16 SUB-HIMALAYAN EOCKS OF N. W. INDIA. [CHAP. I. 



the allusion to native collectors, may explain the doubt created by 

 the former quotation. I cannot persuade myself that fossils are abundant 

 any where on Nahun hill; I could never get a native even to take 

 the trouble to look among the Nahun rocks, but among the lower 

 hills to the south of the town every villager is familiar with the exist- 

 ence of the fossils. I. only insist on this point that special attention 

 may be paid to it hereafter. However rare they may be, fossils must 

 exist in this middle group of our series, and it will be most interesting 

 to detect any change of fauna corresponding to the stratigraphical 

 facts which I have indicated, and which must, I conceive, involve a 

 considerable lapse of time. In a letter received from Sir P. Cautley on 

 this subject, dated 26th February 1859, he says : — "There is no doubt 

 whatever of the fact of vertebrate fossils being found on the Himalayan 

 side of the Nahun hills." In confirmation of this statement he goes on 

 to describe a remarkable fossiliferous stratum in the Sivalik hills east 

 of the Jumna, and, returning to the case in point, says : — " The stratum 

 is a very remarkable one, and the fossils are equally remarkable; no 

 mistake can possibly have arisen on the subject: I found, in company 

 with Colonel Durand, the same stratum on the Himalayan side of the 

 town of Nahun." In the face of such a clear statement it may seem 

 obstinacy on my part even to question the fact. The very slight 

 ambiguity left by the use of the word stratum only in the last sentence 

 is my last and only hesitation in the matter ; if the identification is 

 only a lithological one, it goes for nothing. 



Before leaving this subject, I would desire to correct an impression 

 that is likely to be formed of the great abundance of these fossils. 

 A glorious harvest has been gathered. The discoverers and early 

 collectors came upon the untouched accumulations of denudation from 

 time immemorial; fossils no doubt actually littered the ground in many 

 places ; but there will probably never again be such a crop. They 

 occur, and are frequent locally, and in places a careful search will 



