Reviews — Baron RicJitJiofeir' s China. 431 



ceerled by Carboniferous strata, frequently exhibiting an apparent 

 conformity with the underlying Cambrian. In the province of 

 Shensi, however, there is displayed a great series of shales and 

 limestones, estimated at 20,000 feet in thickness, which, by their 

 fossils, plainly show that they belong to the intervening periods. 

 Some of these beds are nearly entirely composed of corals of common 

 Silurian genera, and mention is made of platter-shaped examples, 

 probably of Favosites or Alveolites, which attain the dimensions of 

 a waggon wheel. According to Professor Lindstrom, these coral 

 beds are of the age of the Wenlock, and overlying them, limestones 

 occur with distinctive Devonian Brachiopods ; then follow Carboni- 

 ferous limestones, so that in this district there is a complete con- 

 formity of the strata from the Silurian to the Carboniferous. In 

 other localities the Silurian strata were penetrated by a great granitic 

 outburst, accompanied by colossal faults, before the deposition of the 

 Carboniferous. 



The lowest beds of the Carboniferous consist of limestones, fre- 

 quently bituminous, and with hornstone nodules. Their age is 

 definitely established by the presence of Producti, Spirifers, and other 

 fossils. Above these are beds of sandstone and shales with produc- 

 tive coal beds. The extent and importance of the workable coal 

 strata of Northern China are clearly shown by the author not only 

 in the detailed descriptions of the various basins, but also in a special 

 chapter in which a review is given of their position, the thickness 

 of tlae seams and the character of the coal present in each province. 

 The most remarkable of these coal basins appears to be that of the 

 Anthracite district in the South-east of the province of Shansi. It 

 comprises an area estimated at 10,150 geographical square miles, 

 throughout which a workable thickness of 40 feet of coal appears to 

 be present, which would give an amount of 620,000,000,000 tons 

 of coal. Along a line of 180 miles in length, beds of Anthracite 

 from 15 to 30 feet in thickness could be worked at almost any point. 

 The anthracite is of excellent quality and is compared to the best in 

 Pennsylvania. Nor is the coal the only product of this district, 

 for in close proximity there is an abundance of excellent iron ore. 

 In other portions of this province the author estimates that bitumin- 

 ous coal, equal in quantity to the anthracite, is present, and this 

 latter alone would be sufficient to supply the consumption of the 

 world, at its present rate of 300 million tons annually, for 2100 

 years. At the present time these coal strata are worked only on a 

 very small scale, and at the mine the cost of the coal per ton is 

 somewhat under two shillings. 



Most of the highland areas of the North of China appear to have 

 been upheaved at the conclusion of the Carboniferous period, and 

 only in one or two localities have rocks of Permian or Triassic age 

 been noticed. In one place, however, variously tinted limestones, 

 1000 feet in thickness, are supposed to belong to one or other of 

 these systems ; and overlying these are beds of sandstone and clays 

 with thin seams of coal, in all over 2000 feet in thickness. Judging 

 from the plant remains these strata belong to the epoch of the Lower 



