122 M1DDLBMISS: PHYSICAL GEOLOGY OF SUB-HIMALAYA. 



regularly engulphed. Then, as now, there was a sub-tropieal Bhabar 

 zone at the foot of the Himalaya, where a mightier race of giant pro- 

 boscidians, and other extinct vertebrates, trod the earth by the banks 

 of rivers not so very unlike the Ra*mganga, the Ganges, the Beas and 

 the Ravi of to-day, and which had their source in a range of central 

 peaks of an outline much resembling those which now prevail. 



With the nummulitic zone our proofs of a northern limit are rather 

 Limits of the nummu- weaker, and cannot be too much insisted upon 

 litic zone. here ; but, considering the estuarine conditions 



under which they must have been formed, their rapid horizontal change 

 in a northerly direction, as mentioned by Mr. Medlicott, near Sab^thu, 

 and their tenacious restriction to heights of about 3,000 feet on the 

 plainward face of the Himalaya, I think we are justified in denying 

 that they ever existed over those higher tracts of the outer and central 

 Himalaya, where never an outlier of them has been detected. That 

 this general conclusion is not affected by their presence at 12,000 and 

 15,000 feet near the source of the Indus, and by the probability that 

 there was a depression in nummulitic times running through Kashmir, 

 connecting those deposits with the nummulitics of Haza*ra on this side 

 of the main range, I shall shew later on. For the present I think 

 there is sufficient evidence to prove that many, if not all, of the re- 

 versed fold-faults, which cut off each of the Sub-Himalayan zones to 

 the north, are approximately coincident with limits of deposition ; and 

 that, therefore, they took place either along a shore-line or mountain- 

 foot. 



And this argument is strengthened greatly by the behaviour of 

 Ph sical aspect of the *" ne P ressn ^ mountain-foot towards the deposits 

 present mountain-foot. of the plains. There are not wanting signs that 

 the southern margin of the hills has become, or is tending to be- 

 come, a reversed fault. These are some of the signs. Nowhere along 

 the whole length of the Sub-Himalayan zone can we point out a low, 

 steady dip of the Siwalik conglomerate towards the plains ; although 

 it is absolutely certain that such a dip must have obtained on the first 

 elevation of those strata. What has become of that southerly dip? 

 ( «8o ) 



