﻿1851.] STRACHEY — GEOLOGY OF THE HIMALAYA. 



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routes only by which they came across the great Himalayan chain from 

 unknown regions beyond. 



Mr. Waterhouse, who has been so obliging as to examine the speci- 

 mens that I procured from these beds, informs me that he recognizes 

 amongst them the following : — 



Metacarpal bone and distal end of tibia of Hippotherium ; patella 

 of small Horse ; distal end of radius of a larger species of Horse ; distal 

 half of tibia of a Horse of very large size ; part of metacarpal of a 

 Horse ; upper end of tibia of Bovine Ruminant ; dorsal vertebra 

 of a Ruminant. 



Portion of head of an undescribed animal allied to Goat and Sheep, 

 having like them prominent orbits and the horns above the orbits ; 

 but which differs in the peculiar form of the bony core of the horns. 

 The horns are remarkable for being placed very near to each other 

 at the base (their upper portions are broken off) . There is a speci- 

 men in the British Museum, however, from the same locality, of an 

 animal very like this, in which the horns are seen to be short, stout, 

 and slightly bent outwards at the apex. 



Right wing of the atlas vertebra of Rhinoceros ; phalanx of one of 

 the outer hind toes of ditto ? ; and portion of tooth of Elephant ?? 



Fine suites of specimens of the Bones of Ruminants, Pachyder- 

 mata, and other animals from this district, presented to the Society 

 by Sir Thomas Colebrooke and Dr. Traill, are in the Museum of the 

 Geological Society, London. 



The bones that we have hitherto obtained from these strata are 

 almost all very miserable fragments, so that it is difficult even for the 

 very learned naturalist that I have mentioned to do more than di- 

 stinguish the genus to which they belong. It is therefore, I am 

 afraid, at present impossible to come to any decided conclusions as to 

 the identity or otherwise of the species here found with those of the 

 Siwalik Hills, a question of the greatest interest with reference to all 

 our speculations on the geology of these mountains. The fossil bones 

 I have not seen in situ, nor indeed, curious to say, could I, in spite of 

 every attempt, learn a definite locality in which any one knew posi- 

 tively that they had been found. But of the general position where 

 they occur there can be no doubt, for, besides the common account of 

 their being found in some of the ravines that traverse the plain, on 

 many of the specimens quite enough of the rock in which they are 

 imbedded has remained to enable me to recognize a fine-grained 

 calcareous conglomerate, exactly identical with beds such as I have 

 seen intercalated with the boulder- and gravel-beds that constitute the 

 mass of the deposit. Hills of limestone rise here and there above the 

 general level of the plain, and it appears as though the calcareous 

 matter derived from them had cemented together portions of the 

 sands and gravels that were deposited near them. 



The existence of such animals as I have mentioned as being found 

 in these beds being a physical impossibility in the present state of the 

 country, there can be no doubt that the strata have been elevated to 

 their present height from some lower level since the time of their 

 deposition. There is no direct proof that these beds are marine, no 



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