20 /. S. Lee — Recent Ice-action in N. China. 



there is as a rule a mantle of loess. On the bottom of the valley 

 several sub-angular, half -polished and scratched boulders, or pebbles, 

 were found at different localities (PI. II, Figs. 3, 4). They appear 

 to be closely associated with the detritus deposit. As far as I am 

 able to judge, no distinction can be made between these and any of 

 the typical striated boulders found in the Boulder-clay. It is 

 inconceivable that they are of different origin. 



If the facts brought forward here amount to positive evidence of 

 recent glaciation, as they appear to the writer, we may proceed to 

 consider what data are available to show that these are not merely 

 local phenomena. In the case of southern Chi-li the mean altitude 

 of the glaciated area cannot be much more than 300 feet above the 

 vast alluvial plain of N.E. China, and no enormously high mountains 

 could have existed in its neighbourhood which might have let down 

 boulders from their ice-caps in late Tertiary time, and have since 

 been planed away or subsided. Moreover, the quartzite pebbles or 

 the " Egg-stones " already referred to, are known to occur in 

 multitudes on many a hill-top east of the Tai-hang range ; and they 

 are everywhere immediately overlain by the Hwangtu or the loess. 

 Seeing that these quartz pebbles associate with striated boulders in 

 the Sha-yuan-ling, it does not seem improbable that they maintain 

 elsewhere a similar relation with the glacial deposit. As regards 

 the possibility of local glaciation due to great elevation of land, 

 the argument used to dispose of the case of southern Chi-li can 

 be likewise appropriately applied to the case of the Tatung Basin,, 

 though it should be mentioned that the mean altitude here is much 

 greater, being 3,600 feet above the plain of Peking. Nevertheless, 

 unless there had been a profound change of climatic conditions, 

 including at least a general lowering of temperature, glaciation 

 would have been obviously impossible. 



In many parts of N. China, jjarticularly on the eastern side of 

 the Tai-hang Range and its north-eastern continuation, the loess is 

 underlain by a detritus deposit, fairly uniform in character. From 

 its constant association with the loess and from its mixed appearance 

 it may be interpreted as the product of torrential rain which might 

 have foreshadowed the advent of desert conditions on the one hand, 

 but on the other there is no reason why it cannot be a glacio- 

 fluviatile deposit. The wide distribution of this deposit is a fact 

 which rather tends to show its glacial origin. While there is no 

 further confirmation to decide this case, it is reassuring to note 

 the reported occurrence of woolly rhinoceros in the Yang-tze Valley. 

 The latter fact, when established, would imply wide prevalence of low 

 temperatures on the eastern Asiatic continent as the Tertiary period 

 drew near its end. 



In the light of these facts one cannot but admire the keen insight 

 of James Geikie, who, basing his opinion on scattered observations 

 between Si-ngan and Toong-kwan, Southern Sh en-si, the north-east 

 corner of Shan-tung, and Mongolia, stated nearly half a century ago, 



