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

22 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
covered with snow, rendering their great domes visible from the valley of the
Yang Ho, towering above the mountains that occupy the intervening space of sixty
or eighty miles. From the low Nankau pass, we descend to the Kwei Ho, a small
tributary of the Yang Ho, which occupies a broad N. E. S. W. valley.
High terraces of a recent lake-deposit occupy the greater part of the valley, concealing the rocks and resting at'Chatau on the granite. About a mile west of
Chatau rise small hills of a porphyry conglomerate, in beds trending E. N. E. and
dipping to N. N. W. about 40~. As we go toward Yiilin the fragments and rubble on the surface consist of porphyry, granite, and some limestone.
Descending from the lake terraces and crossing the flats of the Kwei Ho we reach
Hweilai (hien), situated on the terrace that fringes the northern border of the
valley. Within the walls of this city limestone is seen to crop out in beds trending
nearly N. E., and dipping to N. W. Going N. W. from here, over the terrace,
the only index to the structure of the neighboring hills is in the angular and
rounded fragments on the surface, and these consist of hornblendic gneiss, granite,
quartz, porphyries and limestone till Shachung.
Between this city and the town of Sinpaungan the hills consist of the Coal measures, resting on the limestone, which here dips N. W. into the mountains called
Papaushan. (See sect. P1. III.) Between the coal rocks of this mountain and the
remarkable limestone hill Kimingshan, there is an anticlinal basin filled with gravels
of the lake terrace deposit, and formed by the erosion of an anticlinal fold of the
limestone.
In the Kiming mountain the limestone beds are almost vertical, and so highly
metamorphosed that in places the rock is almost flint, and their trend has changed to
N. S. On the western side of the hill are the vertical strata of the Coal measures
with seams of anthracite of poor quality, that have long been worked. The coal
rocks of Kiming bend around the northern end of the hill, and extend away to the
east, while on the other side of the Yang Ho they seem to extend up the valley of
the Sankang Ho.
Crossing this small field to the northwest along the Yang Ho, we reach a deep
gorge, through which the river traverses the limestone ridge that forms the northern
border of the coal basin. In this gorge the limestone trends N. 70~ to 75~ E., dipping 25~ to S. by E. I E. Near the village of Hiangshui (pu), at the N. W. end
of the gorge, the limestone suddenly ceases, and an open country of low hills of a
peculiar rock, an amygdaloid, succeeds to the high ridge of limestone. Near the
line of contact, the limestone trends as before, E. by N., dipping to S. by E., while
the beds of the amygdaloid have the same trend, but a northerly dip. Here we
seem to be on the line of an immense fault, for, although the fault itself was not
seen, everything seems to point to it. The amygdaloid contains fragments of limestone, and strongly resembles in every respect a similar rock, which we shall see
further on, forming a member of the Kiming Coal measures. This slip must have
been extensive, as the limestone cliffs seem to be nearly 1000 feet high. The
amygdaloid, corresponding apparently to the Schalstein of the Germans, is, perhaps,
a tufa of the greenstone-porphyry that occurs in it in fragments.
*We soon emerge from these hills upon the plains of Siuenhwa (fu), which occupy