1868.] KINGSMILL GEOLOGY OP CHINA. 135 



Great Wall, N. lat. 40°, to the neighbourhood of Ningpo, N. lat. 30°, 

 and includes considerable portions of the provinces of Chihli, Shan- 

 tung, Kiangsu, and Chehkiang ; and the more ancient clay-beds, 

 which form most of the plains of the interior, though even here, 

 from the peculiar formation of the mountain-chains, only occurring 

 in a number of isolated basins, and overlain in portions by the more 

 modern alluvial deposits. 



In the valley of Yangtse these older clays divide themselves natu- 

 rally from their composition into three classes : 1st, the laterite of 

 Kiukiang and its neighbourhood, apparently reaching into Anhwei 

 province ; 2nd, the yellow clays of Anhwei ; and 3rd, the soft cal- 

 careous deposits of Kiangsu, well developed in the neighbourhood of 

 Chinkiang. The first seems to rest immediately on gravels, repre- 

 senting apparently those forming the summit of the red sandstone 

 described above (p. 133), these gravels at the foot of the Lu-shan 

 passing into a coarse till containing small boulder-like stones (fig. 2). 

 To these succeed beds of fine sand interstratified with clay ; and over 

 all are found thick deposits of a bright red hard clay, containing 

 numerous vermiform cavities, and apparently precisely similar to 

 the laterite of Southern and Central India. This clay is sufficiently 

 hard to form bold chiFs overhanging the river Yangtse, and is so 

 little afi'ected by the action of water as to form tails of quasi- 

 boulders running out at several points into the river, and v«ry 

 dangerous to navigation. 



The second class forms a series of bright reddish, yellow, and grey 

 clays, and is probably only a local variation of the former, as it 

 varies much in appearance in different locaHties, forming a series of 

 brick and pottery clays, and probably comprehending the famous 

 porcelain clays of Kiangsi ; it occurs in portions of Kiangsu, in 

 Anhwei, Kiangsi, and Hupeh, besides stretching, as there is every 

 reason to believe, to the extreme south and west of China. 



Both these clays are distinguished by the almost complete absence 

 of lime in their composition, and both are to a considerable degree 

 ferruginous. I can at present form no idea of their thickness ; but 

 they have undergone in parts very considerable denudation. In the 

 fissures and channels formed in the older limestone rocks by the 

 action of water during previous ages, and up to a height of some 

 hundred feet above the plains, masses of a bright red clay of appa- 

 rently similar composition constantly occur, though I have not been 

 able to trace the clays themselves for any considerable height ; un- 

 less towards the bottom, these clays are unstratified. To this for- 

 mation I am disposed at present to refer the fossil bones and teeth 

 spoken of above. In South India the laterite has, I believe, been 

 usually referred to the Pliocene age, which would seem to harmo- 

 nize with the mammalian fossils found in apparently similar deposits 

 in China. 



In lower Kiangsu, and notably in the neighbourhood of Chinkiang 

 and Nanking, these older beds are succeeded, apparently unconfor- 

 mably, by a mass of eminently calcareous clays of a pale yellowish 

 brown colour and extremely friable texture, so readily affected 



