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

36 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
sist of white orthoclase and thin lenticular plates or bands of gray quartz, with
abundant irregular grains of garnet of the size of a pea.
The gneiss of this locality runs through several varieties, all alike rich in garnets.
Gneiss with garnets is also exposed under the volcanic beds at Yingmachuen, northeast of the Te Hai.
Thus where we cross the Barrier range west of Yangkau, we find the predominating schists to be of the hornblendic series. In the echelon to the east,
between the Yang Ho and Hwaingan creek, the schists, that underlie the Hwaingan
beds, are mainly of the micaceous series, gneiss being most common. The schists
that are exposed west of the Barrier range, between this and the Te Hai, and
at Yingmachuen, belong, as we have seen, also mostly to the micaceous series,
gneiss predominating and alternating with its congener-granulite. The general
trend of the uplift of these latter schists, in the region between Kiu Hwaingan and
the Te Hai, is northeasterly and parallel to the course of the Barrier range, while
the mean strike of the schists of the hornblendic series, in the main body of the
range, seems to be north-northwesterly.
If we glance at the metamorphic region east of Kalgan, we find that its schists
belong to the hornblendic and chloritic series, and here also the mean strike seems
to lie between north and west.
Have we here to do with the metamorphosed strata of two distinct periods? It
would be hasty to assume that such is the case in the absence of more data, but it
does not seem improbable that the schists of the hornblendic and chloritic series
represent deposits of an earlier age followed by N. W. S. E. foldings of the strata,
while the gneiss and granulite series belong to a later epoch which was followed by
the N. E. S. W. disturbance.
Hwaingan Beds.-These strata, which have already been referred to as resting
almost conformably on gneiss, cover the hills on both sides of the Hwaingan creek,
and occur with an easterly trend and northerly dip at the edge of the hills, N. W.
of Siuenhwa (fu). They are made up of layers of compact and hard, gray silicious
limestone, with quartzose sandstones, red and gray argillites, and quartzite. The
predominating rock would seem to be the limestone. The aggregate thickness is
several hundred feet. The lowest layers are, first, and resting on the gneiss, a fine
grained sandstone, green from thin layers of a green mineral; over this, sandstone
altered to quartzite; on this a red argillaceous shale; finally, silicious limestone
containing numerous thin layers of chert. The alternating beds at the bottom of the
series vary in thickness from six inches to many feet, and in the cliffs seen from the
road, I noticed that they frequently thin out and dovetail into each other, an occurrence that seems to indicate frequently changing conditions of level and material.
The Hwaingan beds appear to be the equivalent of the great limestone floor of
the coal-bearing rocks, and their character and thinness would seem to indicate that
they were formed on the borders of the sea in which that great formation originated.
The limestone of the Kiming basin is highly silicified, and its thickness seems to
be much less than that of the same formation where it rises from beneath the great
plain.
Greenstone-Porphyry Conglomerate.-The beds of this rock were noticed near