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

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Title
Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865.
Author
Pumpelly, Raphael, 1837-1923.
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Page 34
Publication
[Washington,: Smithsonian institution,
1866]
Subject terms
Geology -- China
Geology -- Mongolia.
Geology -- Japan.

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"Geological researches in China, Mongolia, and Japan, during the years 1862-1865." In the digital collection Making of America Books. https://name.umdl.umich.edu/ahe8439.0001.001. University of Michigan Library Digital Collections. Accessed May 30, 2025.
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