1867-1 the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 43 



carboniferous fossils as occasional inhabitants of the Trias ! ! ! If, 

 we are prepared to stretch the point so far, we may as well give 

 up at once all idea of successive fauna?. 



I have, since writing the above, found in the Rottah Rob, some 

 beds containing a few fossils which appear Permian. I have not 

 yet had time to examine the fossils with care ; but should they 

 prove Permian or Saliferian (St. Cassian), — and I have little doubt 

 that they will be found to belong to either one or the other of 

 these formations, — the presence of patches of such a bed on the top 

 of the carboniferous would explain away, in a great measure, the 

 difficulties I have now been considering. 



I have said before that I believe the Saliferian of Upper India 

 to belong to the Paikilitic formation, but that it has been found 

 impossible as yet to demonstrate that such is the case. The dis- 

 covery of one or two fossils may settle the question, if they were 

 forms thoroughly well known as characteristic of the Indian Trias. 

 The study of the fossiliferous Triassic beds in India is therefore of 

 the greatest interest ; but much care is recmired lest the mixture 

 of Paleozoic and secondary types should take place in our pack- 

 ing boxes and not in nature, and we thus become accustomed to 

 regard, as characteristic of the Trias, shells which really belong 

 either to the carboniferous, or to the Lias and Oolite. 



To Colonel R. Strachey, however, is due the honor of having 

 first discovered fossiliferous Triassic beds in the Himalaya ; and 

 we may hope that much light will be thrown on the Indian fossils 

 of that age by Dr. Stoliczka, in his expected work on the Geology 

 of Spiti. 



Over the beds last described, Colonel Strachey found Jurassic 

 beds ; but the relation between the Triassic and Jurassic beds 

 could not be ascertained, owing to a great fault running parallel to 

 the general N. W. — S. E. direction of the Himalayan ranges. The 

 section exposed by this great fault is at least 5,000 or 6,000 feet in 

 thickness, but the difficulties of the route prevented Colonel Strachey 

 from examining it from top to bottom ; the lowest beds were not 

 examined. The lowest which ivere examined gave forms which Pro- 

 fessor E. Forbes was inclined to identify with fossils which occur 

 in the fuller's earth and cornbrash of England. No Liassic forms 

 were discovered. 



