2. Notes on the Geology of China, with more especial reference to the Provinces of the Lower Yangtse. By T. W. Kingsmill, Corr. Sec. North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.
[Communicated by the President.]
So far as I am aware, no attempt has been as yet made to classify the several geological formations of this huge empire. Isolated accounts of small sections have, indeed, appeared, but these for the most part were the productions of travellers inexperienced in the nomenclature of the science. Two exceptions, however, may be mentioned ; one of these is Mr. Raphael Pumpelly, who in the years 1863-5 examined the coal-beds of the north-eastern provinces ; the other, Mr. A. S. Bickmore, who in the year 1866 penetrated from Canton by Kwangsi and Hunan to Hankow in the centre of the empire. Unfortunately Mr. Pumpelly, so far as I know, has published no full statement of his researches, the only account being a short notice in Silliman's Journal in 1866, which, unluckily, I have not had the opportunity of perusing in full ; while Mr. Bickmore's stay was too short, and the restrictions imposed on him during his adventurous journey too severe, to have afforded him the opportunity of forming a regular classification. I shall in the course of this paper, however, allude to some very interesting observations of his, detailed in a paper read before the North-China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, and published in the volume of their Transactions for last year.
My own personal observations have been made during a residence of nearly seven years, distributed between Hongkong, Canton, Shanghai, and Hankow, having had besides the advantage of occasional visits to all the open ports in the South of China, from most of which I have made excursions into the country lying around. In January of the present year (1868) I spent some ten days in the inspection of the country situated in the neighbourhood of Nanking and Chinkiang, which afforded me some valuable results, while other tours have made me tolerably well acquainted with the districts of Lower Kiangsu, of southern Nganhwei, and of the districts of Kiangsi and Hupeh adjacent to the river Yangtse.
Excluding the provinces of Fuhkien and Chehkiang, which probably offer some partial exceptions, the aqueous formations of the south of China commence at bottom with a series of coarse grits and sandstones overlain conformably by limestones and shales. This formation extends from the east coast far into Hupeh, and apparently to the west of Sz'chuen, and from the south of Kwangtung certainly as far north as the basin of the Yangtse, and probably far into Mongolia. Throughout all the districts with which I am acquainted it occurs in vast synclinals and anticlinals, forming a series of mountain- chains rising generally to no great height, though in the Mei-ling between Kwangtung and Kiangsi, in the Wue-shan between the latter province and Fuhkien, and in the Lu-shan near Kiukiang on the Yangtse it seems to exceed the altitude of 5000 feet. In fact it may be said to form the skeleton of the country, the succeeding formations occurring for the most part in the valleys and depressions
