PART 4] Waagen : Geographical dlstrihution of fossil organisms in India. 271 
crystalline schists and granitoid gneisses reveal finally the second crystalline zone 
to the southward of Khorzogd 
The dip of the strata in the first crystalline zone, in the regions now mention¬ 
ed, is generally north and north-eastward; along the southern border of the 
second zone it is southerly and south-westerly. The fossiliferous sedimentary 
formations are enclosed between the two as in a basin. The strike of these zones 
appears in the local sections to corresjtond with that of the principal ranges, so 
that the first zone appears to follow the Pir Panjal, and the second Cunning¬ 
ham’s Trans-Himalayan range, but on closer inspection the matter presents itself 
otherwise on the maps. The Baralatze range, whoso highest summits on tho 
frontier of Spiti and Rupshu were formed of sedimentary deposits (Taglingpass), 
reaches, in the extension of its strike north-westward, the south edge of the se¬ 
cond crystalline zone in tho region southward of Dras, and in consequence cuts tho 
strike of the formations, though certainly at a somewhat acute angle. The direc¬ 
tion of strike of tho sedimentary formations has therefore become somewhat more 
east to west, and reminds one of tho direction of the strike of the Kuenlun. 
The same condition obtains in Knmaun as in Spiti ; the richly fossiliferous 
beds, which have become known through Strachey’s “ Palaeontology of Niti,” lie 
north of a crj'stalline zone, while to tho south of it massive limestones occujiy 
the region of Kaini Tab The second crystalline zone would then have to 
besought to the north of the Sutlej valley,’ but it hero appears obscured and 
covered up by extensive tertiary dc250sits. Schlagintwoit, however, mentions ci’ys- 
tallino rocks on tho Chako La that divides tho Sutlej and Indus drainage areas.® 
A similar arrangement in two crystalline zones, which are divided from each 
other by limestones, is also observable in Nepal, on the road to Katmandu,'* but 
it would appear that it is the second zone which here corrcsj)onds to the first zone 
of tho north-west. The latter certainly acquires an extraoidinary width in this 
way ; and it thus becomes probable that the first crystalline zone increases in its 
eastward course so greatly in its north to south extension, that it occupies tho 
whole width of the Himalaya proper which the observations in Sikkim would 
seem to confirm. 
It is first in Sikkim that the composition of tho mountains offers a to¬ 
tally different picture. When I visited this region on a very cursory tour, I 
' Stoliezka : Meui. Geol. Surv. of India, V. Geological sections across tlie Himalayan 
mountains— 
The first crystalline zone appears to bo thrust furthest northward at tho Uotang pa.ss, which 
crosses the Pir Panjal chain to the westward of the ahove-ineutioncd line, so that Stoliezka’s cen¬ 
tral gneiss appears first On the northern slope of the chain in the Chandra valley, and tho llura- 
latze range is entirely composed of metaraorphic rooks which Stoliezka considered to be in part 
Silurian. Further westward the first crystalline zone appears soon to trend down again to tho 
southward, 
^.Strachey: Quart. Jonrn., Geol. Soc. London, VII; Mcdlicott : Mem. Geol. Surv. of 
udia. III, Art. 3, p. 69. Strachey: Palmontology of Niti. 
^ Schlagintwoit : Keisen in Indicn und Hocliasien, 111, p. 76. 
* Medlicott: Records Geol. Surv. of India, VIII, ji. 93. 
