clviii Report of the Mineralogical Survey [No. 126*, 



of rivers, or in their banks, than on the intermediate ground. Whatever 

 therefore the cause which accumulated these beds of water-worn frag- 

 ments, we see that it acted with greatest force in the direction of the 

 river vallies. 



339. There is another very striking fact which enables us to limit still 

 more precisely the direction in which these fragments travelled. At 

 Hurdwar, it terminates rather suddenly in the low range of hills, which 

 bound the Dehra Doon to the southward. These hills, as I stated in 

 Art. 61, form an uninterrupted chain or line of water-heads, on each side 

 of which they are intersected with deep gorges now the beds of torrents. 

 Those which open to the Doon, it appears, are strewed with fragments 

 of the same kind as those which cover the valley itself ; but those which 

 open plainward, contain no fragments but of the rocks in situ, which it 

 also appears are of an entirely different character, and not possible to be 

 confounded. The deposit seems, however, to have continued along the 

 foot of those hills, and even to have left fragments at the mouths of 

 the gorges ; but in no case do they extend to any distance upwards. 



340. These deposits have been observed in every country in which as 

 yet geological investigation has been carried on, lying at the foot of 

 mountains, and often covering extensive plains, or scattered over the 

 bottom of vallies. Perhaps in no country can they be seen on so large 

 a scale as in these districts. The enormous extent of the bed com- 

 prising the Bhabur, and filling up the several vallies, is alone enough 

 to excite all our wonder. They have everywhere been recognised 

 as witnesses of the progressive nature of the changes that have affected 

 the surface of the earth. They have established the fact of at least two 

 eras, that of the original formation of these mountains, and the sub- 

 sequent extensive denudation of the surface forming the present system 

 of vallies. But from considering all the circumstances of the case a still 

 greater discrimination may be made. It is almost certain, that they 

 owe their present arrangement to some sudden and violent catastrophe. 

 Now, it is not likely that their rounded form, being as they are amongst 

 the hardest of stones, was given them by any other than a cause 

 operating through a considerable period of time. Here then we have 

 proof of a series of actions, which must have been posterior to the for- 

 mation of the original strata, and which carries up the latter to a still 

 higher antiquity. 



