1877.'] Campbell — Himalayan Glaciation. 3 



near he found the V-shaped form of denudation, attributable solely to rain 

 and river action. In the superficial or the older conglomerates, however 

 coarse, he could find no case of an erratic boulder-bed, nor anything like a 

 moraine, and nothing to suggest the agency of floating ice in lake or sea. 

 He considers that the great blocks so freely distributed in the Kangra val- 

 ley are sufliciently accounted for as torrential deposits, by the very rapid fall 

 of the streams from the Dhaoladhar range, aided probably by a once heavier 

 rainfall and a corresponding increased snowfall on the summits. There is 

 nothing, he thinks, to support the notion of an ' Ice-cap ', or even of a ' glacial 

 period', in the now current sense of that term. 



The author gives some interesting antiquarian observations upon the 

 traditions connected with the great boulders. 



Mr. Medlicott agreed with Mr. Campbell that no actual glacier had 

 ever reached the Kangra valley, but thinks that ice had much more to say 

 to the big stones than Mr. Campbell allows. The former great extension of 

 Himalayan glaciers is established from indisputable observations in Sikkim 

 and elsewhere. At that time ice must have been in force on the Dhaola- 

 dhar range, close over the Kangra valley. Further, the perfod of this 

 Himalayan glaciation agrees, so far as can be determined, with the ice-age 

 of the western continents. 



Mr. H. F. Blanfoed said that he had expected that Mr. Campbell's 

 paper would be much more subversive of accepted views, than proves to be 

 the case. The notion of an ice-cap extending from the pole over the 

 Himalaya to the neighbourhood of the equator, against which Mr. Camp- 

 bell's argument is directed, was to him a new one, and, as far as he was aware, 

 stood in no need of refutation. As regarded the view held by himself and 

 not a few other Indian geologists, viz., that in the latest geological times 

 there had been a very great extension of the existing glaciers, and that 

 glaciers were then formed at levels far below the present snow line, the validity 

 of the existing evidence of Dr. Hooker's and Mr. W. T. Blanford's observa- 

 tions in Sikkim, and Major God win- Austen's in the Naga Hills, did not seem 

 to be in the least affected by Mr. Campbell's failure to discover ice markings 

 on the great boulders on the flanks of the Dhaoladhar. It would be in the 

 recollection of members of the Society that in papers published in the Society's 

 Journal, Mr. W. T. Blanf ord had recorded the existence of moraines in Sikkim 

 down to 6000 feet, and that Major Godwin- Austen has figured and described 

 the beautiful examples of moraines, which he had discovered in the Naga 

 Hills at elevations of no more than 4500 feet. Having lately visited Nainital, 

 he thought he might adduce the site of this well-known station as another 

 example of glacier action. The form of the valley, more especially the 

 northern face, is strongly suggestive of ice denudation, the face of the slope 



