GEOLOGY OE THE UPrEIl PUNJAB, 371 



the pebble-beds locally present may have been partly due to the 

 existence of some kind of vegetable matter. 



I have heard of one elephantine bone being found in the Soan 

 post-Tertiary conglomerates, and another bone, "probably of a 

 camel," is recorded by Major Yicary in the detrital deposits of the 

 Peshawur valley between Attock and JSTowshera ; but I have only 

 seen a single bone fragment in the rocks of this period, near the 

 junction of the Haro river with the Indus. The finer silts of the 

 llawal-Pindi plateau contain numerous small land and freshwater 

 shells of recent species. 



Erratics. 



22. Lying upon or partially buried in the old alluvium, loess, or 

 silt of the post-Tertiary deposits there are, somewhat locally dis- 

 tributed along the left side of the Indus from Attock southwards, 

 groups of erratic blocks frequently of very large size, and I have 

 heard of their occurrence also on the north side of the Peshawur 

 valley. 



Dr. Yerchere was, I believe, the first to notice these, and to 

 attribute their transport to the agency of floating ice. They lie be- 

 tween 33° 5' and 33° 50' 1ST. lat., and are nearly always formed of 

 crystalline or igneous rocks, their Himalayan origin being indicated 

 by the occurrence amongst them of the porphyritic gneiss of the 

 Kyjenag range and Hazara: some of them have girths of 50 feet, 

 and one which I measured is 17 feet high. Another, of white 

 granitic rock, near it gave the following measurements : — Girth 

 50 feet, length 14 feet, width 9 feet, height 6 to 8 feet, from which 

 its calculated weight comes to between 75 and 80 tons. 



One way of accounting for the occurrence of erratics such as 

 these is by the supposition* of great quantities of detritus filling up 

 the valleys in which they lie, and forming a steep talus from the 

 parent rock, down which they might have been impelled by diluvial 

 action. Another is the exertion of intermittent torrential energy, 

 as held by Mr. J. E. Campbellf with regard to the Himalayan 

 erratics of the Kangra valley In the present case neither of these 

 methods seems to be applicable. The erratics under notice are just 

 as angular or as much rounded as exposed masses of the rock in situ 

 might be under the influence of atmospheric agencies, agencies which 

 would in most instances have long since obliterated scored and 

 polished surfaces. They are associated with the valley of the Indus 

 by their distribution within ten miles or so of that river ; but the 

 distances to which they have been carried from the high ranges 

 where such crystalline and igneous rocks exist, at least 100 miles 

 to the north, would scarcely admit of a steep surface inclination for 

 a supposed talus with the least probability. 



* Advanced by Mr. Medlicott with regard to the erratics of the Daulahdar 

 range in the country below. " Geology of Kumaun and Garhwal," North- 

 Western Provinces Gazetteer (India). 



t Paper on Himalayan Glaciation and note by Mr. Medlicott, Journ. As, 

 Soc. Beng. vol. xlvi. pt. 2, p. 1. 



