EASTERN TS'IN-UNG-SHAN. 15 



in which coal-beds occur. This is the section in the southern ridge, the 

 Kiu-li-shan. A range which succeeds on the north consists of crystalline 

 limestone, crystalline schists, gneiss, and a large mass of granite. The 

 granite rises 2,500 to 3,000 feet, 750 to 900 meters, above the narrow pass; 

 it consists of a ground-mass of orthoclase, greenish plagioclase, much quartz, 

 some brown mica, and sporadic hornblende of medium texture, in which 

 occur crystals of bright flesh-red orthoclase, that have the form of Carlsbad 

 twins and attain a diameter of 4 inches. 



The granite is plainly intrusive in the gneiss, which it traverses in 

 large dikes. Quartz veins are also extensively developed. Crystalline 

 schists intruded by quartz porphyry complete the section of the range on 

 the north. Oolitic limestone of Sinian character, but which seemed to 

 be unfossiliferous, occurs in a parallel ridge a short distance to the north 

 and is unconformably overlain by coal-bearing sandstones. The latter are 

 intruded by "greenstones" and porphyritic eruptives. Von Richthofen 

 maps the crystalline schists and associated rocks of the region as "gneiss 

 and crystalline schists in general," with the color with which he indicates 

 the pre-Sinian (Archean) basement. The assignment to a pre-Sinian age 

 is borne out by the apparent relation between the metamorphics and the 

 unaltered strata classed as Sinian. In the grouping which is adopted in 

 this report the predominantly sedimentary rocks of pre-Sinian age fall 

 into the Proterozoic and their lithologic associations are with the Wu-t'ai 

 system, or possibly with the Hu-t'o. A qualification of this inference lies 

 in the intrusive character of the granite and its possible Mesozoic age. If 

 the metamorphism is the effect of an episode of deformation with which 

 the intrusions are related, and the granite is post-Carboniferous, then the 

 schists, quartzites, and crystalline limestones may be Paleozoic. There 

 is, however, nothing to sustain this qualification except the fact that post- 

 Paleozoic granites occur in the Ts'in-ling-shan. Although not in the 

 least gneissoid, and therefore apparently young, the intrusive is in this 

 respect, as well as in petrographic constitution, identical with the Korea 

 granite of Shan-tung and Liau-tung, which von Richthofen determined 

 to be pre-Sinian* and with which he compares it. 



The Sung-shan in Ho-nan, one of China's five holy mountains, was 

 seen by von Richthofen from a distance. It is an isolated mass estimated 

 by him at 8,000 feet altitude. A principal peak, the Yii-tsai-shan, exhibits 

 the form common to masses of the coarse granite, while the main range 

 shows those sculptured from crystalline schists. A relatively low ridge, 

 the "Hsiung-shan,"on the south of the Sung-shan, appeared to the traveler 

 to consist of lower and upper Sinian strata resting on a base of schists. 



* China, vol. n, p. 83. 



