212 A. S. Bickmore on the recent 
P 
where it opens out to the plain, there a r large quantities of! 
pe Pp. tte ge q 
8 
plateau of Mongolia, on which this river of ice probably took 
itstise. But a short distance from the mouth of the pass, in 
clay banks, the question naturally arises, whether the materials. 
now fill the Peking basin have not been so completely 
sorted and resorted by the action of the waves as the land has 
in height. Besides these evidences of the late presence of the sea 
in this region, I was shown at Peking, some shells from banks in 
the vicinity, and I believe they were all of the same species as are 
now to be found in the gulf of Pechili, 
Yellow river, whose irregular wanderings and destructive floods 
have gained for it the well merited title of “China’s sorrow.” 
All rivers after they have worn out their channels to a certain 
banks by artificial levees or dikes, The Po in this way has raised 
its bed until the surface of its water is above the tops of the 
