than 60 to 100 miles from the 

 mine, and so the denizens of a great part of northern China, where 

 fuel is scarce and the winters are severe, are no more able to obtain it 

 than as if the United States contained the only coal fields in the 

 world. The advantages that will accrue from the building of rail- 

 roads in northern China are many, but one of the greatest will be the 

 wide distribution of this essential fuel. 



In going south by west from the plateau country, one enters a re- 

 gion of warmer climate and more generous rainfall, which, for want 

 of a more distinctive name, I have called the Central Ranges. This 

 is the part of China which was particularly affected by the rock- 

 folding movements of the Jurassic period, and which in a much more 

 i-ecent time has been reelevated and therefore newlj^ attacked by the 

 streams and other erosive agencies. Broadly regarded, it is a com- 

 plex of sharp mountain ridges and spurs with narrow intervening 

 valleys. The ridges are not so high, however, but that they are clad 

 with vegetation, and the scenery is therefore not alpine. The surface 

 is nevertheless very rugged and its internal relief averages at least 

 3,000 feet. The roughest parts of our Carolinas resemble it in a 

 measure. In such a region obviously there is no room for a dense 

 population. Wherever there is a little widening of the bottom of the 

 valley there is a farm or occasionally a. small village, and even the 

 scattered benches high up the mountain sides are reached by steep 

 trails and diligently cultivated. But even when all of these are com- 

 bined, the total area of land under settlement is relatively small. 



In this region there are no railroads whatever, and although wagon 

 roads could be built in some places, they would be expensive, and the 

 Chinese have not yet attempted to make them. All travel and com- 



