Correspondence — Mr. H. H. Sorcorth. 277 



sandstones whicli Griesbach classes as of " Miocene and possibly of 

 later age." Mr. Lydekker, after discussing the remains, says of 

 these mammalian beds, "the beds in question are probably of 

 Pleistocene age, and almost certainly not older than Upper Pliocene " 

 (Eecords, Geol. Surv. India, vol. xiv. p. 181). 



General Richard Strachey, who examined them with great care, 

 says of them in his article " Himalaya " in the last edition of the 

 Encyclopedia Britannica, "there is no room for doubt that these 

 deposits have been raised from a comparatively low level to their 

 existing great elevation of upwards of 15,000 feet since they loere 

 laid out." Mr. Griesbach allows that these beds are everywhere 

 raised up on end as is also the case along the southern margin 

 of the lower hills which are skirted by the Siwaliks (Mems. Geol. 

 Survey of India, xxiii. p. 34). 



These facts seem to me to justify my contention that the Hima- 

 layas have been largely uplifted since Pliocene times. Mr. Blanford. 

 was himself once of the same opinion. When the Manual already 

 quoted was published, namely, in 1878, his view was that the 

 Himalayan elevation took place after the deposition of the Siwalik 

 beds, that is, that it was post-Pliocene. I understand him to say 

 that he has since changed his mind because Mr. Lydekker has shown 

 the Ehinoceros remains found at Hundes to belong to an extinct 

 genus, and he refers me to the Catalogue of Fossil Mammalia in the 

 British Museum, vol. iii. p. 158, where he says I shall find that the 

 Tibetan Rhinoceros was closely allied to a species belonging to 

 Aceratherium, a small hornless (extinct) group with well-developed 

 incisors in both jaws, and Dr. Blanford accordingly says very 

 positively that the Ehinoceros in question cannot have been the 

 B. antiquitatis as I had conjectured, and implies that the beds in 

 which the remains occur must belong to an older horizon. 



I confess. Sir, that his statement surprised me greatly. In the 

 first place I knew that the remains from Hundes comprised no teeth 

 and no skull, and I could not understand on what possible grounds 

 Mr. Lydekker, whose patience and caution are so conspicuous, could 

 have come to such a very definite conclusion about the specific 

 character of the Rhinoceros referred to. As a matter of fact he 

 does nothing of the kind. He expressly says of the remains " they 

 are not specifically determinable" (loc. cit.). 



In the face of this specific statement, I can neither understand 

 bow Dr. Blanford should have attributed to Mr. Lydekker a con- 

 clusion for which there seems to be no foundation, and secondly, 

 how he can, because of a mere phantasm, justify to himself and us 

 completely changing his own views on a most critical matter. I 

 am bound to say, apart from everything else, there is a very 

 stnmg a priori improbability that the Rhinoceros remains from 

 Hundes belong to an extinct genus. Mr. Lydekker distinctly says 

 " all the remains found at Hundes, with the doubtful exception of 

 Hippotherium, belong to living genera," and he treats them as 

 Pleistocene or Pliocene. The genus Aceratherium belongs to an 

 older horizon altogether. So far as we know it was a tropical or 



