GEOLOGICAL FEATURES. 
Chap. III. 
England. Like that land it springs beneath the 
feet when one walks over it. The sloping sides of 
the hills are covered with trees and brushwood, the 
latter oftentimes being apparently of little value. 
Passing upwards through the belt of trees and 
brushwood, we next reach the tops of the hills. 
These are all comparatively flat, and thus a kind of 
table-land is the result. The soil of this table-land is 
exactly similar to that found in the marshy valleys 
below, that is, it is a soil closely resembling what is 
found in peat-hogs. Scarcely a stone or rock of any 
kind is met with, either in the valleys, on the hill- 
sides, or on the table-land on the summits. A casual 
observer, on examining this black and apparently 
rich-looking soil, would think it very fertile, and 
capable of producing large crops ; but in reality it 
is not so fertile as it looks, and foreigners generally 
remark on the little flavour the vegetables have 
which are grown on it. 
How this peculiar formation was originally pro- 
duced I am unable to explain. Whether this part 
of Japan was at some early period a flat peat-moss, 
and these hills formed by one of those fearful earth- 
quakes for- which the country is still famous, and 
which, according to tradition, forced up Fusi-yama 
in a single night to the height of more than 14,000 
feet, I must leave to geologists to determine. 
