SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 



THE SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 



GEOLO G Y. 



BY W. T. BLANFORD. 



INTRODUCTION AND GENERAL SKETCH OF THE GEOLOGY OP WESTERN TIBET. 



IT is, of course, very difficult to do justice to a rough travelling diary, such as Dr. Stoliczka's. 

 In such a diary first impressions are very often recorded, and subsequent observations do 

 not always show how far the first notes require modification. To the writer this is a simple 

 matter his notes are memoranda serving to recall details to his mind ; but to another, who 

 does not possess the clue, it is very often difficult to ascertain how far the notes in the diary 

 agree with the final conclusions of the diarist. 



Of the greater portion of Dr. Stoliczka's journey the geological results have already been 

 published by himself in the Records of the Geological Survey of India 1 and the Quarterly 

 Journal of the Geological Society. 3 A comparison of these papers with the original notes 

 shows that everything of interest in the latter, with the exception of an occasional section, has 

 been extracted and condensed. These papers will, therefore, be here republished in sequence, 

 with the addition only of such sections as can be extracted from the diary. The papers 

 already mentioned contain the record of the geological observations from Leh, in Ladak, 

 to Kashghar, and during two excursions from Kashghar to the northward. The notes 

 from the Panjab, at Mari, through Kashmir, to Leh, refer to ground which had been 

 previously examined either by Dr. Stoliczka himself, or by other geologists; but as 

 very little geological information has yet been published concerning Kashmir, the notes are 

 here repeated. Of the journey from Kashghar to the Pamir nothing has hitherto appeared 

 in print. 



A brief summary of Dr. Stoliczka's previous geological observations in the North- Western 

 Himalayas will aid the reader in understanding the notes made in his last journey. His 

 earlier travels enabled him to classify the rocks seen in the mountain ranges of Spiti, Kulu, 

 Lahaul, Rupshu, Zaskar or Zanskar, Ladak, and the neighbouring districts south of the Indus 



1 Vol. VII, 1874, pp. 12, 49, 51, 81 ; and Vol. VIII, 1875, p. 13. 

 Vol. XXX, 1874, pp. 568, 571, 574. 



