COPPEK. H3 



Pao-p'ing-ch'ang is a typical Chinese mining cam p. The sides 

 of the valley arc covered with dumps and have been dug up 

 repeatedly in the search for ores. The entrances to the levels are 

 perched in all kinds of places on the steep slopes, the spoil heaps 

 forming long glissades down to the stream Ear below, (-rear heaps 

 of copper slags are scattered a round. The village is small and 

 badly built, the water supply is poor and supplies of every kind 

 have to be carried in from a distance. 



A prospecting adit was being driven into the hill-side from the 



bottom ol the valley, (Hie mile to the west of 

 Sin-chong workings. _ . . 



bm-cneng. Its length was about loo feet. 



Another level entered the bill at a. lower borizion hi a aorth-westerly 

 direction. The only indications + * I ore were at the face in the latter 

 and consisted ol two I Inn stringers ol malachite in a decomposed 

 and broken igneous rock. On the opposite side of the valley I 

 saw three levels one above the other, very little ore was being 

 obtained, though extensive work was said to have been carried 

 on formerly. Ruins of furnaces exist in the valley, but the small 

 amounts of ore obtained at the time of my visit were sent to Pao- 

 p'ing-cirang for treatment. I do not regard the locality as at all 

 promising. 



The youngest strata around Pao-p'ing-ch'ang are the white 



limestones of Permian (?) age. They 



^ Pao-p'ing-ch'ang geo- surmount t j 10 tops ()f l]w jn ] ]s to fche uorth 



and north-west, and are so white that from 

 a distance one is liable to mistake their scattered outcrops for snow 

 drifts. 1 think that the dark-coloured. jossilifcrous limestones 

 of Permo-Carboniferous age come beneath them, and are them- 

 selves underlain by a thick series of shales and sandstones of various 

 shades of yellow, white and red. They crop out near the village 

 with a dip of 53° to the east-south-east, but further down the valley the 

 dip is not so high. The portals of the tunnels go through these rocks. 

 In association with them is the volcanic series, made up of 

 lavas, tuff bands of reddish and greenish shades, ash beds of darker 

 tints, with layers of shale and grit intercalated in the flows. The 

 tuffs weather easily into red and green spotted angular fragments ; 

 the shales form easily broken, nodular masses and there is a great 

 variety amongst the true igneous rocks. The lavas are often very 

 altered at the surface and it is not always easy to recognise their 

 true characters. 



