22 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN 



covered with snow, rendering their great domes visible from the valley of the 

 Yang Ho, towering above the mountains that occupy the intervening space of sixty 

 or eighty miles. From the low Nankau pass, we descend to the Kwei IIo, a small 

 tributary of the Yang Ho, which occupies a broad N. E. S. W. valley. 



High terraces of a recent lake-deposit occupy the greater part of the valley, con- 

 cealing the rocks and resting at =Chatau on the granite. About a mile west of 

 Chatau rise small hills of a porphyry conglomerate, in beds trending E. N. E. and 

 dipping to N. N. W. about 40°. As we go toward Yiilin the fragments and rub- 

 ble on the surface consist of porphyry, granite, and some limestone. 



Descending from the lake terraces and crossing the flats of the Kwei Ho we reach 

 Hweilai (hien), situated on the terrace that fringes the northern border of the 

 valley. Within the walls of this city limestone is seen to crop out in beds trending 

 nearly N. E., and dipping to N. AY. Going N. W. from here, over the terrace, 

 the only index to the structure of the neighboring hills is in the angular and 

 rounded fragments on the surface, and these consist of homblendic gneiss, granite, 

 quartz, porphyries and limestone till Shachimg. 



Between this city and the town of Sinpaungan the hills consist of the Coal mea- 

 sures, resting on the limestone, which here dips N. W. into the mountains called 

 Papaushan. (See sect. PL III.) Between the coal rocks of this mountain and the 

 remarkable limestone hill Kimingshan, there is an anticlinal basin filled with gravels 

 of the lake terrace deposit, and formed by the erosion of an anticlinal fold of the 

 limestone. 



In the Iviming mountain the limestone beds are almost vertical, and so highly 

 metamorphosed that in places the rock is almost flint, and their trend has changed to 

 N. S. On the western side of the hill are the vertical strata of the Coal measures 

 with seams of anthracite of poor quality, that have long been worked. The coal 

 rocks of Kiming bend around the northern end of the hill, and extend away to the 

 east, while on the other side of the Yang Ho they seem to extend up the valley of 

 the Sankang Ho. 



Crossing this small field to the northwest along the Yang Ho, we reach a deep 

 gorge, through which the river traverses the limestone ridge that forms the northern 

 border of the coal basin. In this gorge the limestone trends N. 70° to 75° E., dip- 

 ping 25° to S. by E. ^ E. Near the village of Hiangshui (pu), at the N. W. end 

 of the gorge, the limestone suddenly ceases, and an open country of low hills of a 

 peculiar rock, an amygdaloid, succeeds to the high ridge of limestone. Near the 

 line of contact, the limestone trends as before, E. by N., dipping to S. by E., while 

 the beds of the amygdaloid have the same trend, but a northerly dip. Here we 

 seem to be on the line of an immense fault, for, although the fault itself was not 

 seen, everything seems to point to it. The amygdaloid contains fragments of lime- 

 stone, and strongly resembles in every respect a similar rock, which we shall see 

 further on, forming a member of the Kiming Coal measures. This slip must have 

 been extensive, as the limestone cliffs seem to be nearly 1000 feet high. The 

 amygdaloid, corresponding apparently to the Schalstein of the Germans, is, perhaps, 

 a tufa of the greenstone-porphyry that occurs in it in fragments. 



We soon emerge from these hills upon the plains of Siuenhwa (fu) , which occupy 



