Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[vOL. Hits 
m 
Ill tlie first paj)er Mr. Wynne describes the relations and characters of the post- 
tertiary and superficial deposits of the Hortli-Western Punjab. These deposits 
he divides into an upper alluTiiim (elsowhoro termed loe.ss), largely imbued in 
places with soda salts, and much cut up by ravines; and a lower division formed 
of “ coarse pebble beds and sand or clay.” These bed.s are described as not only 
filling the valleys, but covering largo tracts of country, as, for example, in the 
neighbourhood of Rawalpindi and elseAvhere. They are de.scribed as rising to 
3,000 feet above the sea; but this estimate may bo indefinitely extended, if we 
take into consideration the homologous deposits which were being cotemporaue- 
onsly formed within the hills, and the high level gravels of the larger river valleys. 
Mr. Wynne’s estimate, however, probably is meant only to include the deposits 
in the immediate vicinity of the outer hills of the Hazm’a district. The tertiary 
period may, in fact, be described as closing in a great subsiding movement of 
the Himalayan region, -whereby the I’iver valleys became filled up to the height of 
several hundred feet by coarse river deposits, and the whole country overspread 
by the gravels and the high-level alluvium which rests on them. 
One remark of Mr. Wynne I believe to be erroneous. At page 124 we read, 
“ With regard to the existence of a glacial period affecting the upper Punjab in 
very recent geological times, the only evidence the country seems to offer is in the 
occurrence of the formerly Indus-borne crystalline fragments at heights of some" 
2,000 feet above the present bed of the river. These would indicate either a very 
late elevation of the region traversed by the Indus, or, that when it ran in a 
channel so much higher, the hilly country to the northward may have been as 
much more lofty (or even higher still), and regions of perennial snow much nearer 
than they are at present.” The above pas.sage is couched in general terms, but 
1 have reason for knowing that it particularly refers to the" CMtapahar range 
south of Attoek, and the word ‘ fragments,’ w-hich might be supposed to refer to 
‘erratics’ really means only the ^rolled boulders of the Indus gravel. As, how¬ 
ever, I felt very sceptical that the Indus, abandoning its deep and rocky gorge to 
the west of the Chitapahar hills, had over really flowed here and there over the 
crest of that range, I addressed enquiries on this point to my colleague, and his 
reply, though intended, I think, to some extent as confirmatory of such an idea, 
really supports my own opinion on the subject to the contrary. In his repily, 
Mr. Wynne says :—“One swallow don’t make a summer, one pebble would not make 
a gravel; so I omi’t declare there is any big deposit of Indus gravel on the Chita 
range, but all the same there are good large lumps of the Indus boulder deposits 
scattered about on the ranges of Bagh and Choi, at heights of 2,600 to 3,000 feet, 
too numerous to have been carried up by humans, who wenild not load themselves 
with two or three seers or niore of such stones (gneiss, ^e.) and carry them up 
some thousands of feet for the fun of the thing, or as prisoners do shot drill." 
Now I think these words of my colleague establish the fact that there is no' 
deposit of gi-avel on the ChitapahSr range, and that the inference of the former 
course of the Indus over its height rests on the occurrence of scattered boulders 
of Indus gravel, and in ignorance of any reason for supposing them to have been 
transported to the spot in question by human agency. 
But a good and sufficient reason does exist for this latter explanation. It is 
