38 MIDDLEMISS : PHYSICAL GEOLOGY OF SUB-HIMALAYA. 



up to an unconformable position on the top of typical Nahan shales 

 and sandstone. The long stretch of perfectly horizontal beds exposed 

 across the dun is rudely broken by this sharp bend ; and if there 

 were still any doubt as to whether the latter were Recent or Siwalik 

 in age, I think the occurrence of this flexure would dispel it. (See sec- 

 tion II.) 



Still higher up the Dabka there are a few small outliers of the 

 conglomerate, the northernmost of which is resting on Himalayan 

 rocks. They are probably of younger age than the dun conglomer- 

 ates ; and, though I class them with the Siwaliks, they must be the 

 uppermost of those beds, which probably link or merge them with the 

 Recent deposits of the present rivers. 



During the course of this river through the dun, the beds are 

 Khichri N. (Kichu- horizontal just as in the Dabka; but, when the 

 lee ''* dun is ended, its passage through the low hills 



to the south is a deep-cut gorge among more disturbed strata than we 

 have yet seen. (See section III.) It begins abruptly near Sitabani 

 temple (8), the level of the dun giving way to a line of steep scarps 

 and bare cliffs, into which the river dashes. The country here is 

 very wild and luxuriant, and full of large game. Standing on the 

 top of one bare cliff, with spear grass, creepers, and s31 forest all 

 round one, we may look across the Khichri gorge and with a field- 

 glass make out on the opposite cliff bed after bed of warm brick, or 

 ochre coloured conglomerate and clay. There are hundreds of feet 

 of it, and among its ledges we may see a solitary Seimbar, or numbers 

 of actively climbing serow. The skeleton of the hillside thus laid 

 bare is a silent and grand witness to the slow but irresistible action 

 of running water, combined with earth movements, in cutting out 

 that knife-like gorge. The sight is the more impressive, I think, 

 from its being brought to one's notice among these flat plateaux 

 and low hills, which in many of their larger features retain almost 

 unmodified their shapes as impressed on them by the forces of 

 upheaval. It is to one of these forces that the abrupt termination 

 of the dun at Sitabani, and the sudden line of cliffs to the south, is 

 ( 9* ) 



