1840. J Geological Features of the Himalayan Mountains, 329 



covery of Fossil Quadrumana. This was two months previous to the 

 presentation, on the 16th January 1837, to the Academy of Sciences at 

 Paris, of a Memoir, by M. Lartet, respecting the discovery of the lower 

 j aw of an ape, in the tertiary fresh water formation of Simorre, Sansan, 

 &c. in the department of Gers, in the south of France, and at the foot 

 of the Pyrenees, and which in its genera so closely resembles that of 

 the Fossil Sewalik Hills, found, it is curious, in the district of Sirmore. 

 These dates are adduced, because Dr. Buckland, in the Supplementary 

 Notes to his Bridgewater Treatise, has announced M. Lartet as the first 

 discoverer of Fossil Quadrumana. It is highly creditable to the Bengal 

 Army that the only four officers in that part of the country should each 

 and all have so highly distinguished themselves, in a science foreign to 

 the pursuits upon which they are employed by the Indian Government, 

 but which they have treated so as to merit the applause even of those 

 who have made Fossil Zoology the business of their lives, v. Mr^ 

 Ly ell's Address to the Geological Society in 1837. 



The discovery of Fossils in the Sewaliks is recent, and its history 

 easily traced ; but it is difficult to ascertain who first discovered them 

 in any part of the Himalayas. The Gunduck has long been known to 

 bring down Fossil Ammonites, which are called Saltgrammi, and are 

 much esteemed by the Hindoos. The Fossils represented in the uppef 

 part of plate 3,* from the elevated land on the N.E. of the line of Snowy 

 Peaks, have also been long known in India by the name of Bijli Jce har, 

 or Lightning Bones, being employed by the natives in medicine. Capt, 

 Webb and Mr. Traill were probably the first to bring them to the no- 

 tice of the public; the specimens figured are from the collection of the 

 Geological Society, having been presented by Mr. Colebrooke, to whom 

 they had been sent by those gentlemen. The fossil shells figured in 

 the lower part of the same plate, f are due to the researches of the late 

 Dr. Gerard, who, I believe, first discovered them in the elevated valley 

 of the Spiti, N.W. of Kunawur, though the date when, is not well as- 

 certained ; several, however, were figured at Calcutta in the Gleanings 

 of Science for September 1831, where Capt. Herbert's paper on the 

 Geology and Fossils of the Himalayas is published. 



These fossils are all from the northern face, beyond what may be 

 considered the true Himalayas. Nothing had then been discovered 

 on the southern aspect of the mountains, with the exception of some at 

 Caribari, in the small state of Cooch Behar, on the banks of the Brah- 

 maputra, which were noticed by Mr. Colebrooke, in his account of the 



• Illugtrationi, + Do, 



