BY FEITZ NOETLING, M.A., TH.D. 101 



1913. 



without disturbing them further than pressing a boulder 

 into the top layer. Mr. R. M. Johnston thinks that the 

 Breccia represents the debris of landslips that fell into the 

 "lake." This is a very fascinating theory, and looks very 

 convincing at first, but on closer inspection there are 

 many objections to it. To begin with, there are certain 

 rea/sons against the lake hypothesis, but I will let that 

 pass (8). The main objection to the landslip theory is 

 the composition of the Breccia; how is it possible that in 

 a debris produced by a landslip well rounded boulders are 

 mixed with angular blocks ? In all the landslips I have 

 seen in the Himala^^as the debris consisted of shar]o angular 

 fragments, which were, moreover, never imbedded in a 

 matrix as seen at One Tree Point. Further, if the 

 landslip fell into the water one should assume that the 

 action of the waves started at once the process of sifting. 

 Instead of preserving its present appearance, where blocks 

 of all sizes are irregularly mixed up, the heavier blocks 

 would have eventually settled towards the bottom, leaving 

 the lighter ones near the top. In fact, I cannot imagine 

 how an entirely unstratified mass remained as such in the 

 water for any length of time. And, again, if the mass of 

 debris fell from above, how is it that only one solitary 

 block has been observed to be pressed into the underlying 

 strata, which were, as it must be kept in mind, in a pliable 

 state when the Breccia was deposited? If such a mass of 

 debris, as shown in PL vi., fell on the top of a soft mud 

 one should imagine that numbers of the hard boulders 

 became imbedded in it. But though some large boulders 

 were within an inch or so from the top layer of tlie leaf 

 beds, they were not pressed into it, as is well seen in Plate 

 vi. The whole appearance of the leaf beds and Breccia 

 proves that the deposition of the latter on the top of the 

 former must have been a quiet, rather than a violent, pro- 

 cess. Further, the Breccia layer in the middle of the leaf 

 beds in the northern portion becomes thicker towards 

 north; that is to say, towards a direction where there 

 were no cliffs from which the debris could have fcillen, 

 though I would not lay too much stress on this. Taking 

 everything into consideration, this "landslip" hypothesis af- 

 fords, therefore, such a lot of difficulties, that it is no 

 longer tenable. 



For the present I am unable to replace it by any 

 other theol'3^ and the origin of the Breccia is still a 

 problem. If we could conclusively prove that it were a 



(8) See above page. 



