BHATTANI HILLS. 91 



at least adjacent land is indicated by woody plant remains, sometimes 

 converted into lignite, and by carbonaceous or even coaly layers. 



Later, in the upper Jurassic group of this country, marine conditions 

 certainly prevailed till the first traces of the succeeding upper mesozoic 

 and lowest cretaceous epoch had become recorded in what is stratigraphically 

 the topmost layer of the Jurassic rocks. 



After this, coarse sandstones were formed, perhaps not far from land 

 and though there is neither great variety nor enormous thickness of rocks 

 to mark the duration of the cretaceous period, its representative here 

 passed either insensibly or with but local interruption within the limits of 

 eocene or post-eocene times. 



At the close of the period during which the partly cretaceous rocks 

 were being deposited, notwithstanding there is no local evidence of the pre- 

 sence of a land surface, some cause intervened to arrest the accumulation 

 of the eocene rocks over parts of this region, though so largely developed in 

 others ; for they can scarcely have been deposited and removed again with- 

 out having left strong traces of the denuding agency ; and if local eleva- 

 tion of part of the depositing area were the cause of their absence, marked 

 unconformity, entirely undetected, might be expected to have resulted. 



Whatever the arresting cause may have been, whether cessation of 

 deposition or otherwise, its influence was first displayed to the west 

 and south ; and it extended thence north- eastwards, passing on through 

 the later or post-eocene period of the lower tertiary deposits ; so that 

 until the date of the upper tertiary Siwalik strata there are but traces 

 (and westwards very slight ones only) of any beds to represent the 

 great accumulation of pre- Siwalik lower tertiary sandstones and clays 

 found in neighbouring regions. 



This capricious distribution of well marked cainozoic groups, it 

 appears to me, must be attributed mainly to changes of level in early 

 tertiary times, and probably largely also to the bank-like method of accu- 

 mulation usual in sub-torrential deposits ; the detritus wherewith they 

 were constructed being traceable to the atmospheric destruction of 



( 301 ) 



