PART 2.] 
Waagen : Note on the Geology of India. 
99 
In passing eastwards from the marine strata in Cutch and Rajputana, one comes at 
once upon the crystalline range of the Aravalis, to the south-east of which we only find the 
barren sandstones of the peninsular area. The Aravali range was never crossed by the sea 
(till the cretaceous period), and «e have in the formations of the Peninsular type deposits 
from inland waters, which are manifold in their arrangement and therefore difficult to 
affiliate individually. They must, however, altogether belong to the Trias-jura period. 
If we follow the crystalline recks of the Aravali northwards, they become lost under the 
alluvial, nummulitic, or younger tertiary formations; hut we behold to our astonishment 
that in the Himalaya, in the neighbourhood of Simla, the first crystalline ridge performs the 
same function as the Aravalis in the south,—namely, the separation of the fossiliferous 
marine clays and limestones from the thinly fossiliferous sandstone deposits. Poor Medlicott 
was wrongfully so much decried for his description of the neighbourhood of Simla. It is 
only natural that his Krol and Blini groups, if indeed they are not nummulitic, should not 
he found north of the first crystalline ridge ; one must rather look for their equivalents in 
the south in Central India.* 
The first crystalline range does not, however, remain the dividing line throughout the 
entire length of the Himalaya ; for to the south-east in Sikkim the marine strata are already 
entirely cut out, and only one locality is known containing fossil plants. The sedimentary 
rocks are, moreover, here in great part converted into crystalline schists. The dividing line 
must cross to the north somewhere in Nepal and so extend into Tibet. 
Thus is India traversed by an ancient coast-line which began with the Aravalis, probably 
reached the Himalaya west of Simla, then followed for a stretch the first crystalline axis 
and turned northwards in Nepal cutting obliquely across the whole Himalayan range. 
It seems, therefore, that the peninsula belonged to a great continent which probably included 
China, the Himalayan peninsula, the Archipelago and Australia, perhaps even a part of 
Oceania. The configuration was constant, with slight alterations, during the Trias-jura; 
great depressions set in with the chalk, which determined a great encroachment of these 
deposits, but already in mesozoic times India formed a peninsula as today, as is shown by the 
presence of triassic rocks in Burma, and marine jurassics north of Madras, which indicate 
a hay like that of Bengal. 
The sea surrounding this peninsula was no doubt connected on the north with the 
European seas,—for how else could these seas have so many species in common ? On the 
south it stretched away to east and west, as testified by the jurassic beds of South Africa 
and Australia, allied to those of India. 
Especially remarkable is it that the Himalayan jura, although so near, is almost less 
like the Cutch jura than is the jura of West Australia ; it is more like the Russian jura. 
Thus it would follow that the jura of Europe, Cutch and Australia, although in different 
provinces, forms in a manner a whole that one may at least designate as a homozoie girdle, 
while the jura of Spiti must indicate a similar girdle, to which that of Russia and Siberia 
must be affiliated. , 
* We were not aware of the criticisms referred to ; but it would have been more to the point if Dr. Waagen had 
informed his hearers that several years later Dr. Stoliczka, the only competent observer who has visited both 
grounds, did identify coujeeturally the Krol and Blini beds with the Triassic and Silurian beds of Tibet (see 
Memoirs Geol. Surv. Ind., Vol. V, p. 111). The conjecture still stands for what it may be worth. Dr. Waagen 
never set foot on Himalayan ground proper, t. e., east of the Jhelum.—H. B. M- 
