34 



the dip being to the NE. These strata-like divisions are frequently crossed by fissures at 

 right angles to them, and sometimes by another system in a different direction. In some 

 places, particularly in the higher regions, the gneiss, though perfectly laminar, is not divid- 

 ed into regular beds by parallel seams but is crossed by fissures in all direclions. In a lower 

 zone of the Himalaya a range of granite tracts of considerable extent occurs. This zone is 

 parallel to the direction of the axis of the monutains and the strike of the gneiss. The most 

 eastern tract, at Chumpawat, is soft like the growan of Cornwall, and contains much felspar 

 and little mica. Hard blocks are strewed over it. A portion of the next mass is exclusively 

 felspar » which, it would seem, is stratified". Near Dhee, Capt. Herbert describes some sphe- 

 roidal blocks of great size, which are exfoliating in the same manner as those of Pulo Ubin. 

 One of these was 60 feet in diameter. Numerous veins, consisting al most wholly of quarti 

 and feslpar, traverse the granite. Schorl abounds. The next mass, proceeding westward, is 

 at Almorah, where granite and granite gneiss occur. A fourth mass is found at Palee which 

 preciscly resembles those to the eastward. It appears to pass into gneiss on its borders. On 

 a line to the westward »a rock oscillating between granite and gneiss" is found. Near 

 Dhooeet the rock development is so interesting in itself and bears so much on the subjects 

 discussed in this paper that I shall cite Captain Herbert's description. »In a geological sense 

 the rock may be called a gneiss, but it exhibits small patches (forming regular transitions 

 amongst themselves) of the most regular micaceous schist (earthy type), and, again, of the 

 most legitimate granite (growan). These three rocks, so different in composition, in minera- 

 logical character, and in supposed geological origin, may be here observed in the compass 

 of a few yards all naturally ( mutually ? ) interchangeable, while nothing like a veinous ap- 

 pearance can be attributed to any of them". On the same zone with the preceeding masses, 

 but at a great distance to the westward, the Choor Peak, which rises to the height of 

 12000 feet, is composed of granite. 



The zone of gneiss is 24 miles in breadth and includes all the higher summits of the 

 Himalayas. The gneiss was seen at altitudes of from 2,800 to 25,709 feet. To the south- 

 ward succeeds a zone of about the same breadth formed principally of micaceous, chloritic, 

 talcose and hornblendic schists , but including limestone and the granitic tracts formerly 

 mentioned. These types vary exceedingly in themselves, and in their transitions into each 

 other. This schistose tract is succeeded by a band of sandstone which is referred to the New 

 Red. The gcncral dip of all the rocks from the sandstone to the gneiss is from 20° to 80' 

 to the NE. or towards the great central plateau of Asia. The lowest system is therefore 

 the new red sandstone : and the highest the gneiss. Captain Herbert seems to consider that 

 this fact ncgatives the idea that the planes of apparent stratification are really what they seem, 

 and he is obviously rather disposed to refer them to a similar action to that which produced the 

 fissures transverse to them. It is scarcely possible to conceive that a continuous mass of 

 strata, about 60 miles in horizontal breadth at their present inclination, which would give 

 an original vertical depth of about sixteen miles, should have been raised on its edge and 

 made to move through an are of 1S0° to 160° until it rested in its present position, with 

 the gneiss, originally 16 miles below the sandstone, now as many miles above it. Such 

 displacement does no doubt sometimes occur on a great scale. Thus in the Alps, and, as 



