their fine ink-stones. The extreme upper beds are more shaly, and have yielded fossils both animal and vegetable. I have met with but one locality for each, however, — the former, near Kiukiang, at the foot of the Lu-shan, the latter, in the Si Tungting-shan, in the Taihu. Of the former I have collected ; —
Some doubtful fish-scales.
An Orthoceratite.
Two Cirri?
A Gryphoea.
A small doubtful conchifer.
The above, like most of the fossils of the Tungting series, are excessively badly preserved.
Of vegetable remains I have noticed the following : —
A Lepidodendron, with small lozenge-shaped reticulations.
Some stems of conifers, and possibly leaves of the same.
A Pecopteris.
Apparently two other forms not sufficiently well marked for determination.
Fragments of leaves with parallel striae.
The vegetable remains at least seem to indicate an early age for the containing rock.
These rocks, in the south of China, are eminently developed in the valley of the Si-kiang or West River, which rises in the frontier districts of Yunnan and Kwangsi, and, flowing on towards the delta of the Canton river, disembogues finally at the western side of the island on which is situated the Portuguese settlement of Macao. Mr. Bickmore describes them likewise as forming the foundation rock in the valley of the Kweikiang or Cassia
