4 RESEARCH IN CHINA. 



action. The same bed, however, is well known to Mr. C. S. Middlemiss, who had the 

 opportunity of visiting many of the sections in Mr. Griesbach's company. Mr. Middlemiss 

 states that the conglomerate bears no resemblance to a till, the matrix being a quartzite. 

 The term "boulder-bed" has been applied to the Haimanta rock merely on account of the 

 presence in it of unusually large boulders. 



The middle and upper divisions of the Haimantus are thus characterized 

 (pages 52 and 53) : 



The purple quartzites and conglomerates are in all sections overlain by a great 

 thickness of bluish-gray phyllites, shales, and thicker bedded quartzites, traversed by many 

 quartz veins. Towards the upper portion of it reddish-brown or pink quartz shales are 

 intercalated. * * * The only fossil traces known from this system have been found 

 in shales in this division. None of these organic remains are more than traces. They 

 are: crinoid? stem impressions; bivalve? casts and numerous casts of Bellerophon sp. 

 The latter occur both in the purplish-pink quartzite and in the shales accompanying it, 

 and rather high up in the sequence of beds of this division. 



In all the central Himalayan sections through the Haimantas, from the Kali river to 

 the Spiti province, I have invariably found certain beds which constitute the third division. 

 They consist of two zones of very hard quartz shales, the lower of which is formed by 

 densely red and pink quartz shales, which pass upwards into greenish-gray quartzite and 

 shales with pink shaly partings; the whole, as far as I know, quite unfossilifcrous. 

 Together these beds are not more than 250 to 500 feet in thickness. 



In his account of the geology of Spiti (page 13) Hayden discusses dif- 

 ferences of observations by himself and Griesbach, and bases his conclu- 

 sion upon his own work, which in that region was the more thorough of the 

 two. He fails to find any conglomerate which could be supposed to belong 

 to Griesbach's lower Haimanta conglomerate, except in one instance in 

 which the rock is clearly autoclastic. This difference may perhaps find its 

 explanation in the suggestion of a glacial origin of the conglomerates, since 

 they might in that case be of peculiarly local occurrence. After referring to 

 the lower beds as slates, quartzites, and grits, Hayden proceeds (page 13) : 



The overlying beds, which presumably comprise Mr. Griesbach's upper Haimantas, 

 consist of a series of black, purple, and gray slates, with gray, green, and red quartzites. 

 The lower part of the series is chiefly argillaceous and the upper mainly siliceous. * * * 

 Among the argillaceous beds are bands of an intensely black carbonaceous shale, resem- 

 bling the carbonaceous shales of Simla. * * * 



In the Parahio valley the upper siliceous beds pass up gradually into a series of gray 

 and green micaceous quartzites and thinly foliated slates and shales, with narrow bands 

 of light-gray dolomite. 



The slates, which are usually dark blue or black, vary in composition from a soft 

 argillaceous rock to a hard siliceous variety with much mica. * * * The slates are 

 interbedded with great irregularity with gray, yellow, or whitish quartzites which are 

 almost invariably capped by a narrow band of either calcareous quartzite or dolomitic 

 limestone only a few inches in thickness. The limestone, which is gray on fresh fracture, 

 weathers to a pinkish or brownish red and is again overlaid by slates which are at first argil- 



