Reviews — Himalayan Triassic Fossils. 563 



Society of London in 1851. Professor Suess, who saw these 

 specimens during a visit to London, recognized the Alpine character 

 of some of the fossils, and even went so far as to identify some of 

 them with species which had already been described from the Alps. 

 In 1863, in his description of Dr. Gerard's collection of fossils from 

 the Spiti valley, H. F. Blanford described two Triassic Ammonites, 

 and observed that the Triassic specimens were not siifificiently 

 iinmerous to lead him to infer the existence of a distinct formation 

 of that age ; he stated, however, that the investigations of 

 Mr. Theobald, who had just returned from a visit to the Spiti valley, 

 established the existence there of Triassic rocks, as well as rocks of 

 Silurian and of Upper Oolitic age. In this same year Oppel began 

 his important memoir on the fossils collected by the brothers Voa 

 Schlagintweit in Tibet and Spiti during the years 1854-7; and, 

 although the collectors did not state the geological horizon at which 

 the fossils had been obtained, Oppel inferred, from an examination 

 of the specimens, that they had not all been found in the Spiti 

 Shales, and some two years later he assigned a number of them to 

 the Trias. In 1864 Professor Beyrich described a couple of frag- 

 ments of Triassic Ammonites which had been brought from Ladakh. 

 Salter, in his description of Strachey's Triassic fossils which appeared 

 in the following year, regarded them as of Upper Triassic age ; 

 Dr. Diener, however, states that most of the Cephalopods that he 

 described belong to the Muschelkalk, and that the few real Upper 

 Triassic forms that he identified with European species were not 

 correctly determined. In the same year, from an examination of the 

 brachiopods and bivalves of the Schlagintweit collection, Giimbel 

 came to the conclusion, not only that rocks of Triable age were 

 present in Spiti, but that two horizons could be recognized, an upper 

 and a lower; the former he regarded as the equivalent of the 

 European Muschelkalk, and the latter as comparable with the Werfeu 

 beds of the Alpine Trias. 



In his memoir on the Cephalopoda of the Alpine Muschelkalk, 

 Professor Beyrich pointed out that most of the Triassic Ammonites 

 described by Oppel were more nearly related to species from the 

 Muschelkalk than to Upper Triassic forms, and he considered that 

 a great portion, at least, of the Triassic deposits of the Himalayas 

 should be regarded as homotaxial with the Alpine Muschelkalk. 

 Stoliczka, however, who visited Spiti in 1864, believed that only 

 Upper Triassic rocks were present, and that representatives of the 

 rest of the Triassic rocks were entirely wanting in this part of the 

 Himalayas ; nor did he consider that their presence had been proved 

 in any other portion of these mountains, an opinion which he still 

 maintained after a subsequent visit to these regions. Griesbach, on 

 the contrary, after a visit to Niti, stated that there " the whole Trias, 

 from the Alpine Werfen beds (Buntsandstein) to the Upper Keuper 

 rocks," was present. After an examination of all the Triassic 

 Cephalopoda in the Museum of the Indian Geological Survey at 

 Calcutta, including Stoliczka's type-specimens. Dr. Diener considers 

 that probably only two species are undoubtedly of Upper Triassic 

 age, two others being somewhat doubtful, whilst all the rest are 



