286 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1914. 
In Simla occurs the Blaini formation, also with bowlder beds, the 
age of which, according to Holland is certainly older than the Permic 
and possibly of late Proterozoic time. It is ‘‘a conglomeratic slate 
composed of rounded pebbles of quartz, ranging up to the size of a 
hen’s egg, or in other cases angular and subangular fragments of slate 
and quartzite, of all sizes up to some feet across, which are scattered 
at intervals through a fine-grained matrix.’”’ Holland regards these 
beds as ‘‘almost certainly of glacial origin.” They may eventually 
be shown to be of late Proterozoic age. 
Africa.—In Proterozoic strata, far beneath the Table Mountain 
series, of probably late Siluric or early Devonic age, is the Griquatown 
or Pretoria series (29° 8. lat.), in which glacial materials have been 
found. At present no definite age in the Proterozoic era can be 
assigned this formation, nor can it be said that the glacial horizon is 
either that of the Lower Huronian or of the latest Proterozoic time. 
China.—In the Provinces of the middle Yangtse River of China 
(110° E. long. and 31° N. lat.) Willis and Blackwelder (1907) found 
resting unconformably upon very ancient granite and gneiss a series 
of quartzites followed by at least 120 feet of an unmistakable glacial 
tillite (in places nearly 500 feet thick), green in color, which is in turn 
overlain by unfossiliferous limestones over 4,000 feet thick. This lime- 
stone Willis correlates with the fossiliferous Middle Cambric occur- 
ring 100 miles away, and the tillite beneath it is thought to have 
formed ‘‘close to sea level.’”’ The age of these tillites is conceded to 
be at least as old as the Lower Cambric, but when we note that the 
tillite changes quickly into the overlying limestone within a few feet 
of thickness, indicating a probable break in sedimentation between 
the two series of deposits, and the further fact that the overlying 
limestones have yielded no fossils, we see that these glacial deposits 
are as yet unplaced in the geologic column. Prof. Iddings restudied 
these tillites in 1909, and he likewise could find no fossils in the lime- 
stone. For the present the tillites are referred to the Proterozoic. 
What their distribution has been in China is as yet unknown. 
Scotland.—In the northwest of Scotland are seen some of the oldest 
rocks known to the geologists of Europe. The basement formations 
make up the Lewisian series, comparable to the Laurentian of Ameri- 
can geologists. Upon these old gneisses and schists, mainly of igneous 
origin, reposes unconformably a great pile of dull red sandstones, 
shales, and conglomerates, referred to as the Torridonian, that Peach 
states were laid down ‘‘under desert or continental conditions” (1912). 
These attain a thickness of at least 8,000 to 14,000 feet, and are in 
turn overlain unconformably by Lower Cambric strata having the 
trilobite Olenellus and related genera. The Torridonian was laid 
down in part upon a mountainous topography of Lewisian domes 
strikingly suggestive of glacial erosion. 
