PA1NKANDA SECTIONS. I2dj 



stream, steadily dipping north east. I did not get to the northern 

 end of this o-oige, though I viewed it from afar. The total thick- 

 ness of the formation may be from 1,200 to 1,500'. About half- 

 way up the section I came across a bed, in which calcareous concre- 

 tions yielded a few crushed Beletnnites. Otherwise this system has not 

 yielded any fossils. Its age I believe to be either lower cretaceous 

 or upper tithonian ; being enclosed between the upper Jurassic Spiti 

 shales and upper cretaceous limestone as I found to be the case iu 

 other sections, it could not be anything else. 



Instead of continuing the route from the Sirkia to the Sutlej, I 

 _ - , ., crossed the Hundes plateau between the Sirkia 



Section between the r 



Niti pass and Dongpu. river and the Niikchung stream to Ndbgo above 

 Dongp-u, and obtained a fair section of the tertiaries of Hundes by so 

 doing (see plate 12). The valley of the Sutlej is in shape an elevated 

 basin, inclosed by the crest of the Himalayan watershed and the 

 snow-capped Kailas range, the watershed between the Indus and 

 Sutlej. East of the Manassarawar lakes, a watershed range divides 

 the valley of the Sutlej from the headwaters of the drainage of 

 Eastern Tibet. The area of this basin is partially filled by tertiary 

 deposits, the uppermost and horizontal beds of which cover all the 

 older rocks and creep up the high slopes both of the Himalayan 

 ranges and of the Kailcis hills. The mean altitude of these beds near 

 the centre of the basin is about 14,000' above the sea-level. But 

 after exploration it is seen that the seemingly uniform plain (pi. 12) 

 is in reality deeply eroded by the Sutlej and its numerous side- 

 streams, which cut down through all the tertiary strata and expose 

 even the younger mesozoic rocks below the latter. These valleys of 

 erosion form generally deep V-shaped troughs and narrow gorges. 

 The Sutlej gorge, where it widens here and there, is the only part of 

 Hundes which may be said to be inhabited. The strip of watershed 

 between each of the tributaries of the Sutlej, as, for instance, be- 

 tween the Sirkia and the Nukchung streams, is formed by upper ter- 

 tiary beds, which had once uniformly covered the entire basin of 

 Hundes. Below them crop out the older rocks from the Spiti shales 



K ( ,2 9 ) 



