86 
DIENER : TRIAS OF THE HIMALAYAS. 
shales, sandstones and quartzites. Such limestone horizons are in Spiti : 
the limestone banks within the grey beds, the black, splintery limestone 
intercalated between the shaly limestones and shales of the covering 
series, the very thick mass (about 300 feet and even more) of the 
limestone with Spiriferina Griesbachi, the so-called " Coral lime- 
stone " and the limestone between the two quartzite series. In 
Painkhanda we may mention the limestones containing the faunse of 
Proclydonantilus Griesbachi and Halorites procyon, the brachiopod-bear- 
ing beds with Spiriferina Griesbachi, and the liver-coloured limestones 
with Sagerites sp. ind., which are intercalated between arenaceous 
shales, sandstones and quartzites. 
It is consequently evident that in the Upper Trias of the Central 
Himalayas of Painkhanda and Spiti two natural rock groups can be 
distinguished lithologically, a lower one composed of clayey, arena- 
ceous and calcareous sediments and an upper one of pure limestones and 
dolomites. But those two natural rock groups do not correspond to 
stratigraphical stages. The boundary between the carnic and noric 
stages is not at all marked lithologically, but runs through a uniform 
series of sediments equally developed, which are comparatively poor 
in pure limestones. The same physical conditions prevailed during the 
carnic and lower noric epochs. Nor does the remarkable change in 
sedimentation, which corresponds to the limits between the Upper 
Triassic quartzites and the dolomites of the Dachsteinkalk coincide 
with the boundary of the two stratigraphical stages. 
The lower group of the Himalayan Upper Trias comprises both the 
carnic and noric stages of the Alpine Trias, whereas the uniform mass 
of grey limestones and dolomites following above, includes not only 
equivalents of the noric and rhaetic Dachsteinkalk of the Eastern Alps, 
but even of the Lias and Oolite. 
b. The Carnic stage in Spiti and Painkhanda. 
It has been explained that in Spiti, according to A. v. Krafft's descrip- 
tions, the ladinic Daonella idiales are overlaid by a homogeneous mass 
of dark splintery limestone, measuring about 280 feet in thickness. 
In its lower division — A. v. Krafft's " Daonella limestone " — it contains 
a fauna with ladinic nd carnic affinities. As far as Daonella Lommeli 
Wissm. occurs in this rock-group, its ladinic age has been ascertained. 
( -^S? ) 
