PA1NKANDA SECTIONS. 121 



connected with the next following beds with Otoceras, dwindle down 

 to only fifty feet, and rest immediately on the white quartzite (8) in the 

 Silakank ravine, on the red Crinoid limestone (7) in the upper Dhauli 

 Ganga gorge, and on the Productus semi-reticulatus sandstone and 

 white quartzite in the Kiunglung ravine. 



Further on and as far as the top of the Niti pass follows a normal 

 sequence of the trias and rhaetic, the base being formed by friable black 

 shales, with partings of ferruginous nodular clay bands. One or two 

 partings in this zone, the thickness of which scarcely exceeds 50 feet 

 near Kiunglung, resembles closely the dark grey micaceous sandstone 

 below, which I could identify later on with the typical Ruling beds of 

 Stoliczka. The black shales of Kiunglung yielded only crushed 

 specimens of a Productus, which I think is nearest allied to the Pro- 

 ductus latirostratus Howse. During my first visit to Niti I altogether 

 failed to distinguish this zone from the Otoceras beds above, with 

 which they are almost identical in lithological characters ; I therefore 

 understood it to form one single division with the 130 feet of shales 

 and limestone above it. However, a subsequent visit to Spiti con- 

 vinced me of my mistake, which indeed had already been pointed out 

 by Lydekker, and when I again examined this section near the Niti 

 pass in 1882, I found that these 50 to 60 feet of dark crumbling shales 

 represent the uppermost portion of the more extensive Upper Kuling 

 beds of Spiti, and must therefore be separated from the Otoceras beds. 

 As they are unconformable to the carboniferous below, and moreover 

 form with the trias a connected group, I am inclined to look upon 

 this Productus shale division as the representatives in the Central 

 Himalayas of the permian of South-Eastern Europe. 



The lowest horizon of the trias consists of a succession of hard 

 Otoceras zone (10). D ^ ac k limestones, alternating with crumbling 

 Lower trias. dark s h a les which closely resemble the beds 



below. Both shales and limestone have yielded many good fossils, 

 amongst which occurs the leading form of Otoceras as already pointed 

 out in the general description of this horizon ; it represents a passage 

 bed from the permian into the lower trias, and is of great geographical 

 distribution. 



( i2 ' •) 



