Vol. IX, No. 10.] The Limestone Caves of Burma. 40} 
[N.8.] 
a gigantic amphitheatre, but sometimes funnel-shaped) : 
into strange valley systems, without connection one with 
the other, and that often end mysteriously either as 
st 
themselves and become lost, as marshe 
where evaporation helped out no doubt by subterranean 
percolation causes a disappearance of th to 
innumerable caves and passages beneath the ground, some 
now high and dry from the waters that caused them and 
others again unknown fame and rich in their eae 
beauty of stalactitic ulate 
In the Northern Shan States Bees limestones are well 
known, and have been described in various papers appearing 
in the publications of the Geokoalaal Survey of India by 
T. D. La Touche.» Wherever they have been examined in 
this area by myself, depressions appearing on che surface of 
the ground hich they u nderlay have always been a striking 
feature, as has also been the fact that their drainage very 
these depressions vary in size from ‘‘ ee : 
of which the latter are by far the most common, and froth thse 
to enclosed valleys oe miles in length and breadth, tra- 
versed by running streams. These phenomena are due to 
“ahaa dissolution “of the rock and the consequent set- 
tling down of the roof of a cavity or cavern, too weak to 
support its own weight. Owing to the c 
the Sov sireamaes in the Northern Shan States, as a result of the 
In the Southern Shan States caverns are 
it is believed that systematic searching would reveal the 
presence of many others. 
. Deiner has described rich collections of antbracolithic 
fossils collected by La Touche and Middlemiss in the Northern 
and Southern Shes States. His opinion regarding their ages is 
quoted below 
‘In brief the anthracolithic faunas of Burma and of ei 
Indian region (Salt Range-Himalayas), so closely — 
rts 
1 C. 8. Middlemiss, Report on a Geological Reconnaissance in pa 
of the Sccuicer ane oa 8 tates nd Karenni. General Rept., esa 
India, 1899-1900, "130-13 
eens especially T. “p, La Touche, stig oS oe the Northern. 
Shan States. Mem. Geol. Surv. India, Vol. XXTX, P' 
