296 
llcconh of the Geological Surveg of India. 
[voL. xr. 
Our knowledge of tlie distril)ution of facies within the palceozoic formations 
in southern latitudes is hardly advanced enough to allow us to judge of palaeozoic 
times, or to advocate the existence of a southern continent in the earlier paljBozoic 
epochs; and they are so widely remote from us in time, that one cannot be too 
careful in regard of a decision in whatever direction it may be, but it cannot be 
denied that the course of the boundary shown in the little map might possibly 
point to a southern continent. 
With regard to the mesozoic formations, things are in a different position; one 
moves here already on firmer ground, as neither widely extended metamorphism, 
nor denudation too greatly advanced by the length of time, hinder the dis¬ 
covery of the probably once existing bouudai-ies. 
If we first take the ti-ias into consideration, we must regard all that lies to the 
south of the boundary shown in the little majj as having been a continent at the 
time of the deposition of the trias. Although so extremely well developed north¬ 
ward of the first crystalline zone in the Himalaya, the trias possesses absolutely 
no beds that can be regarded as genuine littoral formations. Some of the beds 
north of the first crystalline zone which Stoliczka regarded as triassic might 
possibly be viewed as such littoral formations, but in the absence of fossils the 
supjjosition has no supjiort. At the present stage of our knowledge the lie of the 
boundary along the first crystalline zone is the most probable. A steeply sloping 
coast, and, in consequence of that, but small true littoral def)Osition, may be 
regarded as the cause of the want of such deposits ; as through the great dis¬ 
turbance of the bedding these deposits were exposed to such extensive destruction 
by atmosphei-ic agencies, that they are now entirely removed from our observa¬ 
tion. The triassic coast line is all the more clearly to be seen in the Salt Range, 
where, in progressing from east to west, conglomerates and sandstones with salt 
psendoraorphs gradually appear, replaced by limestones with marine fossils, but 
between which intei'mediate carbonaceous deposits of very uncertain extent are 
frequently intercalated. To the eastward the marine deposits of the trias appear 
to be constantly pushed up northward, and the main mass of the Himalaya 
mountains proper consists of crystalline rocks, in front of which triassic fresh¬ 
water beds are deposited to the southward in Sikkim. The boundary line of the 
continent facing the sea-covered region in the triassic period thus traverses the 
Salt Range, then it bends northwai’d up to the first crystalline zone of the 
Himalaya, follows that to the boundary of Nepal, and then trends pretty straightly 
eastward, following the upper course of the Brahmaputra more or less, and thus 
cuts the principal ridge of the Himalaya in a nearly diagonal direction. Whether 
jt then runs east and south in Tibet, and thus finally reaches the marine trias 
beds in Burma, or whether the latter should be brought into connection with 
the marine trias beds of “ Farther India ” and the Indian Archipelago, which is 
more probable, and thus belong to a different marine province from the Himalayan 
beds, must, for the present, remain undecided. But it is certain that the 
boundary line indicates the north and east coasts of a continent, on which were 
deposited the triassic fresh-water beds of the Indian peninsula. 
