S. E. Hoicorth—The Loess. 343 



Lake basin, and covered the Adirondack Mountains, terminate. 

 This Loess in the Mississippi valley teems (according to Sir 

 C. Lyell, in Antiquity of Man, p. 237) with land-shells, and 

 occasionally graduates near the rivers into a subjacent and more 

 stratified deposit containing freshwater shells. 



I have made these observations as brief as possible, both because 

 my knowledge of the Loess is limited in the way already mentioned, 

 and because I desire to offer them as tentative only ; but I incline 

 very strongly to the belief, now less in fashion than it was, that the 

 explanation of Geological phenomena is to be sought in causes still 

 existing, rather than by resort either to causes wholly supposititious, 

 or only now found to be in action to some very subordinate extent. 



III. — The Loess — a Kejoinder. 

 By Henrt H. Howorth, F.S.A. 



WHATEVEE the result of this controversy, your readers will not 

 be ungrateful to me for having been the means of drawing 

 from such a distinguished explorer and geologist as Baron von 

 Eichthofen, the vigorous defence of his views which appears in the 

 last Number of the Geological Magazine. The admirable work he 

 has done in China it would be an impertinence in me to praise ; but 

 I may be allowed to say that a large part of it will outlive any 

 ephemeral discussions about the Loess — discussions in which there 

 must be a considerable element of doubt, whatever theory is adopted. 

 I cordially thank Baron von Eichthofen for the kindly terms in which 

 he refers to my writings on the history of the Mongols. Having done 

 so, I would express a feeling, shared perhaps by others than myself, 

 that, when discussing my views about the Loess, which were, I hope, 

 stated in deferential language, it was hardly necessary to adopt 

 expressions which are not quite judicial. The polemical vocabulary 

 of Germany is proverbiall}' somewhat tropical, and seems to some of 

 us to be more adapted to religious and political strife, where feeling 

 plays a large part, than to the dissection of cold scientific facts, where 

 neither authority nor vigorous assertion avails much. Especially is 

 this so in addressing a cultivated audience like that which your 

 pages are likely to reach. If Baron von Eichthofen's theory had 

 been generally accepted in the scientific world, a little emphatic 

 dogmatism might be overlooked; but as this is the very opposite of 

 the fact, and the only difference between us is, that while he is a 

 distinguished heretic, I am an obscure one, it seems to follow that 

 the most seemly language for each party to use, especially for the one 

 who has every claim to a wide reputation, is that of sobriety, if not 

 of hesitation. 



Turning from the manner to the matter of Baron Eichthofen's 

 paper, I confess to being greatly surprised. It is quite true that his 

 work upon China is incomparable in its way, and will become a 

 classic ; but he is not the only writer who has dealt with the Chinese 

 Loess after a long and familiar acquaintance with it. Father David, 

 whose admirable papers in the Nouvelles Archives du Museum 



