PART 3.] 
Theobald: Ancient Glaciers of the Kangra District. 
87 
Mr. H. B. Medlioott, in his paper on Himalayan Geology dated January 1864 in 
Medlicott in Memoirs, Geological "Vol. Ill of the Memoirs of the Geological Survey of India, 
Survey ' peg 13 155, was the first to draw attention to the presence of 
‘erratic’ blocks along the “base of the Dhaoladhar” and to record their occurrence in this 
region “ at so inconsiderable an elevation ns 3,000 feet,” but no attempt is made to define the 
precise limits withiu which these erratics occur, or to map their course. In fixing their lowest 
limit too at 3,000 feet, Mr. Medlicott has somewhat erred on what may be termed the safo 
side, since the fort of Kangra, which is the midst of them, is no more than 2,419 feet above 
the sea, while 2,000 feet may in round numbers he taken as the mean elevation of the isother¬ 
mal line, coincident with the limits of the terminal moraines. The statement, too, that 
erratics first appear on the “ east about Haurbagh” is likely to convoy an erroneous impression 
as I shall hereafter show, since though undoubtedly there is a very sudden development, as 
it were, of these ‘ erratics’ from Haurbagh westwards, yet their absence eastwards from this 
point, is due to denudational causes, and not to a sudden or local development of glacial 
phenomena continued along the flanks of the Dhaoladhar range, west from Haurbagh merely', 
but of this more in the sequol. 
Dr. Verchbre, in his account of the Geology of Kashmir, tho Western Himalaya, and 
Afghan Mountains, in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of 
Bengal for 1867, Vol. XXXVI, Part II, page 113, describes 
erratic blocks north of the Salt Range, in Latitude 33°hT. 
and refers them to the agency of floating-ice; but there does not seem anything in his des¬ 
cription incompatible with the idea of these blocks being the disintegrated remnants of old 
Dr. Verchdrc. 
Notice of erratics and floating-ice. 
moraines, rather than due to the transporting powers of floating-ice; and it is, I think, rather 
more probable than otherwise, that they will prove to be strictly connected with the erratics 
of Kangra, and of cotemporary origin, during the glacial period to which mv present obser¬ 
vations refer. Speculation on this point is, however, premature, and must wait the result of 
observations over tho intermediate area, which have yet to be recorded. 
Tho task of tracing out the course of the moraines which descending from the Dhaola¬ 
dhar range pushed boldly across tho Kangra district, is rendered unusually easy from the great 
contrast which exists between tho rock of which the great majority of erratic and moraine blocks 
constitution of moraines. consist and the tertiary clays and sandstones whereon they 
lie. Near the boundary of the tertiary groups, the erratic 
blocks almost wholly consist of an easily recognised granitoidal gneiss, usually highly 
porphyritic, forming tho central mass of the Dhaoladhar range, and which rock, only towards 
the eastern extremity of the district, assumes a distinctly schistose or fissile habit, which 
proclaims its relation to the gneissose or metamorphic group of rocks, rather than to an 
intrusive rock or granite proper. After traversing, however, for some distance the area 
occupied by tertiary rocks, the moraines are found to consist, in addition to the gneiss of tho 
Dhaoladhar, of an ever increasing admixture of well rounded and water-worn boulders, from 
4 inches up to 9 feet or more in girth, of the harder schistose and silicious rocks, 
derived from the coarse boulder conglomerates constituting the uppermost beds of tho 
Nahun, or miocene tertiary, group through which tho old glaciers ploughed their way. In 
proportion, too, with the decrease in number of the Dhaoladhar erratics, compared with the 
other materials of the moraine, a diminution in size may be remarked, till eventually only 
an occasional small boulder, to be detected only here and there if carefully looked for, 
remains of the Dhaoladhar gneiss, to indicate by its tell-tale presence the former extension 
ol the glacier on which it had travelled so far; and it can therefore he readily understood 
bow, in some cases, the actual extent of a glacier may have been greater than that assigned 
to it, from the difficulty, in the absence of the familiar Dhaoladhar rock, of discriminating 
between materials properly belonging to an old moraine and the precisely similar materials 
