a 
J. 8. Lee—An Outline of Chinese Geology. 371 
determination of age. The black-brown crystalline limestone of 
Lun-shan! (about long. 119° 30’ E., lat. 32° 5’ N.), in the lower 
Yang-tze Valley, may, however, be assigned to the Sinian without 
any hesitation, for it contains abundant characteristic oolites and 
globulites, and several Ordovician species; further, it is overlain 
by a graptolite-bearing shale. 
Having briefly referred to the distribution and successions of 
the Sinian rocks, we now proceed to interpret their significance. 
During the transitional period from the Wutai-Nankou Era to the 
early Cambrian time or the Manto epoch, the whole of northern China 
having been already eroded to a vast peneplain, gradually and 
uniformly came under the transgressive Sinian water. On the 
other hand, the south and the south-east of the country were then 
probably dominated by mountains or highlands from which pre- 
sumably was derived the gritty material that forms the lower 
Cambrian beds in eastern Yun-nan. In central China little is known 
about the geographical distribution and the stratigraphical position 
of the Nantou Tillite. Weare, as yet, unable to offer any solution to 
many interesting scientific problems: whether, for instance, such 
an early glaciation was due to the general lowering of temperature 
in northern and central China by some secuiar cause or due to the 
great elevation of land surface resulting from the post-Wutai- 
Nankou and pre-Cambrian movement; and whether the glaciation 
did really take place in the early Cambrian time as maintained by 
Willis and Blackwelder. For further research the similar cases in 
Norway and North America should be naturally brought to our 
comparative study. 
The drowned ancient land continued to subside under the Sinian 
sea, leading to the deposition of finer and calcareous material. 
Paleontological evidence also points to the same effect. The 
Manto sea with its Redlichia fauna undoubtedly extended from 
Shan-tung, Yun-nan to the Punjab and Australia. There was 
little faunal communication with the western world. But soon after 
the commencement of the Middle Cambrian period the Dorypyge 
or the Ptychoparia fauna began to thrive. The Sinian sea by this 
stage was thrown open to free migration of organisms, and con- 
sequently swarmed with cosmopolitan forms of life. Walcott has 
demonstrated that the Dorypyge fauna of China is not only present 
in western North America, but associates with the Paradoxides fauna 
of north-west Europe. 
Although the Sinian sea effected a sweeping transgression, the 
main ranges of the Tsing-ling and the Nan-shan region, however, 
stood above the water for the most part, if not the whole of the period. 
No rocks of demonstrable Sinian age have yet been found in these 
1 China, vol. iii, p. 718. Theage of the Lunshan Limestone is undoubtedly 
discussed by Mr. V. K. Ting in a paper on ‘“‘ The Geology below Wu-hu”’, 
Hwangpu Conservancy, July or August, 1919, Shanghai. Unfortunately, 
the writer is unable to obtain the paper. 
