Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865.

90 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
Excursion to the West Coast.
August 5, 1862. This day and the following one our route was about the same
as on the preceding journey, as far as Volcano bay, where, branching off, we
stopped at Washinoki for the night.
August 7th. Leaving Washinoki, we found, just west of the village, an outcrop,
visible at low tide, of the tufa-conglomerate. It contained fragments of pumice
and spines of an echinoderm. The beds are tilted up, the strike being N. 5~ W.
and the dip easterly.
A little further on we came to an outcrop of nearly vertical beds of a gray argillite, containing a peculiar fossil, having the shape of flattened vermiform tubes and
changed to calcite. This organism although indeterminable is characteristic for
this argillite, and served to distinguish the rock even when highly metamorphosed
at many points on our journey.
I will mention here that between the bay and the mountains west of it, a strip
several miles broad is occupied by a recent deposit, similar to that bordering Hakodade bay, and receding in terraces from the water which it faces with a bluff 30
to 80, or more, feet high. This deposit generally hides all the older rocks.
Continuing our journey along the beach, we found the tufa-conglomerate again in
place underlying the terrace deposit.
Passing Otoshibetz,1 the beach is overhung by the terrace bluff, here from 60 to
80 feet high. This recent deposit is a horizontally stratified, sandy clay, abounding
in marine shells, chiefly bivalves. Although most of the shells were too friable to
be collected, many seemed to have retained a large part of their organic matter,
and in several instances I found the dorsal ligament still elastic when wet.
At Yamukshinai, just back from the beach, between this and the bluff, there is a
marsh some acres in extent, in which tepid springs deposit a mineral oil of the consistency of tar, which is used by some priests, in the neighborhood, both for burning
and in making ink of the kind used throughout China and Japan.
Passing through a settlement of Ainos we reached Yurup.
August 8th. The terrace bluff recedes from the sea at Yurup, forming a bight
which is occupied by a broad plain, often marshy, covered with a dense growth of
reeds and weeds, twelve to fourteen feet high. Through this plain winds the large
creek Yurup.
Crossing this stream we followed the beach to Shirarika. Here there is an outcrop on the beach of a -black amygdaloid, containing small spherical cavities lined
with a white, transparent, tabular zeolite, and veins and nodules of chalcedony.
Continuing our journey over a plain, now sandy, now marshy, which, at the
height of 10 or 20 feet above the sea, forms a narrow belt between the beach and
the bluff, we reached Kunnui. The terraces seen during this day were covered
with a fine forest growth of deciduous trees and scattered tall pines.
Leaving the sea-shore at Kunnui, we ascended the creek of the same name to a
low pass in the crest, which here forms the watershed between Volcano bay and the
Japan sea.
i The termination betz and nai are Aino words signifying river and creek or brook.