122 SUB-HIMALAYAN ROCKS OF N. W. INDIA. [CHAP. IV. 



Mr. Rogers has called the normal flexure (Geology of Pensylvania, 

 Vol. II, p. 889.) 



At each of the great transverse river gorges there is a complete break 



in the continuity of the anticlinal flexure, no 

 Transverse fracture in. J 



river gorges. doubt, involving transverse faulting. The stereo- 



typed form of explanation for such coincidences is, that the pent up 

 waters made a natural selection of these transverse fissures along which 

 to carve out their course to the lower level. It seems to me to be open 

 to discussion in this instance whether we should not thus be "putting the 

 cart before the horse," whether the rivers, for the existence of which in 

 this position during the Sivalik period, we have such good evidence, may 

 not have been the predetermining cause of these transverse fissures. In 

 the case of the Ganges there is little to induce us to adopt an hypothesis 

 so apparently extravagant as that just proposed, since we have at hand so 

 plausible an explanation in the great abrupt bend of the boundary of 

 the main mountain range, — an explanation which is also in accordance 

 with the general hypothesis adopted for the mode of contortion of these 

 rocks, for it might well be supposed that so great an irregularity in the line 

 of resistance to the compressing force would be sufficient to produce such 

 a transverse break as that in the gorge of the Ganges. We must indeed 

 allow some influence to this cause. As, however, in our argument against 

 the supposition of cross-faulting of the main boundary, the bend at Kalunga 

 served as a check upon that east of the Ganges, so, in the present case, 

 we must modify our interpretation of the Ganges section by that of the 

 Jumna ; the features of contortion in the two are strangely similar, and 

 in the case of the Jumna there is no trace of a projection of the mountain 

 area ; on the contrary, the gorge faces a wide recess of the main boundary. 

 In approaching Hurdwar from the south the structural conditions of the 



™ e tj , rocks are discernible from a distance. As far as 



The gorge of Hurd- 



war * the eye can reach to the west, the face of the 



Sivalik range presents a very broken series of bare cliffs, formed by the 



