50 



LA TOUCHE : GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN SHAN STATES. 



or to the south-east, into the Nam-panhse and the Nam-Tu. 

 Among the hills to the north of the Gokteik gorge the strike be- 

 comes very irregular for a space, and the rocks are greatly con- 

 torted, but further to the eastward it again becomes regular, and 

 is at right angles to its former direction, or from north-east to 

 south-west. The contrast between the lofty ranges of hills formed 

 by these rocks and the more level limestone plateau is well seen 

 from the railway between the Gokteik gorge and Hsipaw, the 

 boundary running in a north-easterly direction at no great dis- 

 tance from the line, to within a few miles of the Nam-Tu, where 

 the older rocks disappear beneath the fossiliferous Pala?ozoics. The 

 eastern boundary is very irregular, and deeply indented, on account 

 of the immense amount of erosion that has taken place along it. 



The Chaung-Magyi rocks appear again along the eastern margin 

 of the plateau, among the hilly ranees be- 



The ' Eastern Ranges.- . r ° . J ■ 



tween it and the fealween, forming large inkers 

 among the younger rocks, wherever the latter have been removed 

 bv denudation. The most northerly of these inliers shown on the 

 map is in the range that extends eastwards from Lashio towards 

 the Salween (hereinafter referred to as the Loi Len range), and 

 forms the divide between the upper valleys of the Nam-yau and 

 the Nam-pawng. The slates and quartzites appear from beneath 

 the lower Pakeozoic rocks at the foot of the range, immediately 

 to the north of Man-Se (H 1) in the Namma coal-field, and 

 widen out rapidly eastwards, forming the whole of the southern 

 slopes for a disbance of about 18 miles, beyond which they are 

 covered up by overlying limestones (see Section 1, Plate 24). Along 

 the foot of the range they are cut off by a fault of great throw, 

 but they reappear again on the south side of the valley, forming 

 a broad band extending eastwards from the northern slopes of Loi 

 Ling, across the head of the Nam-pawng and Nam-hsawm valleys 

 towards the Salween. 



At its south-western end this band merges into the huge mass 

 . of Loi Ling, which rises abruptly, like an 



island set in the sea, to a height of some 0,000 

 feet above the undulating plateau surrounding it (Plate 1). Indeed, 

 it seems not improbable that these ancient rocks did form islands 

 or shoals in the midst of the Pala'ozoic ocean, for the rocks that 

 were deposited upon them thin out in a remarkable manner as 

 they approach the inliers ; the lowest, fossiliferous rocks forming a 



