7\\-toiiic Ccoi^^riif'liy of fuislcrn .Isia. — IJubhs. 283 
TECTONIC GEOGRAPHY OF EASTERN ASIA. 
Reviews and Translations by Wii-liam IIkiuikkt Hoiihs. 
, IV. Jai'An* (Second Paper). 
C. IlIE .STKlCTlKli AS A WHOLE AND TlIK LINES OF DISLOCATION. 
In the two preceding sections of tliis paper, were treated individual 
parts of the two wings of Japan ; in the two following will be considered 
such phenomena as are common to the two wings or concern the island 
country in general. 
The Uirat Traiisicrsc Fracture. Tn the vicinity of the 138th degree 
of east longitude there appears to one who approaches from the east, 
a series of striking phenomena following in rapid succession, and these 
cause an important change in the landscape. First there are the frag- 
ments of the walls of an extended kettle-like sinking in the ancient 
range, from the middle of which the beautiful cone of Fuji-yama rises 
to a hight of 3728 meters ; then the distinct series of well preserved 
volcanic cones in the straight line of Fuji-Yatsugadake ; further the 
kettle of Kofu, sunk into the granite of the Kimposan, which rises 
to 2550 meters. But the rarest surprise is furnished on the west side 
of the road leading from Kofu to Suwa lake by a rectilinear high 
wall above which becomes visible in tfie west somewhat later the 
granitic Komaga-take rising in the immediate neighborhood to the 
hight of 30CO meters; and by the observation that here steeply uplifted 
ancient schistose rocks are in place with almost meridional strike, 
while to the eastward from Kofu the dominating equatorial strike 
direction was recognizable within a somewhat confused complex. 
It is obvious that that stretch of road follows a great fracture of 
the crust. The geological map allows us to now easily recognize its 
course in detail. Westward from Fuji it is exactly meridional in a 
stretch of 88 km from the coast tity of Schidsuoka to Nirasaki which 
lies westward from Kofu ; then it^ follows for 72 kilometers the direc- 
tion N 42° W until west of Matsumoto. From here to the north coast 
(qo k. m.), it runs again meridionally, but in a flat arc concave to the 
eastward. The entire length of the line is, therefore, 250 kilometers. 
The following phenomena are connected with this line : 
1. in a purely morphographic sense the line indicates the limit of 
a steep wall and a furrow reaching from sea to sea. If the bottom 
of the latter does indeed rise in the vicinity of Suwa lake to above 
800 meters, it is none the less an important line of commerce. 
2. The fundamental complex of the entire country lies deeper in 
the east than in the west. Here is the wall of the steep break in the 
highest upbulging of the land mass of Japan, toward which the funda- 
mental complex, with its granites, gradually rises from the west, 
* In the last paper of the series (this journal September, 1904-^ was begxin 
a translation of the fifth paper by v. Riciitofbn in his studies of the geomor- 
phology of east Asia. . 
