278 Correspondence — 3Ir. John Young. 



semitropical genus, and there is no warrant for attributing to it, as 

 D)'. Blanford does, a capacity for living under conditions like those 

 of the Hnndes plateau. The only species of Rhinoceros known 

 to me which were the companions of the Horse, etc., etc., else- 

 where, were the J3. antiqtiitatis and the R. Merchii, to one of which 

 I believe the remains probably belonged. 



My view in regard to the impossibility of supposing that any 

 species of Khinoceros could live where the remains are found in Tibet 

 is shared by better authorities than myself. Strachey expressly says 

 that " their existence in the present condition of the Tibetan plateau 

 would be quite impossible," while Dr. Falconer, /aci7e princej)s as an 

 authority on the Pachydermata recent and fossil, says, " Henry 

 Colebrooke, the first who, along with Colonel Crawford, measured the 

 heights of the Dwalagiri. procured from the plateau of Chauthan 

 in the Himalayas, at a height of 17,000 feet above the sea-level, 

 fossil bones, which were brought down and exported as charms into 

 India, to which the natives attributed a supernatural origin, and 

 called them 'lightning or thunder bones.' At the present time, 

 during eight months in the year, the climate differs in no important 

 respect from that of the Arctic circle, and in the whole of the 

 district there is not a single tree or shrub that gi'ows larger than 

 a little willow about nine inches high. The grasses which grow 

 there are limited in number, and the fodder in the shape of Dicoty- 

 ledonous plants is equally scarce. Yet, notwithstanding this 

 scantiness of vegetation, large fossils were found of the Khinoceros, 

 the Horse, the Buffalo, the Antelope, and of several carnivorous 

 animals ; the group of fossil faunas as a whole involving the con- 

 dition that, at no very remote period of time, a plateau in the 

 Himalayan Mountains, now at an elevation exceeding three miles 

 above the level of the sea, where we get the climate of the Arctic 

 regions, had then such a climate as enabled the Rhinoceros and 



seA'eral subtropical forms to exist The only rational solution 



which science can suggest is that within a comparatively modern 

 period, a period closely trenching upon the time when man made 

 his appearance upon the face of the earth, the Himalaj'as have been 

 thrown up by an increment closely approaching 8,000 or 10,000 " 

 (Proc. Roy. Geol. Soc. vol. viii. pp. 41 and 42). I commend this 

 passage to Dr. Blanford. 



I had written a detailed criticism of his rejoinder, in which I 

 traversed every point he has made, but 1 do not think it right to 

 unduly load your pages with an ephemeral polemic, and I have 

 merely therefore selected one issue as a sample, and I venture to 

 think it shows that the position 1 have supported is unassailable. 



Henry H. Howokth. 



CONE-IN-CONE STRUCTURE. 



SiK, — In reference to the statement of Mr. Alfred Harker, F.G.S., 



regarding radiation, and inversion of the cone structure, in nodular 



masses, in May Number of Geol. Mag., I hope you will kindly 



allow me to state, that I have in my printed paper, on " Coue-iu- 



