10 
Records of the Geolofeal Snrrej/ of India. 
[voL. xn. 
■work are not wliat Mr. Wynne expected to acoomj)l)sli; still lie lias gWen a most 
nseM reconnoissance of tlie ground : tlie limits of tlie crystalline rocks forming 
tke liiglier mountains have been defined, and a tentative classification and distri¬ 
bution given of the unaltered sedimentary series to the south of the gneissic area. 
The most interesting feature of the observations is the extension to the older 
rock-series of the contrast which has been known to exist in the newer forma¬ 
tions, between the Southern Himalayan area and the country to the west of the 
Jhelam. In Huziira the rocks adjoining, and apparently in sequence with, the 
gneissic rocks are a gi’cat thickness of sandstones, quartzites, and dolomites, 
called by Mr. Wymno the ‘ Tandl series,’ presenting little or no correspondence 
with the strata similarly related to the gneiss of the Pir Panjiil. But the most 
anomalous cii’cumstance is, that Mr. Wynne provisionally identifies the Tandl 
scries with the ‘ Infra Trias ’ group of the section in Sirban mountain (west of 
Abbottabad), which is there distinctly in nnconformable supcrj)osition on the 
Attock slates (see Manual, p. 499), this relation not being so clearly^ defined 
at the junction of these slates with the main area of Tandls, west of Abbottabad. 
If these conjectures are confirmed, it would seem that the gneiss of Hazara is much 
newer than the central gneiss of the Himalayas. 
The severe famine in Kashmir interfered much with Mr. Lydekker’s work in 
the North-West Himalayas. This, and a temporary indisposition, prevented his 
carrying out his projected trip to the Gilgit region ; so he spent the season in the 
mountains of Dras and Tilail, where he has described some imjiortant. sections of 
the sedimentary rocks. Mi*. Lydekker insists strongly upon the transitional 
relations of the whole series from silurian to ujDper triassic (see Manual, p. 6G0). 
Colonel McMahon has again made an important contribution to our wmrk in 
the Himalayan regions—this time in the Central Himalayan districts, to the north 
of the Simla region of the low'or Himalayas. His observations involve a recon¬ 
sideration of some views provisionally j^ut forward in the Manual, w'hile yielding 
confirmatory evidence upon others. 
The strongly nnconformable relation of the limestone and slate series of the 
lo-wcr Himalayas to the central gneiss, presented some difficulty as compared with 
the pscndo-conformity of the same sedimentary series to this gneiss on the 
Tibetan side (Mannal, p. 679 (a)). Colonel McMahon describes this northern 
junction within four miles of the intrusive granitic mass of Gongra, between 
Lipc and the Unhang Pass, as exhibiting an appearance of transitional metamor¬ 
phism, -svhich contrasts with the more abrupt contact at the Bhabeh Pass and in 
Niti. Such local action does not, however, disturb the inferences based upon the 
other sections. On the other hand, he observed in Hangrang, east of the low’er Spiti 
valley, the upper (Muth) beds of the slate series to be in original superposition 
on gneiss at the base of the Pni’gnil Mountain, the gneiss being, up to the very 
contact, profusely cut up by large and small granite veins that do not penetrate 
the overlying limestone and slates, which are not described as more altered than 
at points remote from the crystalline rock. This would appear to fix a very 
definite limit as to the age of these granitic veins; and the total overlap of the 
