Chap. Ill] sub-himalayan sekies — subathu group. 85 



thickness ; it is greatly crushed, and has sometimes a quasi-metamorphic 

 aspect. The same beds are probably repeated by flexures, but, making 

 allowance for this, there is a greater display of the unmixed deposits than 

 we find anywhere along the inner boundary. In this section, moreover, 

 there is no semblance of transition into the upper members of the groups ; 

 the change is abrupt from crushed brown silts to bright red, coarse clay, 

 and sandstones. This contact of the brown and the red rocks in the 

 Sursulla, though roughly conformable, might easily admit of the sup- 

 position of shifting, and so of the concealment of a small band of transi- 

 tion ; still we find the same general features prevail all along this outer 

 limit of the formation. In the hills and valleys east of Morni the same 

 brown, crumbling clay is largely exposed, and there is but little evidence 

 for its transitional interstratification with the red rocks. These facts 

 add weight to the inference which we may draw from the general con- 

 trast of the upper and lower deposits, as to the partial independence of 

 the nummulitic strata proper ; but they cannot negative the equally 

 distinct facts in evidence of a transition. I do not believe that the 

 interstratification along the zone of the inner boundary is due to a 

 re-arrangement of the true nummulitic deposits. The contrast of the 

 two sections may be explained by the more local character of the upper 

 deposits, and by supposing them to have encroached from the north- 

 east upon the finer sediments. This decided and important contrast is 

 the more remarkable when we recollect that at the outer, edge the whole 

 formation is still seen, and that the thickness is not in any decided 

 manner increased ; there is little to suggest the rapidly deepening 

 bottom of an open sea. 



In the topmost beds of the Subathu group we find evidence strongly 



Fossil evidence of corroborative of the view I have been advocating 



as to the original limitation of deposition in this 



vicinity. At. Kasaoli and elsewhere, in the youngest rocks of this area, 



we find abundant remains of land plants, — of trees and shrubs, which 



