ABSTRACT

The geological conditions of the island of Yezo agree, so far as it gather them from the reports of Pumpelly, Lyman, and other American mining engineers, essentially with those of Old Japan. Green sericit-schists occur also on the road from Nagasaki to Mogi, a place lying 3 ri further south, from which the passage is made to Amakusa. Most of the coal-measures of Japan belong to this formation, and are therefore properly peat-coals, although their appearance is in many cases more that of the harder coals. Obviously volcanic activity has been very effective in modern geological ages, as erosion was not yet powerful enough to produce such deep indentations. Thus, F. Schmidt had made Saghalien the subject of a thorough geological and botanical inquiry, in the course of which he found subfossil beds of molluscs imbedded in their natural position in clay, and rightly interpreted this fact as a sign of the still continuing elevation of the island.