CORRELATION OF THE MIDDLE TRIAS. 
77 
limestones, which have yielded a fauna of Muschelkalk age in their 
lower, and the Tropites fauna in their upper, portions. 
Thus wc come to the following conclusions : — E. v. Mojsisovics and 
Diener were right in attributing the Traumatocrinus limestone to the 
carnic stage. Yet this limestone does not follow immediately above 
the Ptychites beds of the Muschelkalk, at least not in all sections of 
Painkhanda, but there is a small thickness of limestones, from which 
Ptychites rugifer is absent, intercalated between the Muschelkalk and 
the carnic stage. It is probably of ladinic age. There is no hiatus in 
the stratigraphy of the Himalayan Trias in the Shalshal cliff, but the 
ladinic beds, provided they are represented at all, are extremely reduced 
in thickness, lithologically identical with the Upper Muschelkalk, and 
at the same time very poor in characteristic fossils. 
The ladinic stage is therefore of much less importance in the sections 
of Painkhanda than it is in Spiti. The black shales and limestones with 
Daonella Lommeli, which are 160 to 240 feet thick in Spiti and very rich 
in fossils, dwindle down towards the east until they are restricted to a 
few feet in the section of the Shalshal cliff. This is a very interesting 
fact. For while, as we have seen, the Muschelkalk is constant in thick- 
ness in the two areas, a remarkable change sets in during the ladinic 
stage. We shall see later on that this tendency of the Triassic deposits 
of the Himalayas to thin out towards the east, becomes still more 
marked in the Upper Trias. 
g. Correlation of the Middle Triassic deposits of the Himalayas with 
those of Europe and America. 
The similarity of the stratigraphical development of the Muschelkalk 
both in the Himalayas and the Eastern Alps is most striking, as has 
been stated by A. v. Krafft. 
In both regions a thick mass of unfossiliferous limestones forms the 
basal division of the group. In the South-eastern Alps, more especially 
in the district of Recoaro, where the development of the Muschelkalk is 
more complete than anywhere else in the Mediterranean region, this 
mighty mass, which is very poor in fossils, corresponds to the limestone 
with Dadocrinus gracilis. It has yielded a few bivalves which are 
closely allied to Lower Triassic species from the Campil beds, but never 
any Cephalopoda. It is followed by a zone of marls and limestones rich 
( 278 ) 
