PREFACE. 



The material for the following pages was collected since 1860. Leaving the 

 Eastern States in that year, and crossing the plains to Arizona, I remained there 

 nearly a year in charge of silver mines. Being forced by the Indian troubles to 

 abandon that territory, I entered Mexico, and after a midsummer journey over the 

 deserts of the Pacific coast, between Sonora and California, reached the latter State. 



Leaving California with one companion, Prof. William P. Blake, both of us 

 engaged by the Japanese Government to explore the island of Yesso, we sailed for 

 Japan via the Sandwich islands. The engagement with the Japanese Government 

 lasted but little more than a year, when it was suddenly brought to an end by the 

 fierce political troubles of that time. It was during hasty journeys of reconnoissance 

 that the notes relating to Yesso were jotted down, and at a time when I hoped to 

 be able to make a much more thorough study of the geology of Japan. 



It was with true regret that I left the service of a government whose courtesy 

 had made a lasting impression on my memory, and with whose struggles for progress 

 as against exclusiveness I deeply sympathized. 



Crossing to China, after a short visit to Nagasaki, I ascended the Yangtse Kiang 

 into Central Hunan, and to the frontier of Sz'chuen, a great part of the journey 

 being made in a small Chinese boat, and occupying four months of the spring and 

 summer of 1863. 



The autumn and winter of 1863 and spring of 1864 were spent in examining the 

 Coal fields west of Peking, for the Chinese Government, and in journeys in Northern 

 China and Southern Mongolia. 



I spent the summer of 1864 at Nagasaki. 



In the winter of 1864 and 1865, in company with Mr. T. Walsh, of Japan, and 

 Mr. F. R. St. John, Secretary of the British Legation at Peking, I crossed into 

 Siberia, and thence, alone, travelled overland to St. Petersburg and Paris. 



Thus the journeys which furnished the data for the following pages were as fol- 

 lows : — 



I. In 1862 over the ground indicated in the sketch map of southern Yesso, PI. 

 No. 8, and excursions in the neighborhood of Yokohama. 



II. In 1863 excursions in the vicinity of Nagasaki ; a journey up the Yangtse 

 Kiang to the boundary between Hupeh and Sz'chuen, and into southern ELunan ; 

 and excursions from Peking into the mountains of northwestern Chihli. 



III. In 1864 a journey in southern Mongolia, along the edge of the plateau to 



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