Reviews — Geological Survey of India. 471 



II.— Geological Survey of India. Memoirs, vol. xxiv. part 2, 

 Physical Geology of the Sub-Himalaya of Garliwal and Kumaun. 

 By C. S. Middlemiss, B.A. (Cantab). 



A S bearing on a question so much discussed as is that of the 

 _jf~\_ origin and growth of mountains, it seems strange that some 

 very definite results published by the Geological Survey of India 

 so long ago as 1864 regarding the greatest mountains in the world 

 should have been generally ignored. It is to be hoped that this 

 small geological scandal may be arrested by the latest publication 

 of that Survey, here under notice. The ground is continuous with 

 that to the west of the Ganges, described by me in "Vol. III. of 

 the Memoirs ; and Mr. Middlemiss begins by quoting some recent 

 instances of the neglect aforesaid, whereby absurdly erroneous state- 

 ments are still made regarding the part taken by the Tertiary 

 (Siwalik) rocks in the Himalayan mountain-system, although the 

 correct view of that relation had been quite explicitly set forth by 

 me, as has now been verified by more detailed work. I have 

 humbly to plead guilty to the want of lucidity complained of by 

 Mr. Middlemiss ; the particular conclusions arrived at were indeed 

 categorically stated, 1 but it is more or less excusable that these 

 should have taken no hold when the evidence for them had to be 

 painfully extracted from a maze of conflicting considerations. In 

 the present Memoir it is duly admitted that when I took it up, the 

 stratigraphy was practically unknown, and that I had to work with 

 very imperfect maps on a small scale — the old edition of the Indian 

 Atlas sheets ; while the new work was started from a good base of 

 information, and with the admirable large-scale maps of the new 

 Forest Survey. Mr. Middlemiss has done full justice to these more 

 favourable conditions. His work is given with a fulness of detail 

 and a clearness of exposition that leave little to be desired. 



The general result admits of being stated in a sentence: that, 

 notwithstanding more or less of modification by reverse faulting, 

 the main boundary of the sub-Himalayan zone with the higher 

 mountains, as well as the several lines of contact between newer 

 and older deposits within that zone, are primarily and approximately 

 original limits of deposition. This is what I have maintained since 

 1864. The proof positive of such a relation is of course the pro- 

 duction of a section showing actual original contact of newer upon 

 or against older deposits at the. boundary in question. Such a 

 section I did present 2 of Siwalik conglomerates in original contact 

 with bottom Nahan beds at the boundary near Tib, south of Nahan. 

 The isolated remnant of the newer rock was indeed only a shred ; 

 still it was enough to swear by, if genuine, as I enthusiastically took 

 it to be. Many years later, in 1881, Mr. R. D. Oldham called me 

 to account upon this point ; and on revisiting the spot with him, I 

 admitted that the patches of gravel which I had fondly taken to be 

 Siwalik more probably belonged to the recent high-level gravels. 



1 Loc. cit. p. 174. 2 Zoc. cit. p. 108. 



