62 Trof. Milne — Across Europe and Asia. 



crystallized minerals. Our time, however, was up. The opening of 

 the Meeting of the British Association in Glasgow, at which we 

 were anxious to he present, was about to take place, and if we 

 wished to avoid missing it, we were under the necessity, without 

 delay, of embarking in one of the numerous steamboats plying 

 between Belfast and that great Scottish industrial town. 



III. — Across Europe and Asia. — Travelling Notes. 



By Professor John Milne, F.G.S. ; 



Imperial College of Engineering, Tokei, Japan. 



(Concluded from p. 37.) 



Tart IX. — Through China, Kalgan, PeMn, Shanghai. 



Contents. — Kalgan to Pekin — Geology of the district — Devonian Limestone — 

 Coal Measures — Granite — AUuvium^Degradation of Steep Mountains. Pekin 

 to Tiensin and Shanghai — Geology of the Country — ^Carboniferous Limestone — 

 Granite — Alluvial Plain — Its origin by deposition of river mud and elevation. 

 General Conclusion. 



AFTER much slipping and sliding — for the small stream of water 

 which flows down the pass had often glazed it from side to 

 side — we reached the village of Yamborshan, just outside the Kalgan 

 walls. Here I was well received by the Eussian Postmaster, M. 

 Shismaroff. This village, like Kalgan itself, is romantically situated 

 in a defile, which is bounded by mountainous cliffs of a volcanic 

 rock, called by Pumpelly a porphyritic trachyte. Before entering 

 Kalgan, you pass underneath a gateway in the famous Great Wall 

 of China. Eight and left from this point, it rapidly ascends to the 

 summit of the cliffs, which bound the defile, and its towers are seen 

 standing on pinnacles of rocks, and looking over precipices from 

 positions which seem inaccessible. 



I left Kalgan on the 11th of December in a palanquin carried by 

 two mules on the road towards Pekin. The first day, although I 

 could see hills in the distance, I travelled over a flattish country 

 covered with a deposit of sandy alluvium. In places, this formed 

 gorges with perpendicular walls 30 feet in height. Next morning 

 I crossed a boss of igneous rock, which was filled with veins of quartz 

 and calcite. Soon after this I met donkeys and mules carrying coal, 

 which told me I was entering a coal district. The first notice of 

 this was a mountain of greyish limestone, along the side of which 

 we travelled on a pathway cut out of the solid rock. After travers- 

 ing across the ice, which spanned a flooded plain, we came to 

 mountains of sandstone and shale, in which I saw several thin 

 vein-like seams of coal. On the sides of these mountains we saw 

 many old " dumps," marking the site of ancient surface workings. 



In the afternoon I saw some pinkish-looking granitic mountains 

 upon the left, and at this point the road became very stony, our course 

 being everywhere impeded by beds of boulders. These consisted of 

 porphyries, granites, felsites, and allied stones. Beyond this rough 

 track, our road passed along by a wall cut in the alluvium which 

 fills all the valleys, containing bivalve shells (Gyrena) to all 

 appearances exactly similar to some which I obtained from an ad- 

 jacent river. 



