136 GRIHSBACH: GEOLOGY OF THE CENTRAL HIMALAYAS. 



by several minor faults running parallel with the great Painkanda 

 fault, but they have not altered the general distribution of the various 

 formations to any great degree. Section 3, pi. 3, runs across the 

 Shal-Shal valley about half way between the camping grounds of 

 Rimkin and Rimkin Paiar, and therefore only exposes the rhaetic and 

 upper trias beds. Lower down the valley, the whole chain of forma- 

 tions are seen from the carboniferous to the Jurassic Spiti shales 

 The river is at that point quite impassable, and I had to carry on my 

 studies first on the Kurguthidhar side, and afterwards march round to 

 Shal-Shal by the head of the valley. But the cliffs are exceedingly 

 favourable for a correct measurement of the thickness of each indivi- 

 dual bed, which process I carried out successfully. 



Near Rimkin Paiar I found the lowest bed exposed to be the white 



quartzite (8) of the upper carboniferous system. 

 Near Rimkin Paiar. . . 



It is generally in massive thick beds, but towards 



the top it shows a few irregular thinner-bedded strata, amongst which 

 a coarse, gritty, silicious sandstone is intercalated Lower down the 

 stream, this white quartzite rests on the red Crinoid limestone 

 with which it seems to alternate near the junction. At least amongst 

 the red Crinoid limestone beds near the contact appear silicious 

 flesh-coloured sandstones which alternate with thin beds of white 

 quartzite, till finally the latter predominates. The white quartzite is 

 about ^00' in thickness near Rimkin Paiar, and beyond the appear- 

 ance of an irregular eroded and jagged outline of the uppermost portion 

 of the white quartzite, the following beds would seem to rest conform- 

 able on it. 



About a mile south of Rimkin Paiar the Productus shales (9 in 

 , , sections), and the lowest trias beds are parti- 



Productus shahs and . 



lower trias of Rimkin cularly well exposed and the latter have yielded 



some good fossils. The thickness of the Pro- 

 ductus shales is very insignificant, a little over a hundred feet, and 

 beyond crushed specimens of a small Productus sp. have yielded 

 nothing, but they are overlaid by the whole sequence of lower trias 

 beds, between which and the lower Productus beds there is a gra- 

 ( 136 ) 



