474 Extracts from the Proceedings of the British 



comparatively isolated range, rising suddenly from the great plains 

 of Bengal in the south, and divided in the north by the valley of 

 Assam from the great Himalaya or Bhotan range. On the 

 southern face of this range rises almost perpendicularly from the 

 plains, which are continual from the Bay of Bengal, with 

 scarcely a perceptible change of level to the very foot of the 

 hills, and, "with the exception of a comparatively small thick- 

 ness of metamorphic rocks at the base, are composed of nearly 

 horizontal beds of sandstones, a few shaly layers and limestone, 

 long known for the abundanee and beauty of the nummulites 

 it contains. These beds dip slightly to the south, and die 

 out towards the north, when the metamorphic rocks come to 

 the surface in the hills. Disrega' ding here any details as to 

 the older rocks, the age of the sand stoues and limestones is un- 

 questiotably fixed by their organic contents, and therefore, also, 

 the epoch of the coal, which is associated with them, as belonging 

 to the great eocene period of geologists. No newer group, of 

 rocks is definitively seen in these hills. Along the southern face 

 of the range there is evidence of a great dislocation extending for 

 many miles, and possibly along the entire scarp, which has brought 

 down to the level of the plains the rocks which are seen at tha 

 top of the hills. This Hue of dislocation has in all probability 

 tended to give the nearly rectilinear direction of the escarpment ; 

 its date is fixed as at least subsequent to the formation of all the 

 eocene rocks here seen. An older group of sandstones, conside- 

 rably altered, is seen further to the north, within the hills, and 

 also a series of highly metamorphosed schists and grits resting 

 upon the gneissic and granitic rocks ; but the details of these are 

 reserved. Passing thence still further to the north and east, at 

 the base of the Sikkira Himalayas, under the hill statioD of Dar- 

 jiling, another section was desciibed. The great mass of the lofty 

 hills is here composed of schistoze rocks of various characters, 

 considerably disturbed and contorted. These, although hitherto 

 coloured similarly, and considered as of the same age, were deci- 

 dedly difierent from, and more recent than, the gneissoze rocks of 

 the greatest portion of India. Near the base of the hills, and 

 faulted against these rocks at high angles, there is a small extent 

 of sandstone and black shales, which contain vertebrata, pecopte- 

 ris, &c., similar to those occurring in the great coal-fields of Bengal 

 These fossils are peculiarly interesting, from the fact of their being 

 changed into graphite, and occurring in beds which themselves 



