294 Prof. Baron F. Richthofen — On the Origin of the Loess. 



in it have been prepared by Messrs. Dames, Kayser, Lindstrom, 

 Schenk and Schwager. Unfortunately, the topographical and geolo- 

 gical maps relating to Northern China (14 sheets), which will be 

 published as the first portion of an Atlas of China, are not yet 

 ready, and the second volume, to which this first series of maps 

 belongs, must make its way for some time without their aid. 



I hope that, if you should consider the book worthy of a special 

 notice in the Magazine, the reviewer will kindly take into considera- 

 tion that, with the exception of the very able report of Pumpelly on 

 a district of comparatively small extent in the vicinity of Peking, 

 this is the first attempt towards the geological description of a vast 

 region which, orographically as well as geologically, was entered by 

 me as a terra incognita, and that as a solitary wanderer I did not 

 enjoy the advantages oifered to the geological member of a well- 

 equipped expedition, who can devote all his energy to one single 

 class of subjects, and is neither occupied with the construction of his 

 own topographical maps, nor hampered by the daily-recurring care 

 of pack-mules, carriage -bearers, etc. 



The first volume of my work, which was published in 1877, has 

 not been sent to the Geological Magazine, because its contents were 

 chiefly geographical and historical. One geological problem only 

 was treated in it at considerable length; this is, the origin of the 

 Loess and the mode of growth of the soil of steppes. It appears to 

 me, therefore, quite natural that the book should have been taken 

 notice of by only a few geologists. But I might have expected that 

 a prominent scholar, who in his literary studies has moved over the 

 same ground with me and, although with a far wider scope of learn- 

 ing than I acquired and at very much greater length than I was able 

 to devote to the subject, has treated the history of Central Asia, 

 should have at least glanced at the contents of the book. Such, 

 however, has evidently not been done by Mr. EL H. Howorth, when 

 he undertook to discuss the question of the origin of the Loess in 

 two numbers of the Magazine (January and February, 1882), and 

 it appears that my publications on the subject have completely 

 escaped his knowledge. All he knows respecting a theory on the 

 mode of origin of the Chinese Loess, which 1 first advanced in 1870, 

 is taken from the few lines of a foot-note of a paper by Mr. Kingsmill, 

 who, in 1871, accepting the name of Loess, which I applied to the 

 Chinese deposits, suggested a theory of a marine origin for them 

 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxvii. pp. 376 to 383).^ If the words 

 in which Mr. Howorth mentions my theory did really render it, his 



1 The theory of the siibaerial origin of the Loess, which, according to Mr. Howorth 

 (p. 16), " has received the sanction of Eichthofen and Pumpelly," but which, in fact, 

 was started by me and endorsed by M. Eaph. Pumpelly (iV. Y. Nation, April 14, 1878), 

 who had advocated before a fluviatile origin, was noticed first very briefly in my Letter 

 on the provinces of Monan and Shansi, Shanghai, 1870, pp. 9-10, and at some greater 

 length in my Lttter on the provinces of Chili, Shansi, Shensi, etc., Shanghai, 1872, 

 p. 13-18. The full discussion of the subject is given in China, vol. i. pp. 56 to 189, 

 and a short abstract in Yerhandlungen der K. E. geologischen Beichsanstalt, 1878, pp. 

 289 to 296. I could not avoid reverting to it repeatedly in China, vol. ii. (see for 

 descriptions f. i. pp. 349-351, 422 427, 530-533, o50-551, and for discussion, pp. 

 741 to 766). 



