PAINKANDA SECTIONS. I I 7 



Crushing only ; in a disturbed and folded area, such as the Himalayas, 

 it is a common feature to find, where friable and yielding shales are 

 enclosed between more rigid strata, the first crushed often beyond 

 recognition, as the uppermost rigid strata are pushed over the under- 

 lying beds. But a subsequent second visit to the Niti area in 1883 

 convinced me that here I had not only local crushing to account for, 

 but that the Productus shales really rest on an eroded surface of the 

 upper carboniferous. Particularly in the Silakank sections it is seen 

 how uneven and often deeply eroded the white quartzite (8) is, 

 whilst the dark Productus shales rest in normal order on this rugged 

 base of upper carboniferous rocks. The strata immediately underly- 

 ing the Productus shales are the massive beds of the white quartzite 

 in the valley of the Silakank stream, but further north-west 

 along the slopes which overhang the Dhauli Ganga, I noticed the 

 permo-trias group overlapping the red Crinoid limestone, — the white 

 quartzite having quite disappeared. 



Some few miles further north, between the Kiunglung camping 



ground and the range which forms the frontier 



Kiunglung. 



between Garhwa*l and Hundes, the white quart- 

 zite, with beds of a gritty calcareous sandstone, and earthy limestones, 

 appears in great thickness below the Productus shales. The 

 overlap of the Productus shales over the carboniferous beds in the 

 Niti area offers good evidence that considerable physical changes 

 must have occurred near the close of the carboniferous period. The 

 lithological characters of the various divisions and strata of the lower 

 palaeozoic formations are so strikingly uniform in the whole area exa- 

 mined by me, that the sudden irregularity, the considerable variations 

 and partial overlaps, which occur within the shortest distances near 

 the boundary between the Upper Carboniferous and the Productus 

 beds, clearly indicates considerable changes in the character and in 

 the outlines of the coast of this period. 



I observed that the general characters of the beds of the permo- 

 trias do not on the whole differ very much from those of this group 

 in other sections, with the exception of the lowest and uppermost beds 



( "7 ) 



