Col. McMahon—Granite of the Himalayas. 61 
If then we consider the question of the origin of the Bunter 
pebbles in the light of these facts, two suggestions as to their origin 
are at once shown to be impossible. The majority of the pebbles 
are a very hard quartzite, are from 2 ins. to 4 ins. diameter, and are 
well rounded. Hence they must have had a much longer descent 
or a much longer journey than that above named. 
By one author they have been referred to a concealed ridge of 
Palzozoic rock in Hastern England,! by another to a similar ridge in 
Central England, of which the Malvern and Lickey Hills, etc., are 
the monumental outcrops.’ I have already pointed out the difficulties 
attending both these views, so far as regards the nature of the 
materials, their enormous volume and their disposition. I have 
commented on the confused views of the latter author, both as to 
lithology and physical geology; but the observations above made 
effectually dispose of one of his criticisms, that pebbles coming from 
Scotland would have been “reduced to sand” before reaching 
Staffordshire,—a criticism indeed which even the knowledge in our 
possession at that time did not justify. They also indicate that 
unless we maintain the Bunter Beds to be a marine deposit (which 
I do not suppose will find any support with modern geologists), its 
pebbles can only have been formed by strong and full rivers. These, 
if from insular lands, must have issued from lofty mountains ; if from 
continental, must have flowed with strong stream for long distances. 
Considering the hardness of the materials, we may demand insular 
mountains even higher than the Alps, or rivers with courses exceeding 
a couple of hundred miles in length, of fuller volume and stronger 
stream than now exist in Britain. The sources for the Bunter 
pebbles then, proposed by either of these authors, Utopian at best, 
cannot be made to accord with the facts which I have recounted, 
while the general resemblance of the Bunter Beds to the conglomerate 
of the Nagelflue, and to the gravel of the plains which stretch away 
from the feet of the Alps, renders the northern origin of these 
pebbles,—where continental conditions did prevail and identical 
pebbles still exist in older conglomerates—a far more probable theory. 
Il].—Tue Gyetssose GRANITE OF THE HIMALAYAS. 
By Colonel C. A. McManon, F.G.S. 
HAVE read with great pleasure Mr. R. D. Oldham’s interesting 
article in this Magazine, for October, 1887, on the gneissose 
rocks of the Himalayas. Mr. Oldham concurs with me in assigning 
an eruptive origin for the more or less gneissose rocks at Dalhousie, 
the Chor, and for almost all those in the Satlej Valley; and as I 
have in my published papers expressly intimated ‘“ my belief that 
some of the crystalline rocks of the north-western Himalayas are 
metamorphic gneisses ” (Records Geol. Surv. India, vol. xviii. p. 110), 
I see no grounds for dissenting from his observations regarding the 
latter class of rocks. 
1 Gzou. Maa. Dec. II. Vol. X. p. 285. 
? Proc. Phil. Soc. Birmingham, vol. iii. p. 157; Gon, Mac. Dee, II, Vol. X. 
p- 199. This locality is practically included in the other. 
