Correspondence. 351 



sometimes found in Amygdaloid. The sulphate of lime, which I 

 have found they contain, may tend to protect them from the action 

 of the carbonic acid present in the rain water which washed away 

 the soil and left them exposed. There is also transmitted a speci- 

 men of crystalline limestone, occurring among the strata of the 

 more quartzose gneiss rocks. It is taken from the immediate 

 neighbourhood of an acidulous thermal water, which issues from 

 among the rocks, at a temperature of 128°. A constant bubbling 

 of carbonic acid escapes with the water, and imparts to it the acid 

 properties it possesses, as shown by its action on litmus paper. 

 Sulphur is deposited on the stones in the pools where the water 

 cools down a few degrees, before it escapes into a large river close 

 at hand, wdiich sometimes overflows it. This river is called the 

 Tugila. It flows from the Dooken bog, and follows a highly 

 tortuous course. Where the mineral water occurs, it has made a 

 section of the country to the depth of 3500 feet, and its fall from 

 this part to the coast, over an extent of at|least 40 miles, is not 

 more than 500 feet. The strata are not contorted at the mineral 

 water. 



" I have to lament the loss we have sustained in the death of 

 Dr Stanger as much, perhaps, as any person in the colony. He 

 contemplated a grand geological examination, which would have 

 been carried on in connection with the survey on which he was 

 preparing to enter."* 



Himalayan Geology. Extract of Letter from T. Oldham, 

 Esq., to the late Professor E. Forbes, dated January 19, 

 1854. 



" Coming down from Darjiling last year I visited a locality where 

 coal was said to occur at the base of the outer ranges of the 

 Himalayas, and though I did not find coal, I found a very in- 

 teresting series of sandstones and clays, at least 4000 to 5000 

 feet thick, with numerous imbedded stems of trees, palms, &c, 

 and in one place with leaf-beds — no animal fossils — all dipping 

 at considerable angles into the range of hills, and apparently cut 

 off by a great fault from the gneiss of the great central portion 

 there. There was no trace of the great nummulite group here, 

 but I believe this thick series is the true representative in this 

 part of the Himalayan range of the Sewalik group in the north- 

 west. I did not find, nor did I hear of there having ever been 

 found, any of the large fossils there discovered. But this is the 

 case in many other places in the prolongation of this great group. 



* [We trust that Dr Sutherland will send further communications on the 

 geology of Natal and of the coppsr district. — Ed. Phil. Jour.} 



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