T04 ' - NEW YORK STATE TtfUSEUM 



of the folds and strikes; and since also the Paleozoic mountain systems 

 follow this' direction, one may well ask if they have riot simply 

 followed the older trend lines (see postea, p. 114). This is especially 

 suggested by the bending of the folds into an east-west direction in 

 northeast Queensland, where, as we shall see later, a block with 

 dominant east- west folding of the Precambrian rocks, the Aequinoctia 

 of Abendanon (see next chapter) is approached. Another significant 

 fact in this connection is the divergent strike of the metamorphic 

 and younger rocks in New Caledonia. Suess (v. 2, p. 204, 205), 

 following Heurteau, points out that the younger rocks (Triassic 

 coal-bearing beds, and the nickel and chrom-bearing serpentines) - 

 strike with the major axifis of the island in a northwest direction; 

 the mica schists and roofing slates (with inclosed crystalline lime- 

 stones), however, which appear on the north coast, possess an entirely 

 independent northeast strike, and only in the northernmost part of 

 the island they also turn to northwest. Suess would not commit 

 himself on the meaning of this observation; we incline to see in the 

 strike of the metamorphic rocks a relic of the original Precambrian 

 strike preserved in a block that remained unaffected by late folding 1 ,' 

 within the folded zones, such as have been described before from the 

 Rocky mountains, etc. 



If the Precambrian basement complex of Australia also possesses a 

 predominant north-south strike, as we have fair reason to believe, 

 the question arises whether this block was not, in Precambrian 

 time, continuous with Madagascar and Africa, or, in other words, 

 whether these three are not remnants of a much larger Precambrian 

 block that is characterized by its north-south trend lines. No 

 connecting links are found in the vast expanse of the Indian ocean 

 between Madagascar and Africa in the west, and Australia in the 

 east, but such a one is supplied by the Indian peninsula, which 

 Suess has already shown to be a foreign element in the framework 

 of Asia. 



Suess (Suess-Sollas, v. 1, p. 401) has built upon the work of the 

 many specialists of the geological survey of India a comprehensive 

 picture of the geology of India, from which we take the following 

 remarks. The Indian peninsula, which comprises the part south 

 of the Ganges, is the foreland of the Himalayas to the north. The 

 often high mountain ranges in the peninsula are, with the exception 

 of the extremely . ancient Aravalli mountains in the northwest, 

 not controlled by the strike of the rocks but by faults and erosion. 

 The unfossiliferous Precarboniferous (Pregondwana) rocks are 

 distinguished into the Archean (chiefly gneiss and very ancient 



