Did the wind which shaped them blow from the left or from the right?
Loess. In northern China an area as large as France is deeply covered with a yellow pulverulent earth called loess (German, loose), which many consider a dust deposit blown from the great Mongolian desert lying to the west. Loess mantles the recently uplifted mountains to the height of eight thousand feet and descends on the plains nearly to sea level. Its texture and lack of stratification give it a vertical cleavage; hence it stands in steep cliffs on the sides of the deep and narrow trenches which have been cut in it by streams.
On loess hillsides in China are thousands of villages whose eavelike dwellings have been excavated in this soft, yet firm, dry loam. While dust falls are common at the present time in this region, the loess is now being rapidly denuded by streams, and its yellow silt gives name to the muddy Hwang-ho (Yellow River), and to the Yellow Sea, whose waters it discolors for scores of miles from shore.
Wind deposits both of dust and of sand may be expected to contain the remains of land shells, bits of wood, and bones of land animals, testifying to the fact that they were accumulated in open air and not in the sea or in bodies of fresh water.
Wind Erosion
Fig. 127. Wind-Carved Rocks, Arizona
Sand-laden currents of air abrade and smooth and polish exposed rock surfaces, acting in much the same way as does the jet of steam fed with sharp sand, which is used in the manufacture of ground glass. Indeed, in a single storm at Cape Cod a plate glass of a lighthouse was so ground by flying sand that its transparency was destroyed and its removal made necessary.