i2 
HAYDEN : GEOLOGY OF SPITI. 
subsequent examination showed, however, that it did not immediately 
underlie that system, from which it is separated by a great fault, but 
occurred low down among the middle haimanta slates and quartzites, 
and when followed for a short distance, it was found to pass gradually 
into a great mass of white quartz, which occurs at the water's edge on 
the right bank of the river. An examination of this exposure at once 
showed that the rock was an autoclastic conglomerate, formed by the 
crushing of veins and narrow strings of quartz, which are seen 
running out from the main mass: these become broken up into frag- 
ments and eventually take the form of strings of pebbles, sometimes 
coalescing again into veins, at others forming bands of pseudo-conglo- 
merate. Further evidence as to the true character of the rock was 
found on the opposite side of the stream, where an old basic dyke is 
seen, part of which has been similarly converted into an autoclastic 
conglomerate. 
No fossils have been found in Spiti or in Bashahr, in this series of 
Age of tlie slates slates, quartzites and grits, and there is, there- 
and quartzites. fore, no direct evidence as to its age. By 
Stoliczka it was included in, and constituted the greater part of, his 
" Bhabeh series," which he classed as " lower silurian." There can 
be little doubt that, in common with most continental and many 
English geologists of his time,^ he employed the term " silurian " in its 
widest sense, to include all pre-devonian fossiliferous systems then 
known. His " lower silurian " would therefore include the Cambrian 
system, and his "upper silurian^' the silurian system of modern 
English geologists.^ 
The " Bhabeh series" was subsequently identified by Mr. Gries- 
bach with his haimanta system, which he regarded as of Cambrian, and 
probably also in part of pre-cambrian, age. 
' And also some prominent continental geologists of the present day ; see de 
Lapparent, Traite de Geologic, 4th edition. 
^In the present memoir thie cambrian is retained, in conformity with modern 
English usage, as a separate system. In the silurian are included ail the beds 
between the cambrian and devonian systems, i.e., the " ordovician " and " silurian " 
(lower and upper silurian), respectively. 
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