62 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN 



The Sinian, or N. E. S. W. system of elevation corresponds in many respects to 

 our Appalachian system, and if the analogy holds good throughout, it seems pro- 

 bable that the Sinian revolution terminated soon after the deposition of the Chinese 

 Coal measures, a supposition that is corroborated by the absence, so far as my 

 observation goes, of any younger formations elevated by this revolution. 



The apparently total absence, in the line of the Yangtse, of eruptive porphyries, 

 greenstones, trachytes, and basalts, seems to point to a corresponding absence of 

 subsequent disturbance through a large area of the country. 



Again, were there fossiliferous strata of the Jurassic or Cretaceous ages, their 

 petrifactions Avould be found in all parts of the empire, used as curiosities and as 

 medicines, as is the case with the fossil brachiopods and orthoceratites. This is 

 important evidence in China, where art is based on the remarkable, or rather 

 strange, in nature.^ 



In classifying the above tabulated data, I have assumed that the gold washings 

 are indicative of the neighborhood of the granito-metamorphic formation, and have 

 referred this to the adjacent ridges. I have also assumed that the limestone marble, 

 lime, caves, stalactites, and fossil brachiopods, etc., all point to the presence in each 

 locality of the same great bed of Devonian limestone. My o^vn observations in the 

 northern provinces and along the Yangtse, those of "Blackiston in Sz'chuen, and the 

 remarks of casual travellers in the south, all point to one, and only one, great 

 limestone formation, which everywhere underlies the coal-bearing rocks, and to 

 which, in all probability, all the indications above given refer. 



That the brachiopods belong to this formation is merely an inference, for I never 

 was able to find a fossil of any kind in the limestone. It is, however, an inference 

 based on circumstantial evidence, as when they are frequently cited as occurring in 

 caverns or in the same neighborhood with marble, or stalactites, etc., or in close 

 proximity to coal localities. 



With regard to the coal-bearing rocks, I have supposed the coals to belong to the 

 same age throughout the empire, excepting a few which seem, from their names, 

 to be tertiary brown coals. The similar character of the fossils, from the north and 

 from the Yangtse, and the position of given localities with reference to the lime- 

 stone in many parts of the country, favor the assumption. 



Had we good topographical maps of China, the sketch I am about to attempt 

 would be much facilitated ; but although the water-courses are laid down on the 

 Jesuit map, with a general approximation to accuracy that is very remarkable, we 

 have very little knowledge of the orography. In the first pages of this paper I 

 pointed out the prevalence of the northeast, southwest direction in the prominent 

 features of Eastern Asia, and went so far as to apply this rule to the establishing 



* Both the Chinese and Japanese have a strong taste for the bizarre in nature, as shown by their 

 fondness for dwarfed or deformed trees. Waterworn and cavernous rocks are carried long distances 

 to be used in ornamenting gardens, and quarries are worked for blocks of dendritic limestone to be 

 made into articles of furniture or ornament. All kinds of fossils are esteemed as medicines, and sold 

 as such in all apothecary shops, the brachiopods as Shiyen "stone swallows," and the fossil bones 

 and teeth, from caverns and loam deposits, as "dragon's teeth," "dragon's scales," "dragon's 

 bones," etc. 



