242 MKSSKS. SKEETCHLY AND KINGSMILL ON [May 1895, 



the alluvial plain and the loess is very well marked in places, more 

 especially in the neighbourhood of Chinkiang, on the Yangtse. 

 On the right (southern) bank of the river the loess, much denuded 

 and partially re-arranged, stretches down some 22 miles to hills of 

 ancient sandstone (probably Silurian), the Chushan, which have 

 protected it from further denudation, and here it ends in a line of 

 rounded cliffs, the old sea-coast before the commencement of the 

 alluvial plain. The distinction between the two is here very 

 marked, the undulating plain of the loess contrasting with the 

 uniform level of the delta. These cliffs, forming headlands and bays, 

 can be distinctly traced from the summit of the hills, trending 

 southward for some miles. On the one side is seen the undulating 

 loess, with its valleys of denudation ; on the other the delta, inter- 

 sected by creeks only a few feet below the surface, and without 

 appreciable current, showing that since the commencement of the 

 delta no change of any moment has taken place in the sea-level. 



These Yang-chow Marine Sands were again met with in force by 

 both authors in their recent journey through Northern Shantung. 

 They were first observed between Chefu (lat. JN". 37° 33', long. E. 

 121° 23') and Lai-chow-fu (lat. N. 37° 12', long. E. 119° 53') as 

 outliers upon the loess, and then to the west of that city they 

 stretched for miles together, often false-bedded, sometimes rising in 

 ridge-like banks about 80 feet high and trending N.N.W. This 

 was very marked between Sin Ho (lat N. 36° 51', long. E. 

 119° 34') and Han Ting (lat. K". 36° 46', long. E. 119° 15') about 

 60 miles west of Lai-chow-fu. The sands here afford fine, clean, 

 sparkling drinking-water, a great comfort in these plains. Their 

 distribution is shown on the map (fig. 1, p. 240). The greatest 

 elevation that they reach is about 200 feet in the district meritioned. 



As the Yangtse flows into the Yellow Sea — an almost land-locked 

 expanse, nowhere till the coast of Japan is approached exceeding 

 50 fathoms in depth, and with no marked currents except locally 

 about the Chusan Archipelago — the growth of the delta is fairly 

 constant, averaging perhaps as much as 2 square miles per annum. 

 This might afford a fair estimate of the actual age of the river, 

 but calculations are rendered difficult, firstly, by want of any 

 survey of the districts north of the river, and secondly, by the 

 fact that the earlier work of the river must have consisted mainly 

 in filling up the former extensive seas now represented by the lakes 

 and lowlands of Honan and Hupeh and the basin of the.Poyang in 

 Kiangsi, besides large tracts of low-lying land in Anhwei. At the 

 earliest period of which any traces remain, the waters of the Yangtse 

 seem to have mingled with those of the Ts'ient'ang (lat. N. 30°, 

 long. E. 120°), while to seaward a raised bank extended northerly 

 from Yu Yao (lat. N. 30° 4', long. E. 121° 8') in Chehkiang as far, 

 at least, as Taitsan (lat. N. 31° 30', long. E. 121°) north of 

 Shanghai ; and behind this extended a lagoon or lagoons, of which 

 the Taihu in lower Kiangsu is the present representative. The 

 seaward face of this bank is marked by a shell-bed (containing 

 Ostrea, Cardium, Trochus, and other estuariue shells) whose can- 



