238 On the Alpine Glacier, Iceberg, [No. 159. 



ing the warm climates of the tertiary period these animals may have 

 existed at the heights at which they are now found, or even at greater 

 elevations. The geologist will do well, while marking the scale of 

 former glacial extent in these instructive regions, to note also the 

 nearest approach, habitual or casual, to the snow line of the subtro- 

 pical animals at its base. The monkey and tiger have been observed 

 close to it, and the elephant at no very great distance — 31° N. lat. 4000 

 feet above the sea. Tropical perennials are blended with a flora al- 

 most alpine, and the palm and the pine are seen in juxta-position. 



The sub-Himmalayan gravel beds entombing the remains of the 

 sivatherium, mastodon, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, &c, and 

 the mastodon beds in the valley of the Nerbudda, are all stratified, 

 and belong apparently to the tertiary period immediately antece- 

 dent to the supposed cold epoch of the boulder formation. (Vide 

 concluding page at the end of Desiderata.) 



India, stretching down from its vast icy barrier on the north to the 

 verge of the equator, presents a wide field for physical observation ; a 

 thousand-times-told fact, but one which should never be lost sight of. 

 Its surface has been but partially examined, and many large tracts 

 wholly unexplored by the geologist. A few years only have rolled on 

 since the great mammifers in its deposits, just alluded to, were 

 brought to light by the vigorous researches of Captains Cautley, Durand, 

 Baker, and Doctors Falconer and Spilsbury ; and still more recently it 

 has been proved by the splendid fossil discoveries of Messrs. Kaye and 

 Cunliffe in the limestone beds of Pondicherry and Verdachellum, that 

 the cretaceous sea extended over the surface of at least part of Southern 

 India. Major Franklin has referred the diamond sandstone and lime- 

 stone to the Oolite and Lias, though at present they cannot be satisfac- 

 torily classed with these rocks until further fossil evidence be obtained. 



The scantiness of these beds — the utter absence of the new red sand- 

 stone, magnesian limestone, and other aqueous deposits so abundant 

 in northern zones, has been long subject of enquiry. The Silurian 

 strata are also entirely wanting, and appear to thin out like the boul- 

 der formation as the equator is approached ; although the temperature 

 of the Pal aeozoic seas, if we may judge from the number of their corals, 

 must have been like that of the carboniferous period, warm. I am 



