Correspondence. 131 
White, David 
The Canadian species of tlie genus Whittleseya and tlieir systematic 
relations. (Ott. Nat., vol. 15. July, 1901. pp. 98-110, pi. 7.) 
Willmott, A. B. 
Michipicoten Huronian area. (Am. Geol., vol., 28, pp., 14-19, pi. 8. 
July, 1 90 1.) 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
Recent Submergence of the Asiatic Continent. As I have not 
yet had time to present in detail the facts which led me to become 
convinced of the recent extensive subsidence of the Asiatic continent, 
I may be permitted in advance to mention two points which will help 
to clear up the doubts expressed by Prof. Claypole in his communica- 
tion to the July number of the American Geologist. 
The first point relates to the origin of the loess in northern China. 
Prof. Geikie, on page 699 of the revised and enlarged edition of his 
"Great Ice Age,'' in 1895, gives expression to the same opinion that is 
entertained by Prof. Claypole, that the material of the loess is "large- 
ly of fluvio-glacial origin,' while on a previous page (697) he accepts 
without reservation, the statement of Przevalski that "undoubted traces 
of former glaciation are seen in the Suma-Hada range, west of Kal- 
gan in China." In his map facing page 691 Geikie also represents this 
region west of Kalgan as containing an extensive glaciated area. 
Believing at the outset, as I did, in the glacial origin of loess ma- 
terial and in the probable correctness of Przevalski's inference, I took 
a 450-mile ride on muleback into the Mongolian frontier to verify the 
theory. This enabled me both to see the most significant deposits of loess in 
China and to cross and recross the mountains on the border of the Mon- 
golian plateau where the glaciers must be located to furnish the loess 
material for that region, if indeed it were of glacial origin. But 
though traversing this most probable glaciated area for a distance of 
150 miles, we found not only no evidence of any former glacial occu- 
pation, but abundant evidence that there had been no glaciation of the 
region. The whole erosion of the region has been sub-aerial, rather 
than subglacial. 
If our conclusions be correct (and they accord with those of Rich- 
thofen) the glacial origin of the loess of northeastern China must be 
abandoned; and if abandoned there, I see not why it should, except 
on special evidence, be maintained with reference to other localities. 
Furthermore, though our examination of the facts along the base of the 
Ala-Tau mountains in Turkestan was not so complete as that in east- 
ern Mongolia, it was such as to leave little doubt in our minds that the 
glacial phenomena of those mountains were entirely incompetent to ac- 
count for either the amount or the distribution of the loess over 
which we traveled for many hundred miles. 
