BHOT MAHALS OF KUMAUN, 



171 



into the most complicated folds. Everywhere the white quartzite 

 (8) seems to underlie the Productus shales (9) conformably, though 

 the contrast between the two rocks is as glaring as seen in the former 

 sections. 



Amongst the many sections across this mesozoic belt which I exa- 

 mined, perhaps one of the most instructive is the one (4, in pi. 7) 

 which passes across the range in a south-west to north-east direction 

 near the sources of both the Lissar and Dhauli rivers. As already 

 shown, the white quartzite (8) forms two enormous synclinals, dip- 

 ping under a high angle below the younger rocks ; on an average 

 about 6o° north-east in the Lissar valley, and from 80 to 90 south- 

 west in the range which forms the water-shed between the Dhauli 

 Ganga and the provinces of Hundes of Tibet. Within these deep 

 synclinals, see fig. 23, I found crushed Productus shales, the whole 

 triassic system, rhaetic, lias and a remnant of the black Spiti shales. 

 It is a rugged and for the most part snow-covered ground and most 

 difficult to work over, and were it not that most divisions have yielded 

 characteristic fossils, it would have been almost impossible to un- 

 ravel the section. 



Crossing this watershed (several of the peaks in it are over 20,000 



feet sea-level), from south-west to north-east, I 

 Mesozoic section of 

 the Lissar-Dhauli water- traversed a complete synclinal of the mesozoic 



group. Near the centre of it Spiti shales very 



much crushed are inclosed within the lias and rhaetic, and from there 



to north-east the following section is seen in descending order:— 



Systems. 



Number 



in 

 sections. 



Description of strata. 



Jurassic 



17 



Black Spiti shales, very much crushed; they contain 

 nodules with Jurassic Ammonites, exceedingly diffi- 

 cult to get out of the rock, which crumbles away. 



Lias 



16 



Crinoid limestone with fossils. 



f Upper . 

 Rustic < 



15 



Limestone with Lithodendron and many small Bi» 

 valves. 



C Lower . 



14 



Massive hard grey dolomite and limestone. 



( I 7 I 



