14:2 



DE, 



E. H. PASCOE OS TJIE EARLY HISTORY [vol. lxxv r 



locality nummulites are found at some horizon or other, it is un- 

 questionable that marine conditions existed at all these localities at 

 some time or other during the Ximimulitic epoch. In the Lower 

 Xummulitics of the Punjab are great thicknesses of massive 

 Xummulitic limestone, and similar beds are found in the Salt 



Range. Kohat, the Afghan border, Baluchistan, and Sind. Now. 



. . . 



the northern boundary of the Hazara Xummulitics we have found 



to be a boundary-fault or shore-line — a shore-line with an inden- 

 tation east of Abbottabad, caused apparently by the obstructive 

 stress at the Jhilam syntactical point, — and this feature has been 

 traced westwards to the neighbourhood of Cherat. Farther west 

 and south-west are large blanks in the geological map. but the 

 isolated mapped areas all seem to point to a land-barrier on this 

 side of the Xummulitic band. The rocks of Kabul belong to the 

 ancient systems, and that there was ever connexion between the 

 Xummulitics of Xorthern Afghanistan and those of the Punjab 

 across Kabul is, I think, unlikely. The Xummulitics of Ladak in 

 Kashmir, which include marine beds, were thought by Lydekker 

 to belong to a separate basin of deposition, and it seems very un- 

 likely that they were ever continuous across the enormous ranges- 

 separating them from the Jammu and Punjab Xummulitic, espe- 

 cially in face of the boundary nature of the fault alluded to. The 

 occurrence at 18.500 feet in Zanskar is not more than 15 miles 

 distant from the Ladak outcrop, while the occurrence in Himdes 

 (Xgari Khorsum) is on the same general line of strike ; both 

 evidently belong to the Ladak exposure. Land was, therefore, 

 probably continuous from Eastern Afghanistan through Kohistan 

 and Kashmir, and along the line of the Himalaya as far as Xaini 

 Tal, where the Xummulitics appear to end. The Xummulitics of 

 the Garo Hills belong to another basin : namely, the gulf which 

 extended up from Arakan through Haflong towards tipper Assam. 

 From the Kabul area, if we judge from the strike of the beds and 

 the topographical features, the land-barrier probably extended to 

 Kandahar and perhaps as far as Chagai, both of which areas have 

 been mapped in part. 



With regard to the southern boundary of the Xummulitic sea r 

 this must be placed parallel to, and somewhere beneath, the alluvial 

 trough along the Himalayan foot. Xumerous portions of the old 

 Grondwana continent project through the Alluvium as far north as 

 Delhi and as far north-west as Pokaran and Bhachbar in Rajputana ; 

 but there are some small isolated mliers of Purana rocks cropping 

 out at Chiniot, Sagla, and the Kirana Hills within 25 miles of the 

 Salt Range. The southern coast-line may be drawn, therefore, a 

 little north of these hills, 100 miles or so distant from the northern 

 coast-line, approaching by degrees more closely to the latter in 

 the direction of Simla, and meeting it in the vicinity of Xaini 

 Tal, where the Xummulitics are very thin. The Xummulitics- 

 were thus laid down in a narrow arm of the sea, or gulf. Restoring 

 in our mind's eye the mountain-arcs to the less advanced posi- 

 tion that the}' held in Xummulitic times, and obliterating or 



