252 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [Feb. 1, 



period. On the southern edge of the mountains there is nothing to 

 prove the boundary of the land and sea, until the Tertiary period, 

 when the coast-line is found along the general line of the existing 

 outer hills. Still, the existence of fossiliferous beds in the Salt-range 

 in the north of the Punjab, apparently synchronous with those of 

 the Indian water-shed, seems to render it probable that there was a 

 Southern sea, contemporaneous with the Northern, extending over the 

 existing plains of North India, from the remotest times, and leaving 

 an area of dry land between them, on what is now the Himalayan 

 slope. The probability of this area of dry land is further shown by 

 the almost total absence of fossils in these regions ; nor does the exist- 

 ence of fossils at one single point in Kashmir, where only have they 

 been found, indicate more than an irregularity of the outline of the 

 land, such as might have been anticipated. 



Turning next to the question of the dip, which, as a general rule, 

 is everywhere towards the axis of the elevation, it was stated that 

 there appeared to be nothing to connect this inclination with the last 

 elevation, and that it is more probably due to some of the earlier move- 

 ments of the surface. It was shown how an inclination, having been 

 once imparted to any dislocated mass of the earth's crust, any sub- 

 sequent motion would most likely maintain it, or even add to its 

 amount ; for the tilting of a mass displaces the position of the centre 

 of gravity, so that it is no longer immediately over the centre of the 

 base of the mass, at which the resultant of all elevating forces will 

 act ; and hence, in any subsequent elevation, the weight of the mass 

 will tend to make it revolve, by the relative descent of the centre of 

 gravity, and ascent of the point of application of the elevating forces, 

 which will evidently tend to increase the dip. 



The dip of the outer hills, however, which is almost every- 

 where towards the interior of the chain, just as is the case with the 

 rest of the mountains, cannot be attributed to these older movements, 

 for these ranges are among the most recent of the whole ; nor is 

 there, at first sight, any very evident connexion between the dip that 

 they might be supposed to assume, and that of the older ranges 

 beyond them. The phenomenon may, however, perhaps be ex- 

 plained, by supposing that the fissure which we have reason to be- 

 lieve to exist along the foot of the mountains was originally covered 

 up by the deposits which now form the outer hills, when the ocean 

 extended over the plains of Northern India. An upheavement of 

 the mountains alone, the general sea-bottom remaining unmoved, 

 would naturally terminate at the fissure, and a narrow fringe of J;he 

 younger beds would be raised on the flank of the older mass, to which 

 a dip the same as that of the older mass might be imparted, by that 

 tendency to revolve already explained. The repetition of this process 

 would make a succession of ranges, such as are seen in the outer 

 hills, apparently dipping under one another and the older beds, of 

 the fragments of which they are evidently made up, in an inverse 

 order. 



The paper concluded by a recapitulation of the progress of the 

 Himalayan chain, as far as it could be traced, from the earliest geo- 



