ISLS. Lee—An Outline of Chinese Geology. 373 
From the Nan-shan Ranges Obrutchov reports the occurrence of 
fossiliferous Devonian generally consisting of a series of red and 
green sandstones and slates being occasionally underlain by a lime- 
stone which is also assigned to the Devonian ; and Silurian (?) con- 
sisting of highly metamorphosed strata such as quartzite, crystalline 
limestone, and even schist.t 
In the western Tsing-ling to the north of Liu-pa (about long. 
107° E., lat. 33° 40’ N.) Richthofen found a mighty sequence of 
limestone and sandstone apparently folded in an anticline. He 
maps them as “ Silurian and Devonian ”’.” 
Silurian and Devonian fossils ? have been found at many localities 
in the mountains bordering the northern and western sides of the 
Great Red Basin of Su-chuan. It appears that a continuous belt 
of marine Siluro-Devonian formation runs along the north-west 
side of the Red Basin. The Devonian, on the western side of the 
basin, seems to rest unconformably upon the older rocks; but 
merges as a rule into the Lower Carboniferous without any break, 
To the east of the Great Red Basin or in the western part of 
Hu-peh, Willis and Blackwelder distinguish a Sintan Formation * 
chiefly composed of a green shale being conformably underlain by 
the Kisinling Limestone of Sinian age, and conformably overlain 
by the Wushan Limestone of Carboniferous age. The occurrence of 
this series of shale in the Yang-tze gorges is also reported by 
Richthofen,® Abendanon,® and others.’ Abendanon holds that the 
- Sintan Formation underlies the Kisinling Limestone. This, however, 
does not appear to be the case. It is quite possible that the 
argillaceous series in the lower part of the Kisinling Limestone may 
have locally developed to a shaly facies resembling the Sintan series. 
Hence there arose the dispute. By a feasible argument which we 
need not discuss here, Willis and Blackwelder assign the Sintan 
Formation to the Siluro-Devonian period. What deserves our 
attention in this connexion is the occurrence of a thick series of 
ereen shale among the Siluro-Devonian strata exposed near the 
Ning-kiang district further west. According to Richthofen’s 
description this shale is lithologically similar to the Sintan rocks. 
In the lower Yang-tze Valley, apart from the limestones and the 
eraptolite-bearing shale of the Lun-shan, west-south-west of 
Chin-kiang, we do not hear of the occurrence of demonstrable 
Silurian rocks. Of the Devonian, Kingsmill and Richthofen describe 
1 ©. Diener, ‘‘ Die wichtigsten geogr. u. geol. Ergeb. d. Reisen Obrutschews 
in zentralen u. westlichen Nanschan’”’: Peter. Mitt., vol. xlviii, 1902, pp. 97-106. 
2 China, vol. ii, pp. 582-4, Tafel vii; Atlas Erste Abt. Tafel 24. 
% Loczy, op. cit., vol. i, pp. 432-5, 682-3; vol. ili, p. 22 et seq. China, 
vol. ii, pp. 595-601; vol. iv, pp. 37-102. Journ. Geol. Soc. Tokyo, 1915, 
No. 261, pp. 64, 67; No. 263, p. 87. 
4 Willis, op cit., vol. i, pt. 1, pp. 273-4. 
> China, vol. ili, pp. 106-8. 
6 Abendanon, ‘Die geol. d. Roten Beckens’’: Zeits. d. d. geol. Gesell., vol. lix, 
pp. 197-203; Journ. Geol. Chicago, vol. xvi, pp. 588-616. 
7 Noda, Bull. Imp. Jap. Geol. Surv., vol. xxv, No. 1, 1915, p. 67. 
