134 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [DoC. 23, 



According to Chinese cosmogony the earth was at one time inha- 

 bited by tribes of dragons and wild beasts of huge size and savage 

 nature. So great was the confusion which spread through the 

 world, and so loud the din of their incessant combats, that Heaven, 

 unwilling to stand by and see so fair a land given over to continual 

 strife and bloodshed, at length interfered and swept away the whole 

 creation, introducing instead the present more orderly assemblage of 

 animated beings. Proofs of this are found in certain beds in the 

 centre and west of China, where bones of elephants, of tigers, and of 

 gigantic horses and stags are dug up in sufficient abundance to form 

 a common article of commerce under the name of Lung-Tcuh, '' dra- 

 gons' bones," or Lung-chi, '^dragons' teeth;" and as these ancient 

 animals were endowed with greater strength and vigour than the new 

 race, Chinese philosophy holds that their remains used medicinally 

 will impart to their enervated successors some of these lost qualities. 

 Hence these bones and teeth, burnt and ground to powder, are admi- 

 nistered in many complaints, for which they are held to be specifics. 



These bones and teeth seem to belong to a Pliocene fauna ; they are, 

 in some cases, beautifully preserved, showing the interior structure 

 of the teeth perfectly, and seem to have been deposited in a bright 

 red ferruginous clay with beds of sand and gravel. I have obtained 

 specimens of the teeth of a species of elephant, probably E. priscus ; 

 of fragments of altered ivory, probably belonging to the same ; of two 

 species of horse, one with enormous curved teeth {E. curvidens ? and 

 pUcidens ?) ; of an animal seemingly intermediate between Palce- 

 oiherium and Rhinoceros, but the teeth of which are much broken ; 

 of a tiger, a pig, deer, and some others, including a large deeply fluted 

 tooth not unlike that of Glyptodon. Of the localities of these fossils 

 I am not prepared to speak. The results of inquiries I have made 

 seem to concur in pointing them out as common to most of the cen-- 

 tral and western provinces, and I am, from this reason, as well as 

 others, inclined to connect them with the clay beds of the centre of 

 China. In Ava, in the valley of the Irrawadi, and in India, on the 

 slopes of the Sewalik hills, similar deposits have long been known to 

 exist. Their mode of occurrence in China will probably be found to 

 correspond. 



Besides these teeth of apparently Pliocene age, I have met with a 

 number of fragments of fossil ivory, apparently Mammoth tusks, in 

 a completely different state of preservation, the gelatine and animal 

 matter being simply removed and leaving merely the earthy matter 

 behind. No substitution of other minerals has taken place, and the 

 remains adhere strongly to the tongue. These tusks are known in 

 the Chinese pharmacopoeia by the name of Lung-Tcuh, " dragons' 

 bones." They are broken into small fragments before being brought 

 to market ; but some specimens I have seen would seem to point to 

 a tusk from 13 to 15 inches in diameter. I cannot speak of their 

 locality. Some of the Chinese state that they come from Mongolia. 



In China the superficial deposits may be divided into two great 

 classes : — the modern alluvial deposits of the great rivers, and notably 

 of the Hwangho and Yangtse, whose united delta stretches from the 



