140 G. H. Damant — Note on the Manipuri Language, [July, 



apparent order of the ascending section must be the normal (original) order 

 of superposition ; whereby the partially metamorphosed Damuda rocks at 

 the base are really older than the overlying Daling schists, and these again 

 older than the Darjiling gneiss. Mr. Medlicott remarked — that Mr. Mal- 

 let's description of a number of carefully observed river sections at the base 

 of the Sikkim Himalaya seemed to compel to this conclusion ; and that 

 analogous sections in the N. W. Himalaya, had frequently suggested to 

 himself similar conclusions : for instance, there can be no doubt that the 

 thoroughly metamorphic mica, hornblende and garnetiferous schists forming 

 the summit of the ridge at Simla are younger than the underlying slaty 

 schists and flags. Again, the generally unmetamorphosed limestone and 

 slaty rocks striking far up the gorges of the Sutlej and the Beas seem 

 inevitably to underlie the gneiss of the intervening Jalori ridge. The 

 argument against the adoption of this view is really a prepossession — a ge- 

 neral rule which we are by no means entitled to apply rigorously, and against 

 which independent arguments are not wanting. It has been shown experi- 

 mentally that the hydro-metamorphism to which gneiss and even granite 

 are due, is not after all such a very plutonic operation. Also, although 

 when we meet gneiss extensively on the flat, we may be entitled to regard 

 it as a fundamental rock — due to such hypogene action as would require every 

 underling rock to exhibit an equal degree of metamorphism — the conditions 

 were quite different when we come to mountain regions. Here special forces 

 had operated which might be quite adequate to these apparently anomalous 

 results. One of the most recent and most elaborately supported theories 

 of mountain-formation — that by Mr. Robert Mallet — offered a very direct 

 explanation of this puzzling phenomenon : that when a great mass of stra- 

 ta was subjected to lateral compression those portions which by position or 

 from texture were least capable of yielding by shrinkage or contortion, 

 would have to bear the brunt of the pressure, and to undergo in some other 

 form its effects, prominently by an extra development of internal heat. 



6. Note on the Manipuri Language. — By Gr. H. Damant, C. S., 

 Kachhdr. 



(Abstract.) 



The Manipuri language belongs to the Lohitic languages, and is there- 

 fore allied to the languages of the tribes of the Burmese frontier. Mr. 

 Damant has given in this paper paradigms of declensions of nouns and in- 

 flections of verbs. Of the written characters of the language, Mr. Damant 

 gave a specimen in the Proceedings for January last. 



The paper will be printed in No. II of Part I of the Journal. 



7. Descriptions of a new Subgenus of Cyclophorus, and of other new 

 Land and Freshwater Shells of India and Burmah. — By W. Theobald. 



This paper will appear in a forthcoming number of ths Journal. 



