4 
Records of the Geological, Survey of India. 
[vol x. 
is in great force all through tho Jamu hills; at the Eavi it becomes contracted; at the 
Sutlej it is upraised on a base of the older formations of the higher mountains; before 
reaching the Jamna, it has been completely and permanently removed by denudation. 
East of the Jamna there only remain the outer zones, composed of Siwalik rocks. 
The complete change of strike that occurs so abruptly along the valley of the Jhelam 
has been shown to be quite a continuous feature, not connected with any marked difference 
in the age of the contrasting systems of disturbance. 
Our chief disappointment in this ground was not being able to determine satisfactorily 
the age of the great inliers of old limestone that in several places obtrudes through the 
inner zone of tertiary rocks in Jamu. From some obscure indications of fossils, they 
have been coloured on the sketch-map as carboniferous; but this is quite an open question. 
The triassic age of the fringe of limestone along the base of the Pir Panjal is also more or 
less conjectural. 
This trip afforded an opportunity of testing the speculations published in our Eecords 
for 1874 by Mr. Theobald, on ancient glaciers in the Kangra district. The conclusion was come 
to that the so-called moraines are only the remains of a diluvial deposit that had once 
deeply covered the valley.* A.t the same time it is difficult to account for the characters 
of this deposit without the supposition of active glacial conditions on the Dhaoladhar 
range. The coincidence is not to he lost sight of that these high-level gravels along the 
Himalayan border, locally with glacial characters, are, according to physical methods of 
computation, of an early pleistocene age, more or less corresponding to that of the glacial 
period of Europe. 
In connection with the tertiary rocks we can also claim for the past year a special advance 
in our knowledge, and again through palaeontological aid. Since the labours of Cautley and 
Falconer, the fossil vertebrates have been the subject of most wide-spread interest in Indian 
geology. AVc have at last been able to make a beginning in carrying on that line of research. 
I trust that Mr. Lydekker’s papers in our publications for 1876 will fully support this 
promise. A general result, so far, seems to be that the Siwalik fauna is of pliocene rather than 
of miocene affinities; but we have still made very little way in marking stages in this great 
tertiary fauna. This difficulty is, of course, one of field-geology, and it is very great. There is 
an enormous succession of conformable deposits, with much uniformity of character through¬ 
out, and fossils are very rare except in one broad zone liaviug an upper middle position in the 
series. The whole formation, moreover, has undergone extreme disturbance. 
The conjectured identification of the topmost Siwalik beds with the ossiferous deposits 
of the Narbada valley is one of great interest, on account of the discovery in these of a 
well-formed stone implement, as described in the Eecords for 1873. 
In the far east, in upper Assam, Mr. Mallet completed his survey of the coal-fields of 
the Naga hills. For the extent and quality of the coal this is certainly the most important of 
our Indian coal-fields, and yet it is entirely of tertiary age, possibly even middle tertiary. 
On account of the total change in the character of the associated rocks, the relation of these 
measures to the nummulitic coal of the Khasia hills could not be established without a con¬ 
tinuous survey of the intervening ground ; but the intimate connection of the Assam measures 
with overlying deposits of Siwalik type, suggests that they may be on a higher horizon. 
♦ Records, Vol. TX, page 56, 1876. 
