President's Address. 
41 
1879.] 
great anticlinal flexure, with all the beds on the southern side inverted, as 
they so commonly are along the southern base of the Himalayas. A small¬ 
er synclinal ellipse occurs south-east of Kashmir on the upper Chinab in 
the Pangi district. To all these facts attention has been especially directed 
by Mr. Medlicott, the Superintendent of the Geological Survey, in his an¬ 
nual report for 1877, and he notices especially how the recurrence, in the 
north-western Himalayas, of a series of synclinal ellipses, formed of sedi¬ 
mentary beds and having their longer axes parallel with the main direction 
of the mountain range—each ellipse being isolated from the others by inter¬ 
vening ranges of metamorphics,—tends to shew that the different basins 
were all originally part of one sedimentary area, and that their present isola¬ 
tion is due to disturbance and denudation. Nevertheless some subsequent 
observations to the north of Simla are in favour of partial separation in 
early paleozoic times having subsisted between the two important sedimen¬ 
tary tracts of Spiti and Hundes. 
Colonel McMahon’s paper on the rocks of the Simla area was publish¬ 
ed in 1877, but it has been supplemented by another, now in the press, on 
the Central Himalayan region to the north of Simla. These contributions 
to the geology of the Himalayas are deserving of more than a passing- 
notice. It is but rarely in India that any one beyond the limit of the 
Geological Survey possesses both the inclination and the opportunity to 
investigate the geology of the country, and it may bo added that the physi¬ 
cal geology of the Indian Peninsula in general is chiefly remarkable for 
monotony and want of interest. When a new observer arises amongst us 
and proves himself not only able but willing to examine such very difficult 
problems as those presented by the complicated formations of the Hima¬ 
layas, all interested in geology must welcome so valuable an addition to our 
strength. One of the greatest drawbacks to scientific progress in this coun¬ 
try is the want of external criticism, and the worthlessness of much 
of such criticism as is offered ; too frequently it happens that such remarks 
as appear, whether laudatory or adverse, serve chiefly to shew the ignorance 
of the critic. Hence arises a professional intolerance of criticism, and 
a disposition to dogmatize. Had we but a few more independent observers 
like Colonel McMahon, the progress of Indian geology would be far more 
raP1< There are few tracts in the Himalaya more puzzling than the Simla 
area. North of the Sutlej lies the great band of ancient metamorphic rocks, 
called the Central Gneiss by Stoliczka, and beyond this again to the nort - 
ward is the great sedimentary series of the Spiti valley, containing marine 
fossiliferous rocks of Silurian, carboniferous, jurassic, tnassic and cretaceous 
age, the lowest of which beds form the peaks of the snowy range South 
of the band of central gneiss none of these fossiliferous rocks have been 
