244 THE LOESS AND OTHER DEPOSITS OF SHANTUNG. [May 1 895. 



They can be traced at intervals from the hills out on to the loess- 

 plain, and not unfrequently five or six may be seen at different levels 

 on a valley-side. About 80 per cent, of their courses are quite 

 independent of the present drainage-system, and beds sometimes 

 cross each other. Often, too, the roads, which from centuries of 

 traffic have become worn below the surface of the soil, climb 

 laboriously over one side of these old courses, and as abruptly 

 descend on the other, especially in the metropolitan prefecture of 

 Tsi-nan-fu (lat. N. 36°, long. E. 117°). 



In many respects the old river-beds differ widely from those of 

 streams now traversing the same district. The present courses are, 

 where paved with gravel, worn down to the bed-rock, while the 

 old beds frequently lie from 50 to 100 feet above it, the gravel often 

 resting on a level bed of re-arranged loess. Then, too, in the recent 

 river-beds, wherever the gravel is made of limestone-pebbles there is 

 no tendency to cement into conglomerate. These recent streams are 

 distinctly torrential, few running all the year through, and most 

 being quite intermittent, rushing down the hillsides during the rainy 

 season and ceasing immediately afterwards. As most of the present 

 rainfall occurs in heavy downpours within a period of two months, the 

 dry watercourses are one of the most prominent features in a Shantung 

 landscape. Most of the drainage in the limestone districts takes place 

 in almost land-locked valleys ; and from these the waters escape by 

 .underground channels, finally emerging in springs slightly above 

 the level of the general sandy plain. It is thus that the present 

 Siao Ts'ing Ho (lat. N. 37° 15', long. E. 118° 55'), or lesser Ts'ing, 

 is fed by springs which rise at the city of Tsi-nan-fu (lat. IST. 36° 40'', 

 long. E. 117° 2'), built on the edge of the limestone region, where 

 that rock disappears under the outermost fringe of the loess, which 

 in its turn passes under the marine sands. 



The age of these old gravels is readily determined. They are newer 

 than the loess, but older than the Marine Sands, or more probably 

 contemporaneous with them. This is proved by their overlying 

 the loess, and never being found upon the area of the Marine Sands. 

 As we never saw them pass below the sand, they probably belong 

 to that period when Shantung formed two islands, round whose 

 coasts the sands were deposited, and down whose slopes the peren- 

 nial streams flowed. 



The lie of these old gravels is well seen in a section laid bare in 

 the banks of a little stream at Sze Chuang, south of Tsi Chuan, 

 where the beds are exposed down to the Coal Measures. 



4. The Loess in the Chefu District (fig. 2). The first travellers 

 over the loess, struck with its terrace-like character, unhesitatingly 

 referred its origin to a large freshwater lake or lakes ; and the 

 occurrence of land-shells and sub-fossil mammalian remains lent 

 strength to the hypothesis. The possibility of such an origin again 

 forced itself upon the authors when in April 1892 they found them- 

 selves at Chefu, en route for Tsi-nan, the capital of the province of 

 Shantung, whither they were bound on geological work intent. The 

 road for the entire distance (over 600 miles were traversed) lay upon 



