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

34 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
course of these excavations, fossil remains of quadrupeds are obtained in' considerable numbers, especially horns of deer.'
Leaving Siwan the road lies first southeast, then south, crossing two ridges of
chloritic gneiss and chloritic schist, and descending into the large oval valley of
Chauchuen. This valley is occupied by the terrace deposit. Our road ascends the
ridge forming the southern side of the valley. On the northern flank are the crystalline metamorphic schists covered by limestone, and over this beds of porphyry
breccia with dykes of eurite. The terrace deposit rises almost to the summit of
this ridge on both sides. Descending through the deep gullies in the terrace
loam, the road enters the valley of a creek that empties into the Yang Ho, just north
of the Kiming mountain. From this valley we cross the ridge, by a low pass east
of the Kiming mountain, into the valley of the Yang Ho, and descend to Sinpaungan.
The low pass is covered by the terrace deposit, and beneath this on the northern
flank are the coal rocks of the Kiming field, among which I saw a greenstone porphyry conglomerate similar to that at Hiangshui (pu), and probably its equivalent.
The terrace deposit in the pass consists of loam with gravel and fragments of the
neighboring rocks, and occupies a higher level than the terraces of the valley to
the south.
I will now attempt a general description of the principal rocks met with on the
above journey. I am well aware that the following description can have but a very
limited value, owing to the absence both of chemical determinations and of closer
observations of the modes of occurrence.
Granitic and Crystalline Metamorphic Series.
Distribution.-These two classes of rocks form either collectively or individually
the main body of every ridge we have traversed. Of them consist the ridges that
rise through and above the volcanic mantle of the plateau, and they form the
foundation on which this rests wherever the foundation was seen. Indeed, they
are the skeleton of this region, supporting the limestone floor of the coal rocks.
Granite predominates in the first range where we crossed it in the Nankau pass;
in the other localities, if it exist, it is covered by the crystalline schists.
Unstratified Granitic Rocks.-The main body of the ridge between Nankau and
Chatau consists of a granite containing two varieties of feldspar, about equally distributed in crystals varying from an eighth of an inch to three-quarters in length.
These are pink orthoclase and a white triclinic feldspar. The mica is a dark green
almost black, probably magnesian variety, and quartz is present in comparatively
small quantity. It is thus a granitite.
Near the middle of the pass is another variety, of even grain, consisting of only
white orthoclase and gray quartz, the latter often in sharply-defined, small prismatic
crystals imbedded in the mass. It is somewhat remarkable from small cells in which
i As all the fossils of any value had been sent to Paris previous to my visit, I was unable to obtain
any that were worth examining. It is to be desired that those now in Paris will be determined and
described in order to fix the age of the terrace formation.