STRAT1GRAPHICAL FEATURES. 85 



everywhere intersected by stupendous ravines, that of the Sutlej 

 being nearly 3,000 feet deep. The sections afforded by these enable 

 us to see that this plain is a deposit of boulders, gravel, clay, and 

 mud, of all varieties of fineness, laid out in well-marked beds that 

 run nearly parallel with the surface, and that hardly deviate from a 

 horizontal position. The discovery of the fossilized remains of 

 several of the larger Mammalia distinctly marks the tertiary age 

 of this deposit. The existence of such fossil remains in the northern 

 parts of these mountains had been long known, but we were alto- 

 gether ignorant of the precise locality whence they came, and had no 

 facts before us from which any conclusions could be formed as to 

 their geological import. The Niti pass, from which it was said that 

 the bones 1 had been brought, was not the place where they were 

 found, but one of the routes only by which they came across the 

 great Himalayan chain from unknown regions beyond. 



l( Mr. Waterhouse, who has been so obliging as to examine the 



specimens that I procured from these beds, 

 So-called Niti fossils. . 



informs me that he recognizes amongst them the 



following: — Metacarpal bone and distal end of tibia of Hippotherium; 

 patella of small horse; distal end of radius of a larger species of horse; 

 distal half of tibia of ahorse of very large size ; part of metacarpal of a 

 horse, upper end of tibia of bovine ruminant ; dorsal vertebra of a rumi- 

 nant. Portion of head of an undescribed animal allied to goat and 

 sheep, having, like them, prominent orbits, and the horns above the 

 orbits ; but which differs in the peculiar form of the bony cone of the 

 horns. The horns are remarkable for being placed very near to each 

 other at the base (their upper portions are broken oft). There is a 

 specimen in the British Museum, however, from the same locality, of an 

 animal very like this, in which the horns are seen to be short, stout, 

 and slightly bent outwards at the apex. Right wing of the atlas 

 vertebra of Rhinoceros ; phalanx of one of the outer hind toes of ditto ? 

 and portion of tooth of Elephant! Specimens of the bones of Rumi* 



1 Called Bijli-ki-har (lightning bones) by the natives who ascribe medicinal and 

 other virtues to these remains, 



( 85 ) 



