368 A. B. WYNNE ON THE PHYSICAL 



deposited in the banked or lateral manner mentioned above, and 

 that their deposition was concurrent with slow elevation of the 

 Himalayan and Salt-Range regions, probably greater in the former. 

 If so, the deposits would be perhaps thickest near their sources, 

 slightly different in each direction, and their quantity would be 

 some measure of the watershed areas undergoing denudation. 



This supposition would coincide with the greater amount of the 

 older (Murree) beds on the Himalayan side than to the south, and 

 with a difference observable in their lithological character ; but the 

 observation cannot be extended to the newer portions of the plateau 

 series, their thinning out constantly in any particular direction 

 not being evident. 



It is plain that the materials of the conglomerates in the newer 

 beds came from the Himalayas, and were brought down by rivers 

 following the same courses as the Jhelum, the Indus, and the Kuram 

 (Koorum) do now. These coarse pebble- and boulder-beds change 

 greatly both in thickness and in composition, becoming finer and 

 associated with a greater quantity of clays in the interval between 

 the two first-named rivers, away from where the pebbles were being 

 supplied. Hence the antiquity of these great channels of drainage 

 may be inferred, and it is interesting to observe that we have one 

 of the structural features of the Simla outer Himalayan belt repre- 

 sented here*. 



20. The local conditions of this period, extending from Eocene to 

 Pliocene times, present a great contrast to those previously noticed. 

 Hitherto the organic remains would show that through all the pre- 

 ceding geological periods the deposits may have been principally 

 marine ! But now, from the transitional upper limits of the Nummu- 

 litic deposits to the top of the Tertiary series, the rocks contain, so 

 far as I am aware, only the remains of terrestrial or freshwater 

 animals. Some of these would indicate a swampy or marshy habitat, 

 such as Dr. Yerchere has suggestedf ; but others, such as the horse, 

 camel, <fcc, would appear to have required dry uplands, and others 

 still, like the elephant, forest-lands as their residence. I have found 

 no trace of an old land surface, even though it were a swamp like 

 the Tarai (at the foot of the Himalaya), among the Tertiary beds, all 

 of which appear to me to have been laid down in open water, nor 

 yet any adequate fossil representatives of former forests or the 

 smaller vegetation necessary to support these animals ; I am therefore 

 obliged to conclude with Mr. H. P. Blanford, that the waste of the 

 mountains was poured out into a lake or sea, and possibly an inland 

 seat. 



Although one can scarcely consider them the remains of forests, 

 blocks of siliceous fossil (exogenous) trees are found among the 

 older or " Murree beds " on each side of the Rawal-Pindi plateau, 

 but in the greatest numbers on the north flank of the Salt Range 

 (Mt. Tilla &c.) and trans-Indus ; portions of carbonized trees have 



* Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind. vol. iii. pt. 2. 



t Journ. As. Soc. Beng. vol. xxxvi. 1866-67. 



} Blanford's 'Physical Geography (India),' p. 131. 



