﻿302 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 25, 



tains. In the vicinity of the peak to which I have just alluded, Kamet, 

 the granite-area is very large (see Map), and a similar development 

 of it also occurs in the vicinity of Gangotri, at the source of the 

 sacred branch of the Ganges. The vein-granite is usually large- 

 grained, with schorl-crystals. It is very hard and durable, neither 

 it nor the schists that accompany it being at all liable to decay. 

 The felspar of all the granites that I have seen in these mountains 

 is white, and kyanite is of frequent occurrence in the veins. 



The schists that accompany this granite are very hard and crystal- 

 line, and comprise all varieties of mica-schist and gneiss. Beds of 

 highly crystalline limestones, some pure, others hardly to be distin- 

 guished by sight from mica-schist, are of frequent occurrence, and a 

 band of such rocks seems to traverse the country near the line of 

 greatest elevation. The strata, where penetrated by the granite, are 

 often very much contorted, and the dip appears on the whole to in- 

 crease as we approach the granite, where it reaches an angle of 45°, 

 which it does not often exceed. Thermal springs are met with in 

 many of the valleys along the line of granite, and in several that I 

 am acquainted with the temperature seemed pretty regularly to be 

 about 128° Fahr. 



The whole of the appearances presented by the granite and crystal- 

 line schists of the great line of peaks in this part of the mountains 

 seem to be universally repeated throughout the whole length of the 

 chain when we reach the region of maximum elevation ; and, as we 

 extend our examination, we still continue to find additional reasons 

 for concluding that the general geological phsenomena of the range, 

 and the causes that have produced them, remain very similar over 

 great distances. 



The line of section that I have selected to illustrate the geology of 

 the upper parts of these mountains is taken a little to the west of the 

 lower part of the line, through the country that I have examined the 

 best, in the neighbourhood of Niti (see Section No. 2, and Map). 



In immediate succession to the crystalline schists penetrated by 

 granite-veins, we here come at once upon slaty beds overlying them, 

 along the bottom of which, near the mica-schists and gneiss, is a line 

 of granite-veins differing somewhat in appearance from those of the 

 larger eruption, and not producing any great alteration in the slaty 

 beds themselves, as is shown by the occurrence of a coarse conglo- 

 merate, the component parts of which are perfectly distinct, only a 

 few feet above the granite. Sufficient change, however, has taken 

 place to prevent our distinguishing much more than that the consti- 

 tuents of this rock are chiefly quartzose, and that it contains rounded 

 stones of all sizes. I have met with this conglomerate in a similar 

 position and with much the same general appearance thirty miles or 

 so further to the east. 



Above these are slaty beds, in all perhaps 9000 feet in thickness, 

 consisting of coarse slates, grits, and limestones, all more or less af- 

 fected by slaty cleavage, and all devoid of fossil remains. 



It is after reaching the top of these strata, which is rarely done at 

 a less elevation than 14,000 feet above the sea, that we at length 



