7() H. H. SoiDorth — A Great Post- Glacial Flood. 



it caps some of the highest hills or table-land arouud Brussels at 

 the height of 300 feet above the sea (Lyell's Antiquity of Man, pp. 

 377-379). Credner tells us that on the slopes of the valleys of the 

 Oder and the Vistula it is found to a height of 400 metres above 

 the sea-level (Credner, op. cit. p. 669). Jentsch speaks of it as 

 covering the plateaux about the Elbe. Between Briesswitz and 

 Lentewitz it is found at 400-450 feet above the sea, while at 

 Nothinz it occurs as high as 770 feet above the sea-level (op. cit. 

 p. 39). But it is in China that the high-level Loess is so pre- 

 dominant. There it overspreads hills and valleys alike, and Mr. 

 Kingsmill tells us that in Shansi and Mongolia it occurs at a height 

 of 6000 feet, and in a deposit of the depth of 1000 feet. In the 

 southern limits of the Chinese Loess in Kiang-su, he says it does 

 not at present rise to more than 200 feet, though apparent fragments 

 on the sides of the hills rise possibly to 400 feet (Journ. Geol. Soc. 

 vol. xxvii. p. 382). These facts are very suggestive. It is incredible 

 that subaerial deposits should have been deposited at a height of 

 6000 feet, and to the depth of 1000 feet, as it is incredible that 

 such deposits should have been accumulated in a mantle of many 

 feet over the high ground where the Loess is now so' abundant. 

 There is only one conclusion possible, namely, that the upland 

 Loess is not in sitii, that it has been largely transported to where 

 it is now found. The question that suggests itself therefore is, what 

 was the transporting power? Following the analogy of snow-drifts, 

 which, when first the snow falls, ai-e arranged in a continuous mantle, 

 and are afterwards heaped up in certain favourable localities by the 

 wind, Baron Richthofen suggested that the wind was a prime 

 element in the distribution of the Loess, and that the deposit largely 

 consists of the fine dust of the Shamo Desert, acted upon by north 

 winds blowing for untold ages. This view is surely not tenable. 

 Pere David and Mr. Kingsmill have both reasonably objected to 

 it, but have not stated the most cogent reasons. The first is, that 

 it treats the problem as a local Chinese problem, while it ignores 

 that the Loess has to be accounted for in Europe as well as in 

 China ; and here we have no Shamo Desert or other sources 

 whence storm winds could bring the fine calcareous sand. Secondly, 

 the blowing of such winds continuously, argues a very dry climate, 

 while the land-shells in the Loess argue just the reverse. Thirdly, 

 the theory ignores the contents of the Loess. How could the shells 

 and the animal debris be carried by the wind ? If the former were 

 rolled along by a hurricane for a few hundreds of miles, they would 

 become broken and weathered, and not be fresh as they are now. But 

 even a hurricane would be inadequate to move the remains of Mam- 

 moths and Rhinoceroses for such a distance. Fourthly, wind acting 

 on sand would form great ranges of dunes along the northern 

 frontiers of China ; but this is not the mode of occurrence of the 

 Loess. Lastly, the cause assigned by Baron Richthofen would mei'ely 

 account for the transfer of the Loess from Mongolia to China, and 

 not, as he supposes, explain the origin of the Loess itself. As Mr. 

 Kingsmill says, unless the winds passed over the Loess itself, it is 



