More than half of the meizoseismal area occupies a low flat plain of not less than 400 square miles in extent. On all sides but the south, the plain, which is a continuation of the depression forming the Sea of Isé, is surrounded by mountain ranges, those to the west, north, and north-east being built up mainly of Palæozoic rocks, and those on the east side of granite. A network of rivers and canals converts what might otherwise have been unproductive ground into one of the most fertile districts in Japan. A great garden, as it has been aptly termed, the whole plain is covered with rice-fields, and supports a population of about 787 to the square mile--a density which is exceeded in only six counties of England. As a rule, the soil is a loose, incoherent, fine sand, with but little clayey matter; and it is, no doubt, to its sandy nature that the disastrous effects of the earthquake were largely due. In the northern half of the district, the meizoseismal area is much narrower, and here it crosses a great mountain-range running from south-west to north-east and separating the river-systems of the Japan sea from those of the Pacific. To the north, the meizoseismal area terminates in another plain, in the centre of which lies the city of Fukui, where the destructiveness of the earthquake was only inferior to that experienced in the provinces of Mino and Owari. There is also a detached portion of the area lying to the east of Lake Biwa, but it is uncertain whether the exceptional intensity there was due to the nature of the ground or to the occurrence of a secondary or sympathetic earthquake in its immediate neighbourhood. [Illustration: FIG. 42.--General Plan of Geological Structure of Meizoseismal Area. (_Koto._)] The general plan of the geological structure of the central district is represented in Fig. 42. The thick line, partly continuous and partly broken, shows the course of the great fault, to the growth of which the earthquake chiefly owed its origin; while the thin continuous lines represent the changing direction of strike of the Palæozoic rocks which surround the Mino-Owari plain, and the arrowheads the direction of the dip. It will be seen that the direction of the strike forms an S-shaped curve, and it is clear that the present torsion-structure of the district could not have been produced without the formation of many fractures at right angles and parallel to the lines of strike. Professor Koto points out that the regular and parallel valleys of the rivers Tokuno-yama, Neo, Mugi, and Itatori, indicated by broken lines in Fig. 42, have probably been excavated along a series of transverse fractures running from north-west to south-east; while fractures which are parallel to the line of strike may be responsible for the zigzag course of the valleys. DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE EARTHQUAKE.