BH6r MAHALS OF KUMAUN. 167 



less considerable width from near the head waters of the Lissar river 

 and extending far to the south-east. The Lissar river flows, during 

 the greater part of its upper course, along the axis of a symmetrical 

 anticlinal formed of carboniferous rocks, leaving it near the end of 

 the Chingchingmauri glacier, where it traverses the lower palaeozoics 

 in its southward course. This strip of upper carboniferous rocks is 

 of great structural interest. The centre of it is formed by a symme- 

 trical anticlinal (see all sections in plate 7) chiefly of the white 

 quartzite (8). Along some miles of its course the river has eroded 

 through this division down to the earthy brown-red Crinoid lime- 



m 



stone (7a), as for instance, north-east of the Bambadhura (sections 

 2 and 3, plate 7). This anticlinal is flanked on both sides by a 

 system of other plications, more complicated on the left (north- 

 east) side of the valley than on the right, where I could follow 

 with ease the reversed synclinal directed towards north-east, shown 

 in the four sections of plate 7, and in the view, pi. 14. 



The left side of the Lissar Valley shows a more irregular system 



Flexures of left side of plications of carboniferous rocks, which form 



of the Lissar Valley. the broaci range dividing the Lissar from the 



Dhauli Ganga. 



The white quartzite (8) itself is of precisely the same lithological 

 character, which distinguishes this rock in the more north-western 

 tracts of the Bhot mahals of Kumaun. For the main part it is a thick- 

 bedded sugar-grained pure white quartzite which below alternates 

 with the Red Crinoid limestone near the boundary with the latter divi- 

 sion, whilst in some few sections in the upper Lissar valley, some 

 sandstone beds, of a dirty white colour, appear near its upper limit. 

 Fossils are very seldom seen, and are generally casts only of Orthis 

 sp., Productus sp., etc., but they appear only on the weathered sur- 

 faces of the more massive beds. 



The high range which forms the left side of the Lissar valley pre- 

 sents a steep, in many places, inaccessible scarp of this white quart- 

 zite, at the base of which here and there the red Crinoid limestone 

 (7, a), and the dark blue-grey limestone with Crinoids and Producti 

 may be observed below the mass of debris and fans, which form the 



( 167 ) 



