490 Scientific Intelligence. : 
on the Provinces of Honan and Shansi, published at Shanghai in 
1870. He objects, with reason, to the theory of marine submer- 
gence, advocated by T. W-. Kin ngsmill, Esq., in the Quarterly 
Journal of the Geological Society for 1871 (p. 376 ,) on the ground 
that the shells, bones and vegetation are all terrestrial; that there 
are no marine relies of ny kind in the deposits ; and states that 
ould re 
which would give a chance for the introduction over the area of 
China, within comparatively recent times, of all kinds of marine 
li He e rejects also the view that the 16 ss is of freshwater origin 
deposited from the waters of vast lakes that formerly covered a 
wi part of the country—the opinion brought out by ae 
He says also that there is no evidence of glacial origin, no 
moraines or other marks of glaciers having been observed in any 
part of the country. 
Baron von Richthofen holds that the léss formation is a subaerial 
accumulation, due to the drifting action of the winds; to trans- 
portation by rivulets from the hills immediately a one each 
léss basin; and to the mineral material left over the 
growing peste and other plants. The first and the last of these 
causes are made the most effectual. The degradation of the rocks 
of the neighboring hills by decomposition and alternate changes 
of temperature, produces the loose grains for emg ocewee The 
plants covering the great plains served to stop the wind-drifted 
earth, and so keep the en nb ever in ies ss. He observes 
that the true léss is made over a dry surface and he calls it Jand- 
léss. But the liss basins have generally had a lake at center; 
and about the a the deposit is thin-laminated or stratified ; an 
* Mr. Pumpelly’s Memoir was published in a quarto of 144 pages, . iets maps, 
by the Senittloeah Institution, as No. 202 of the Smithsonian Contributions to 
Knowledge, Washington, D. C., October, 1866. The author visited the region 
wagon-roads run for many miles without rising to the plain. In the valley 
between the Kvenkates (pu) and the Moose defile, I crossed a gully forty or 
fifty feet deep and not more than four feet wide, having the same _— sg the 
way down, and following pc these Piha a tortuous course for more than 
nile. ; ' : 
channel from top to bottom, and this with each succeeding rain works its way 
backward toward the mountain. As the erosion a the sides of the 
gullies offer new starting points for tributary ravini 
