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

62 GEOLOGICAL RESEARCHES IN
The Sinian, or N. E. S. W. system of elevation corresponds in many respects to
our Appalachian system, and if the analogy holds good throughout, it seems probable that the Sinian revolution terminated soon after the deposition of the Chinese
Coal measures, a supposition that is corroborated by the absence, so far as my
observation goes, of any younger formations elevated by this revolution.
The apparently total absence, in the line of the Yangtse, of eruptive porphyries,
greenstones, trachytes, and basalts, seems to point to a corresponding absence of
subsequent disturbance through a large area of the country.
Again, were there fossiliferous strata of the Jurassic or Cretaceous ages, their
petrifactions would be found in all parts of the empire, used as curiosities and as
medicines, as is the case with the fossil brachiopods and orthoceratites. This is
important evidence in China, where art is based on the remarkable, or rather
strange, in nature.1
In classifying the above tabulated data, I have assumed that the gold washings
are indicative of the neighborhood of the granito-metamorphic formation, and have
referred this to the adjacent ridges. I have also assumed that the limestone marble,
lime, caves, stalactites, and fossil brachiopods, etc., all point to the presence in each
locality of the same great bed of Devonian limestone. My own observations in the
northern provinces and along the Yangtse, those of Blackiston in Sz'chuen, and the
remarks of casual travellers in the south, all point to one, and only one, great
limestone formation, which everywhere underlies the coal-bearing rocks, and to
which, in all probability, all the indications above given refer.
That the brachiopods belong to this formation is merely an inference, for I never
was able to find a fossil of any kind in the limestone. It is, however, an inference
based on circumstantial evidence, as when they are frequently cited as occurring in
caverns or in the same neighborhood with marble, or stalactites, etc., or in close
proximity to coal localities.
With regard to the coal-bearing rocks, I have supposed the coals to belong to the
same age throughout the empire, excepting a few which seem, from their names,
to be tertiary brown coals. The similar character of the fossils, from the north and
from the Yangtse, and the position of given localities with reference to the limestone in many parts of the country, favor the assumption.
Had we good topographical maps of China, the sketch I am about to attempt
would be much facilitated;- but although the water-courses are laid down on the
Jesuit map, with a general approximation to accuracy that is very remarkable, we
have very little knowledge of the orography. In the first pages of this paper I
pointed out the prevalence of the northeast, southwest direction in the prominent
features of Eastern Asia, and went so far as to apply this rule to the establishing
1 Both the Chipane and Japanese have a strong taste for the bizarre in nature, as shown by their
fondness for dwarfed or deformed trees. Waterworn and cavernous rocks are carried long distances
to be used in ornamenting gardens, and quarries are worked for blocks of dendritic limestone to be
made into articles of furniture or ornament. All kinds of fossils are esteemed as medicines, and sold
as such in all apothecary shops, the brachiopods as Shiyen "stone swallows," and the fossil bones
and teeth, from caverns and loam deposits, as "dragon's teeth," "dragon's scales," "dragon's
bones," etc.