1868.] KINGSMILL GEOLOGY OF CHINA. 123 



Si-kiang, in Kwangtung, the effect of the action of water on the 

 limestone forms the characteristic feature of the landscape; the 

 valley seems originally to have been formed by a wide synclinal 

 curve of the whole series ; except in a few spots, however, the whole 

 of the limestone rocks have been washed away, leaving exposed the 

 grits and slates of the lower beds. The appearance of these detached 

 masses of limestone is described as very fantastic ; of one, Mr. Bick- 

 more writes as follows*: — "About two miles behind the city of 

 Shadking-fu rise the famous marble rocks or ^ Seven Stars,' like dark 

 sharp needles out of the low green plain. Mr. Nevin and I mea- 

 sured them with an aneroid barometer, and found them to range 

 from 100 to 150 feet above the plain, though they have been reported 

 as nearly twice that height. The rock is a highly crystalline lime- 

 stone, of a dark blae colour on the weathered surfaces, and of a rusty 

 iron tinge where large fragments have been detached, the whole 

 traversed in every direction with milk-white veins, and completely 

 fissured by joints and seams." In this province, in many localities, 

 these metamorphosed rocks are quarried, yielding ornamental mar- 

 bles ; some seem to be so highly altered as to afford a saccharoid 

 marble, approaching in purity the statuary marble of Carrara ; at the 

 " Seven Stars " described above, a coarse marble marked with veins 

 of graphite in zigzag lines is extensively quarried ; it is much used 

 throughout the province for paving, as well as for ornamental screens. 



Other similar masses occur along the Si-kiang, near the town of 

 Yueshing in the " Cock's-comb " rock, on the Tung-kiang in the 

 east of the province in the " White -faced " rocks and the " White - 

 horses," and on the Peh-kiang at the " Five Horse-heads," as well 

 as at many unnamed localities. In Kwangsi on the Kwei-kiang or 

 Cassia River, below Kweilin, the provincial capital, Mr. Bickmore thus 

 describes their appearancef: — " On the evening after leaving Pingloh, 

 as we were following the river round a high bluff, we suddenly found 

 ourselves on the edge of a valley ten or twelve miles broad, and ex- 

 tending further than we could see, to the right and left ; in every 

 direction it was perfectly bristhng with sharp peaks of hmestone. 

 The strata of this limestone were nearly horizontal ; and once the 

 whole valley was filled with this deposit, which in the course of ages 

 has been worn into deep channels that have kept widening, until 

 only sharp peaks are left of what was originally a broad continuous 

 sheet of solid rock. From a single low position on the river bank I 

 counted 192 separate peaks ; the highest was, I judge, 1200 feet 

 over the plain, but even this did not represent the original depth of 

 the formation." 



In the central provinces, though by no means so conspicuous, the 

 effects of water on these rocks are still marked ; the strike, as a 

 general rule, approaches closely to an east and west direction, the 

 folds of the strata continuing uninterrupted for many miles. The 

 numbers 1, 3, and 4, containing the harder and more siliceous rocks, 



* Journal of N. C. B. Eoyal Asiatic Society, New Series, vol. iy. p. 2. 

 t lb- P- 7. 



