Tectonic Geography of .Isii. Hobbs. 141 
TECTONIC GEOGRAPHY OF EASTERN ASIA. 
II. 
Reviews and Translations by William HERnHKT Hours, 
Madison, Wis. 
In an earlier article* has been summarized the first of a 
series of three papers by Baron von Richthofen, dealing with 
the geomorphology of eastern Asia.f It was shown by this 
authority that the course of the mountain ranges which rise 
abruptly to form the western margin of the coast plains of 
eastern Asia, extend in a series of zigzags made up of merid- 
ional and equatorial components, and that these ranges form 
the boundary of the high plateau to the westward which is 
separated into crustal blocks whose approximate dimensions 
are given by the zigzags themselves. The general direction of 
the scries of zigzags is that of a great circle v^diose course is 
about parallel to the general trend of the coast line, the broken 
crescents forTne4 by the blending of the meridional with the 
equatorial components being always convex towards the ocean. 
The elements of the zigzags are found to correspond in posi- 
tion to normal faults of large throw, the orographic blocks 
which they outline being always downthrown on the eastern, 
convex, or ocean side. 
In the second of the series of papers?, von Richthofen shows 
that the scalloped eastern boundary of the Eurasian continent, 
while parallel to the mountain ranges near the coast is not an 
expression of their folding. Of the morphological relations 
he says : 
(a) The series of crescent-shaped marginal zones of crustal blocks 
convex to the southeastward which run through continental east Asia 
from the peninsula of Tschuktschen to the northwest of Tongking, and are 
characterized throughout the entire line by the sinking in of those por- 
tions of the earth's crust which lie to the eastward, are followed in 
the direction of the ocean by a second series of homologously consti- 
tuted crescentic blocks which form tJie oceanic border of eastern .Asia. 
The parts of the earth's crust which are broken down along them lie 
to the eastward in the bottoms of the seas. On the Stanowoi coast the 
• This jonrn^l, August, 1904-. 
t FKKniNAND Frkihkuk vo.n Richthokkx. Uber Gestalt und Gliedening 
einer Gruiidlinie in der NforpholoKie Ost-Asiens. Sitziingerber. d. k. prcuss. Akad. 
d. Wiss 2. Berlin, vol. xxxix, lUOC). pp. 888-925. 
j Fkrdi.nani) rREiHKKK VON RicnTHOKE.N. GcomorpholoKiscbe Studicn sus 
Ostasien. II. Gestalt und Gleidcrting der ostasiatischen' Kustenbopc n. Sit- 
zungsber. d. k. preuss, .\kad. d. Wiss. z, Berlin, vol. xxxvi, I'JOl, pp. 782-808. 
