458 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [May 28, 



has been described from another spot. By the meeting of the 

 Sarchu streams there are beds in this mass of alluvium which slope 

 or dip at an angle of 30° away from the mountains ; these I believe 

 to belong to and to have been deposited by the Sarchu side stream. 

 Again, two miles below, by the junction of this stream from the 

 Bara Lacha Pass with the one called the Isarap, at a distance of near 

 a mile from the mountains, the same level plateau of alluvium is 

 cut through to a similar depth of some 200 feet ; and in the section 

 of the alluvial beds is shown what at first sight might be taken for 

 false-bedding on a very large scale ; that is, the beds of alluvium 

 slope sometimes away from the mountains and sometimes towards 

 them, other strata covering them horizontally. Stranger still, the 

 beds are sometimes in curved lines. Leaving for the present the 

 attempt to explain this, we will go on with the alluvium at other 

 places. 



I have not followed the course of these streams all the way down ; 

 but, from another direction, I have visited a part of their valley 

 about fifty miles below, they having by that time joined together. 

 From the valley of Chah down to Padam, the chief place of 

 Zanskar (at elevations varying as one goes down, from 13,000 to 

 11,300 feet), nearly everywhere along the valley are remains of 

 alluvium, generally well-stratified pebbly alluvium, at various 

 heights, up to 400 feet above the stream, the river here flowing 

 between rocks which it has cut into below the base of the allu- 

 vium. There are other deposits, of lacustrine origin, the descrip- 

 tion of which I reserve for another occasion. 



At Padam the valley debouches into a wide open space. Here, 

 between the mountains, is a plain of a considerable extent, which 

 may be described as a triangle whose base of seven miles lies 

 north-west and south-east, with a perpendicular of five miles to the 

 north-east. The two chief branches of the Zanskar river, the one 

 which we have followed from the south-east, and another coming 

 from the north-west, here meet, and flow away north-eastwards. 

 The plain is covered with alluvial deposits, partly fan-stuff from 

 the minor streams, and partly alluvium, both old and recent, of 

 these two chief streams. I have no exact notes of the level to 

 which this old alluvium is found, but have an impression that the 

 terraces are about 200 feet above the present level of the water. 

 Below this, down to Zangla, the valley narrows, and, from the side 

 fans nearly meeting, little space is left for river- alluvium, of which, 

 however, I see terraces here and there from 60 to 80 feet above the 

 stream. Afterwards the river flows in a narrow gorge, impassable, 

 except in winter on the ice ; and for this part of its course, to its 

 confluence with the Indus, I am unacquainted with its alluvium. 



There is hardly any valley, whether of the larger tributary rivers 

 of the Indus or of the smaller side-streams, that does not present 

 phenomena similar to those described. In parts where the valley is 

 narrowed there may be no remains of the old alluvium, all having 

 been denuded on the last down-cutting of the river-bed ; but where 

 the valley widens, even but a little, there will be found some rem- 



