RECORDS 
OF THE 
GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF IiNDIA. 
Part 4.] 1880. [November. 
On some Pleistocene deposits op the Noetheen Pcnjab, and the evidence 
THEY APPOED OP AN EXTREME CLIMATE DUEING A POETION OP THAT PERIOD, 
hy W. Theobald, Geological Survey of India. 
The deposits to which I propose to direct attention in the following. notes 
are those commonly called ‘ recent deposits,’ and as such commonly neglected, 
though, if patiently interrogated, they are capable of affording a key to the solu- 
tion of some interesting questions bearing on mundane physics of no very remote 
age. I allude, of course, to the much-vexed question of the extension, universal 
or otherwise, of glacial jihenomena during a ‘ great ice age,’ and particularly 
of the proofs, pro or con, for the existence of any such glacial phenomena in or 
near the plains of India, or at so low a level in the Northern Punjab ns 2,000 
or thereabouts. So long ago as 1867, Dr. Verchere recorded the presence of 
‘ erratic ’ blocks in the Potwar at loss than 2,000 feet altitude (Jour., As. 
Soc., Bengal, Vol. XXXVI, Part II, ji. 113) ; but from the known liability of 
the Indus vaUey to cataclysmal inundations, consequent on the bursting of dams 
in its upper portion, the true bearings of these masses have never been pi’operly 
appreciated, nor has any attempt been made to .study the facts in detail or in¬ 
terpret the relation they bear to the general geological history of the district, 
and to postulate the conclusions we may legitimately deduce therefrom. The 
following papers may be beneficially consulted a.s bearing on the matters in 
question, and I cannot bettor preface my present remarks than by briefly review¬ 
ing what has been already written on the subject, and pointing out which state¬ 
ments require modifying, and wherein I differ from, or coincide with, the opinions 
of the writers I quote below—- 
Wynne, Becords, Vol. X, pp. 107, 112, 122. 
Theobald „ „ X, p. ItO. 
„ „ „ X, p. 223. 
Wynne, Memoirs, „ XIV, p. 116. 
Lydekker, Becords, Vol. XII, p. 29. 
Wynne, „ „ XII, p. lit. 
Blanford, Manual, pp. Ixx, 372, 516, 586. 
Medlicott, ,, p. 668. 
