'7 



equivalent of their Wu-shan limestone ; this correlation proposed by Noda 

 has received confirmation from the pateontological side. 



The Lower Carboniferous age of the coralline limestone collected by 

 Richthofen at Shin-tan, along the middle course of the Yang-tse-kiang, is 

 doubtful ; the Sin-tan shale is considered here never to be so young as 

 Carboniferous ; the coralline limestone was perhaps derived from the basal 

 part of the overlying Wu-shan limestone which is surely Permian in age. 

 The alleged Lower Carboniferous age of the coraUine limestone from Hsi- 

 hsia-shan near Nan-king can likewise not escape similar criticism. 



It has for a long time been well known that Devonian rocks are exten- 

 sively distributed in southern China, whereas these are never met with in 

 northern China, southern Manchuria or Korea ; the fossils now at my 

 disposal not only confirm the development of these rocks also in the southern 

 part of the province of Hu-nan, as very lately reported by Freeh, but also 

 indicate the extension of the Devonian area southwestward into the northern 

 part of the province of Kwang-si, and especially to the district surrounding 

 Kwei-lin. 



In northern China, southern Manchuria and Korea, there is no convin- 

 cing tract of Lower Carboniferous rocks ; if any rocks of this age are 

 developed in southern China, their distribution, I believe, is very limited, 

 for there are very few fossils at all in the present material which remind one 

 of the. Lower Carboniferous age. To this category belong a brachiopoda 

 from a little east of Wei-ning, Prov. Kwei-chou, and a few brachiopods from 

 Hwan-tu-pu, Prov. Hu-nan ; the latter fossils, however, give one the impres- 

 sion that they represent more likely a stage transitional between the Upper 

 Devonian and the Lower Carboniferous. 



Nor is there any true trustworthy evidence in the present material 

 which indicates the development of deposits representing the main part of 

 the Upper Carboniferous age in southern China, excluding those belonging 

 to its uppermost division, an equivalent of the Schwagerina stage of Russia; 

 a very thick complex mostly of marine origin and of the Uppermost Carboni- 

 ferous and Permian ages is extensively developed in southern China, and in 

 part also comprises coal-bearing series. Only in the province of Yun-nan, 



