KLIPPEN OR CRAGS. 3 



the Chitichun area. Herr C. von John, Director of the chemical 

 department of the K. K. Geologische Reichs-Anstalt in Vienna, who 

 kindly examined the rock-specimens, which I collected near Sangcha 

 Talla encamping ground, declares this igneous rock to be a diabase- 

 porphyrite. 



u Klippen " or Crags. — The younger mesozoic beds, which form 

 the complicated synclinal of the Chitichun area, are capped here and 

 there by massive limestones, which either seem to rest conformably 

 on, or are imbedded in, the soft Jurassic shales in the shape of de- 

 tached blocks. Some of these masses of bright or reddish, often semi- 

 crystalline limestone, are eroded into picturesque cliffs, or crags rising 

 in sharp pinnacles and partly bordered by precipitous walls. By 

 their material and outlines they differ remarkably from the dark, 

 rather monotonous, undulating hills, composed of shales and sand- 

 stones, and thus form a very peculiar feature in the scenery of the 

 country. These limestones do not rest normally on the mesozoic 

 strata, but are partly of palaeozoic, partly of triassic age, as has been 

 proved by a careful examination of their fossil contents. It is their 

 occurrence amidst much younger sediments and without apparent 

 stratigraphical connection with the latter which makes the structure 

 of the Chitichun area one of the most intricate and most remarkable 

 in the Central Himalayas. 



Mr. Griesbach in his preliminary note on this subject has called 

 attention to the similarity of these limestone crags with like outcrops 

 of older sediments (namely, of triassic and Jurassic age) in the Alpine 

 and Carpathian flysch, which have been described as Klippen in 

 scientific literature. The correctness of this view has been doubted 1 

 but the doubts can no longer be maintained since the publication of 

 the palseontological evidence. 



The most northern of these peculiar limestone crags, which were 

 examined by our expedition in 1892, are those situated between the 

 Balchdhura and the Kiogarh-Chaldu pass (17,440 feet). Here the 

 dividing ridge is composed of Gieumal sandstones and crowned by 



1 See foot note in Records, XXVI, p. 25. 

 B 2 ( 3 ) 



