any other older formation. Thus it comes, that all the diluvial parts of tho 

 ])lain appear as isles or peninsulas, divided from one another by all those river- 

 valleys and side-valleys of tributary rivers and rivulets, down to the most 

 minute undulations of the ground or ravines and torrent-beds. 



It is to be mentioned, that this division of the surface of the plain is of the 

 highest importance for agriculture, the rice-fields being in most instances confined 

 to the lower or alluvial tracts, and generally filling them, whilst on the higher 

 level we find the barley, wheat, millet, Indian corn, tlie many kinds uf beans, 

 the nasu, satsuma-imo and sato-imo, and at the same time tlie plantatinns of 

 tea, of the mulberry-tree, and also most of the small forests ; whilst the villages 

 aad towns with their bamboos and garden-trees and shrubs are indifferently 

 spread over both sorts of localities. It will appear from tlie following pages 

 that the geological constitution of all these originally contiguous and only 

 posthumously intersected higher parts of the plain is also geologically identical 

 or nearly identical, the surface being almost always formed of iron-ochro coloured 

 sandy clays or loams, and that they are always widely diQVrent from tlie deposits 

 of the river-valleys imbedded between them. 



The level of these higher parts of the plain does nut, of course, show great 

 differences. In the vicinity of the capital 30 metres are — as above stated — the 

 average height wherever the formations are completely developed, the more 

 elevated heights which occur not c.'vceeding about 45 metres. But even at some 

 distance, e. g. near Tsuhidja, or Odawara, scarcely any ditTerence is to be observed. 

 In tlie neighbourhood of the mountains, however, we get levels of 70 to 150 

 metres above the sea, and of course the river-beds themselves exhibit a 

 corresponding increase of level. Generally s[)eahing, we have a very uniform 

 plain or, as we may call it and have called it above, in spite of its rather low 

 level, a j5?a<(?(7u widely spread around Toldo, which must have been deposited 

 by the sea and under its surface, and therefore must have risen above the level 

 of the sea since tiie diluvial epoch in which it was fonued. 



The act of elevation itself wdiich is believed to continue to the present day, 

 and which has been the object of a jiaper 'Ueber die ebene von Yedo' — lately 

 published in the' geographisclie Mittheilungen 'of Petermann — by Dr. E. Nau- 

 mann, will lie discussed in the concluding chapter. I therefore proceed to point 

 out some remarkable features of the country as it now ajipears. 



The very first objects which strike the new anivc r at Yokohama and at 

 Tokio are the steep blufl's whicii appear, as lia."* been said, at ditTcront distances 

 from the sea, but form an almost continual, tlrnngh very irregular line. Tlie 

 identity of these blufla— of the BiulV on tho southern side of Voknhaina, of tlmse 

 of Kanagawa, Shinagawa, of some parts of Tokio, of Oji- is indeed obvious, and 

 we may say witliont any doubt tliat the deeii cultingH of rivcr-valleys and ravines 

 into tlie plateau-formatidiis of tlie inland are also precisely of tiiu same natuie 

 and origin. We find, therefore, comparatively tho steepest und lii(;hent sIi>ik« next 

 to the sea-side; for tlio Water-rouriiOH, whidi necessarily run down according 



