FOSSIL RHINOCEKOS OF TIBET. 175 



bring the fossil bones to Almorah; they state that they are 

 found in ravines in the plain below the Snowy Passes. 



3. The universality of the belief at Almorah, where the 

 Bijli hi hdr are brought, that they come from the plains of 

 Tibet, and from nowhere else. 



4. The absence of any grounds tending to discredit the 

 evidence in favour of the fact. 



Next in regard to the geological features of the fossil 

 tract. Mr. Batten,* from whom the most of what follows is 

 derived, describes the rocks from the southern side up to the 

 crest of the Niti Pass : talc and clay slates predominate near 

 Malari ; quartz rock, mica, schist, gneiss, and granite between 

 Malari and GumsaH. The granite contains abundance of 

 tourmaline and kyanite, as is the case all along the culmi- 

 nating axis of the mountains between the valley of the Spiti 

 and the Eastern sources of the Ganges. Above Gumsali the 

 road leads along granite and gneiss precipices. At Niti the 

 formations appear to alter, clay slate rising into hiUs with 

 a rounded outline, and a compact uncrystalline blue limestone 

 succeeding the granite series, and higher up an arenaceous 

 quartzose rock. From the source of Dhauli river to the crest 

 of the pass the road leads up through crumbling of crags 

 of blue limestone, the top of the pass being strewed with 

 blocks of this rock and arenaceous quartz. The blue and 

 mottled grey limestone here noticed has an extensive range 

 of distribution aU along the northern face of the Himalayah 

 chain abounding in Ammonites, Terebratulse, Belemnites, 

 Zoophytes, &c., which have been met with in the valley of 

 the Spiti by Dr. Gerard, at the head of the Ganges by Mr. 

 Batten, and at Muctinath on the Gandaki river in ifiTepaul.^ 

 Several of the species have been determined by Mr. Sowerby 

 not to differ from fossils of the English oolite. It is hardly 

 necessary to add that this limestone has no other relation 

 with the deposit which contains the fossil bones, besides 

 contiguity of place. 



The top of the pass, which is round and open, commands 

 a view of the plain of Hioondes. ' Right in front,' says Mr. 

 Batten, ' stretched a dreary plain, shrubless, treeless, and house- 

 less, terminated along its whole northern side, at a distance of 

 about 20 miles, by a low range of rounded brown hills, utterly 

 without shrub or tree or jutting rock, but very broken into 

 ravines and perpendicular faces on their Southern side. Had 

 there been heather instead of stone, it would have resembled 

 a highland moor.' Its level was hardly anywhere lower than 

 the pass. He farther states his opinion that ' The Niti Pass 



' Batten, loc. cit. ^ Colebrooke, As. Eesearch. vol. xii. Append, p. xxi. 



