Reviews — Geological Survey of India. 473 



will, I believe, have to be made out, as suggested in the Manual 

 (p. 554). It is all very fine to object to the " torment " of conflicting 

 hypotheses (p. 110), but for my part I never could find comfort in 

 an artificial paradise. 



There is one point that calls for more explicit notice. In my 

 Memoir (p. 174) I recorded a conclusion of some general interest: 

 that "The Krol group \i.e. the massive limestone], the youngest 

 of the older rocks, though greatly denuded, had undergone little or 

 no contortion along the outer zone of the mountain area, prior to 

 the formation of the Subathu Nummulitic rocks." The statement 

 was based upon the section at Subathu, where, on both sides of a 

 steep synclinal fold of considerable width, the characteristic bottom 

 bed of the Tertiary series occurs with complete parallelism upon 

 slaty flags of the Infra-Krol horizon. In the Manual (p. 569) I 

 re-affirmed the statement, confirming it in part by evidence from 

 the sub-Himalayan zone in Jamu, where the same typical bottom 

 Tertiaries regularly overlie the massive limestone. I thus laid 

 further stress upon the Subathu section, as proving that elevation with 

 great denudation had taken place much earlier in the eastern area. 

 The affirmations as to denudation and contortion are distinct, and 

 should be severally maintained or refuted. The geologist should 

 rarely indulge in the word "impossible"; but I do assert it as to 

 me inconceivable that the contact relation at Subathu could have 

 been brought about unless the Krol group had been removed by 

 denudation prior to the deposition of the Subathu beds, and unless 

 the Infra-Krol beds had then been unplicated. In the immediate 

 neighbourhood, sections abound showing the usual crushed and con- 

 fused contact. Until that section at Subathu is specifically disposed 

 of, I must hold to it. 



Mr. Middlemiss endeavours gently to extricate me from this 

 position. He says (p. 4) that in repeating it in the Manual I 

 unfortunately trusted largely to the sections in Jamu ; but on the 

 face of it this is wrong, for half of my affirmation rests solely on 

 the Subathu section. To this section Mr. Middlemiss only refers in 

 a footnote ; and it does not seem certain whether he had ever seen 

 it. It does not appear as if Mr. Middlemiss were quite certain of 

 this feature in his own ground. In Section VI. the Subathu beds 

 and the underlying fossiliferous Tal beds are in regular sequence 

 upon the massive limestone, while in Section IX. the two former, 

 without the limestone, rest in rough parallelism on the old slates, 

 without faulting ; and his facts in favour of an earlier plication of 

 the Himalayan rocks are only quotations of wholesale differences 

 of strikes in that region. Of course the presumption seemed all in 

 favour of such earlier disturbance with plication of the older rocks; 

 but I thought it right to point out that the most particular facts in 

 hand would point the other way, in the dh'ection of an origin in 

 continental elevation by bossellement as suggested by De Beaumont. 

 Such references to elementary theories give point to stray remarks, 

 and by no means imply the advocacy of the developments that may 

 have grown out of the said theories. 



