330 Geological Features of the Himalayan Mountains, [Aprii, 



Geology of the N. E. border of Bengal. But this point was so remote 

 from tbe parts of the Himalajas usually visited, (hat it was long before 

 it was discovered that ihey formed a true clue to (he nature of the for- 

 mations at the base of these mountains. The Author also, in December 

 1831, discovered some fossil fragments on the banks of the Jumna, 

 which, though at first doubted, were afterwards proved (o be such by 

 chemical analysis, v. J. A. S., p. 457. Abundance of fossils have since 

 been discovered there by the engineers empkyed in improving the 

 navigation of the Jumna: v. papers by Capt. E. Smith, and by Mr. 

 Dean, J. A. S. ii., p. C22, iii., p. 302, iv., p. 261. 



Dr. Govan, in September 1831, discovered seme Himalayan lime- 

 stone which bore the impression either of a reptile or of one of the 

 Crustacea, which has not yet been described, but with this exception, 

 nothing had been found on tbe southern face of the Himalayas, or from 

 the plains to the Snowy Peaks, and yet diligent search had been made 

 for fossils in the.Sewaliks themselves, but chiefly from the KhereePass 

 to Hurdwar, by Capt. Herbert, and by Mons. Jacquemont atNahun and 

 in the Kheree Pass, as professed geologists,- by Capt. Cautley and the 

 author in their occasional visits to the latter and to Hurdwar. Capt. 

 De Bude of the Engineers, when cutting down the rock at Hurdwar, 

 and the shingly summit of the Kheree Pass, had been requested to 

 look out for any appearance of fossil remains; and one of the officers 

 of the Engineers, who has since distinguished himself in such disco- 

 veries, almost threw himself upon what he conceived to be a deposit of 

 fossils, when the police officer who is stationed near the head of the 

 Kheree Pass came up and informed the party that a camel had died 

 there in the previous year. Lignite had been discovered here, and 

 described by Capts. Herbert and Cautley. To this (he author projected 

 a visit, before leaving that part of India, with Dr. Falconer; but, as 

 time was wanting, the latter went alone, and *» returned loaded, not 

 only with lignite, but with noble fossils of the monsters of the deep; 

 bones of crocodilidse, fragments of the shell of large turtles, and a 

 fragment of a bivalve shell as large as an oyster." — Journ. As. Soc, i, 

 p. 97, — as announced by the author in some notes read to the Asiatic 

 Society in February 1832, w hen he was led to inquire whether those 

 fossils did not probably belong to the same formation as those disco- 

 vered by Dr. Wallich and Mr. Crawford on the Irawad}'. No further 

 progress seems to have been made until April 1834, when Dr. Falconer 

 picked up the shell of a fossil tortoise in theTimly Pass ; Capt, Cautley 

 immediately proceeded to the Kaloowala Pass, where he had discovered 

 the lignite in 1827, when Dr. F. recognized a bone, and in the course of 



