STRAT1GRAPHICAL FEATURES. 7 I 



Bunter in Germany or the Werfen beds of the Alps, is entirely 

 wanting in the Himalayas. The beds with Otoceras are certainly not 

 of very great thickness and differ lithologically scarcely from the still 

 lower Productus shales, but still it is rather surprising how such a 

 careful observer could have missed finding some of the very numerous 

 fossils in the beds immediately above the Otoceras stratum, and below 

 the " Muschelkalk" horizon. At Ruling itself these beds are well 

 developed, and have yielded fossils identical with those found in the 

 magnificent Niti sections. To obviate repetitions, I must refer the 

 reader to the detailed description of the Niti sections for further in- 

 formation regarding the different beds which constitute the division 

 of the lower trias, and content myself here with a few words only. I 

 found that immediately above the Productus shales (9) which I look 

 upon as permian, a small thickness of dark limestone with splintery 

 shales contains such forms as Otoceras woodwardt. sp. } Xenodiscus 

 buchianuSy X, demissus ) X. gangeticus^ etc., etc., which shales I look 

 upon as passage beds from the permian into the upper beds of this 

 sub-division, which contains fossils of more pronounced triassic type, 

 such as Monophyllites, Norites, etc., and finally passes into earthy 

 thin-bedded limestone with Brachiopods of triassic type. 



The stage, which has yielded the curious forms of partly triassic, 

 partly permian type, and which forms no doubt true passage deposits 

 may be looked upon as a horizon of the trias still lower than the 

 Werfen beds of the Alps, and considerably lower than what is un- 

 derstood now as " Bunter." This accords with the finds in other parts 

 of the world ; forms closely allied, if not identical with Otoceras have 

 been found by Von Abich in Armenia, and latterly beds lower than 

 the Werfen horizon, and probably above the upper permian in age 

 have been discovered in Sicily. 



Near the uppermost horizon of this series, the limestone beds 



Rhynchonella semi- become generally much more earthy in character 



plecta zone. an( j Cephalopods scarcer ; a poor Brachiopod 



fauna of Muschelkalk type is all which I have hitherto found in 



this zone. The zo^ie is present in all lower trias sections, but 



( 7* ) 



