592 E. C. ABENDANON 



the skippers of the river craft guided their boats over rapids and along 

 an almost rectangular bend in the river, where the current set straight 

 upon the steep chffs, this was certainly one of the finest and most 

 stirring of my water trips in China. The rapids are generally formed 

 in synclinal territory by bars of bowlders ; here the river is broad and 

 its banks are generally lower. Only once there was a fall of a few 

 feet in the bed of the river itself. In the limestone gorges the river is 

 much narrower and confined between high steep chffs. 



My observations there coincide pretty well with those of Willis 

 and Blackwelder. On pp. 277, 278 of their work' they say: "Along 

 the Ta-ning-ho the red series seems to be devoid of coal which may lie 

 higher in the system than any strata remaining in those synclines." 

 As I have already observed before, there only remain in these synclines 

 the strata that lie far below the sandstone formation with its layers 

 of coal. 



Ta-ch'ang is situated in a rather wide synchnal area. If we go 

 down the Ta-ning-ho, a very winding river, along whose course many 

 pebble banks form small rapids, we reach after a sharp bend the first 

 gorge, the Lao-men-hia.^ Here again the gorges-limestone strata is 

 folded up in an anticline of which the northern limb dips steeply and 

 the southern limb but faintly. It took us a little more than an hour 

 to pass this gorge. During twenty minutes we next float down 

 through a synclinal, more open area, with a dangerous rapid, which 

 leaves but a narrow passage-way between banks of pebbles; and then 

 we reach the next gorge, which exposes two lower folds pressed 

 together. The southern limb of the second of these folds dips 20°- 

 30° SSE. The gorge, called " Lung-chin-hu-cho-hia, " or "gorge of 

 the dragon and tiger," is passed in fifty minutes. Sin-t'an-hia^ is 

 situated at the lower end of the gorge, which again opens on a second 

 synclinal area, in which the river makes almost a loop. Here again 

 was a very difficult rapid, at least when the water is at the height 

 encountered by me. The next and fourth anticline is less broad, and 

 then, after a short synclinal area, there again follows a gorges-lime- 

 stone anticline, in which the now very swiftly flowing Ta-ning-ho has 

 excavated a narrow gorge. To reach this gorge we had to pass a very 



I Research in China. 2 Old Gate Gorge. 



3 Literally, New Rapid Gorge. 



