DESCRIPTION OF PLATE II. 



Map iUustrating Dr. Falconer's Observations on tlie Geo- 

 logy of India (p. 28). This map is reduced from a larger one 

 which Dr. Falconer had coloured, and to which he had affixed 

 the following explanatory note. The different shadings cor- 

 respond to the colours in the original. 



' The great mass of light shading represents the supposed insular form 

 of the continent of India at an early period of the Tertiary epoch, the 

 island forming a sort of triangle, of which the eastern and western Ghats 

 formed the sides and the great Vindhya range the base, with an irregiilar 

 patch of moimtainous country stretching north forming the Aravalli 

 range. 



' The dark shading represents the plains of India, forming the valley 

 systems of the Ganges and Indus drainage, which were formerly narrow 

 ocean straits. These straits were the recipients of the silt and alluvium 

 washed out of the Himalayahs, and were at length elevated above the 

 sea, so as to form the existing continent. The Sewalik Fauna then 

 spread over the continent, from the mouth of the Irrawaddi to the Gulf 

 of Cambay 2,000 miles, and north to the Jhelum 1,. 500 miles. After 

 the long establishment of the Sewalik Fauna, a great upheavement took 

 place along the line of the Himalayahs, elevating a narrow belt of the 

 plains into the Selawik Hills, and adding many thousand feet to the 

 height of the Himalayahs. The red stripe represents the Sewalik hills, 

 stretching from the Hydaspes to the Gunduck River, 800 miles. The 

 small red patch behind the Himalayahs represents the ossiferoiis plain of 

 Tibet about 16,000 feet above the sea. The other red patches repre- 

 sent the Nerbudda and the Gulf of Cambay fossil tracts.' 



VOL. I. 



