84 GRIESBACH : GEOLOGY OF THE CENTRAL HIMALAYAS. 



In the absence of fossil evidence, all that can be said with tolera- 

 ble certainty is — 



(1) that there is a marine Nummulitic formation, apparently con- 



formable to the underlying upper cretaceous, much disturb- 

 ed and altered by masses of igneous rock, amongst which 

 various gabbro rocks, and also a syenite is chiefly remarka- 

 ble. 



(2) Next in succession as far as can be seen is a sandstone, 



highly inclined, resting unconformably on the Nummulitics, 

 and resembling some lower Siwalik beds, but which has not 



yielded any fossils. 



(3) The whole is overlaid unconformably by the younger tertiaries 



of Hundes. 

 The tertiaries of Hundes have excited considerable interest since 

 Younger tertiaries of the earl Y da y s of Himalayan exploration. Per- 

 Hundes. fectly horizontally stratified, they form a great 



thickness of beds, covering up all the older tertiaries and perhaps 

 mesozoic rocks, which form the trough of Hundes between the Indian 

 watershed and the Kailas range.' 



General Strachey 1 has already given a most graphic description 

 of these deposits, and I can do no better than quote his remarks in 

 extenso. " But the most striking feature of these mountains is pro- 

 bably that which I have next to mention, viz., the existence of a 

 great tertiary deposit at an elevation of from 14,000 to 1 5, 000 feet 

 above the sea, still preserving an almost perfectly horizontal surface. 

 On crossing the watershed-ridge between the streams that flow to the 

 south into the Ganges, and those that fall into the upper part of the 

 Sutlej to the north, which here constitutes the boundary between the 

 British territory and Tibet (see map), we find ourselves on a plain 

 120 miles in length, and varying from 15 to 60 miles in breadth, that 

 stretches away in a north-westerly direction. 2 Its western portion is 



1 Quart Jour. Geol. Soc, VII, 1851. 



2 See pi. 12. 



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