LTTERATURE, 
3 
II.— LITERATURE. 
Before entering upon a description of the Triassic sediments of the 
Himalayas, a short historical retrospect of the development of our 
knowledge of those deposits may be deemed appropriate. 
The credit of the discovery of Triassic deposits in the Central Hima- 
layas is due to Captain (afterwards General Sir Richard) Strachey,^ who 
in 1851 mentioned their presence in several localities in the neighbour- 
hood of the Niti Pass. Their correlation with the beds of St. Cassian 
by Greenough (18-55), by E. Suess" (1862) and by T. W. Salter=^ (1865) 
was based on an examination of the fossils, which had been collected by 
Strachey from loose blocks, not in situ. 
Although the defective state of our knowledge of the stratigraphy of 
the Alpine Trias and the wide range of interpretation adopted in 
Triassic species of Cephalopoda prevented any attempt at an exact cor- 
relation at that time, the general statement of a remarkable analogy 
with the Alpine Trias has been proved to be correct. 
The existence of Triassic beds was confirmed by an examination of 
fossils, which had been collected in Spiti and Hundes by Dr. Gerard and 
by the brothers von Schlagintweit. 
H. F. Blanford* described the Gerard collection and proved one of 
the Triassic species of ammonites {Ptychites Gerardi Blfd.) to belong to 
a genus characteristic of the Alpine Muschelkalk. 
The Cephalopoda of the Schlagintweit collections were examined by 
A. Oppel,"^ the brachiopods and bivalves by C. W Guembel.^ Oppel 
^ R. Strachey : On the geology of part of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet, 
Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, VII, 1851, pp. 292-310. 
~ E. Suess : Verhandl. K. K. Geol. Beichsanst, Wien, XII, p. 255 (Sitzg. 31, 
Juli 1862). 
3 T. W. Salter and H. F. Blandford : Paloeontology of Niti in the Northern 
Himalayas, Calcutta, 1865. 
* H. F. Blanford : On Dr. Gerard's collection of fossils from the Spiti valley 
in the Asiatic Society's Museum. Journal Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, 1863, No. 2, pp. 
121-138. 
^ A. Oppel : Ueber Ostindische Fossilreste aus den sekundaeren Ablagerungen 
von Spiti and Gnari Khorsum in Tibet. Palceontol. Mitteilungen aus dem Museum 
des Kgl. bayrischen Staates, I, p. 267. 
^ C. W. Guembel : Ueber das Vorkommen von unteren Triasschichten in Hocha- 
sien (nach den von den Gebruedern von Schlagintweit gesammelten Fiindstuecken 
beurteilt).^ Sitzgsber. Kgl.bayr. Akad. d. Wiss. Muenchen,\^&^ (XI), pp. 348-366. 
B 2 ( 204 ) 
