14 SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 



23rd, Lamayuru, crossing the Fotu-la. Leaving Kharbu, the triassic limestones pass 

 over to the right bank of the stream after the second or third mile, where the stream makes 

 a bend ; but further on the carboniferous shales occupy the whole of the right and the base 

 of the left bank, the limestones keeping to the greater heights. The diluvial conglomerate 

 is locally of great extent ; and in ascending the Fotu-la, it reaches to within about 200 feet 

 of the top of the pass, that is, up to about 13,200. On the Fotu-la the southern hills are 

 trias limestone. The pass itself is formed of carboniferous shales ; and these shales extend 

 clown to Lamayuru. Unfortunately I could not find any fossils in them. 



24th, Snurla on the Indus. For more than a mile after leaving Lamayuru there are 

 extensive shaly deposits, some of them well stratified ; they reach to about 300 feet high on 

 the slopes. The shales are at first in places very carbonaceous, and when decomposed they 

 are covered with a white efflorescence of soda and alum. About two miles or a little more 

 further on, these carbonaceous shales overlie nearly vertically bedded green and red shales ; 

 the latter alternate with beds of strong green sandstone, very similar to the " green-rock," 

 and the whole group evidently represents the Bhabeh series, just as the former does the Muth 

 series. In one place only I saw, in the Bhabeh slates, a bit of an impression, something like 

 a portion of a Trilobite ; and in another place I got a few traces of worms. These Bhabeh 

 slates, shales, and sandstones are variously contorted, but for the most part approach the 

 vertical position, dipping highly towards south or south-west. Towards the Indus the 

 Bhabeh series is cut off by serpentines, which reach clown to the valley. Only in one place, 

 I think, there is a portion of syenite left, the ground about a mile from the Indus being 

 strewn with boulders of syenite. The opposite bank of the Indus is occupied by greenish 

 and reddish slates and sandstones evidently the treacherous tertiary rocks, like in North 

 Rupshu and Zaskar. The bridge across the Indus to Khalchi is built over serpentine, and 

 there are a good many patches of serpentine also on the right bank, and near these the 

 sandstones and shales appear to be almost metamorphic. There is also, about half-way 

 between Khalchi and Snurla, a lump or two of a grey or bluish limestone, full of bivalves. It 

 looks triassic ; still I do not know how it could be that. Fragments of it were locally full of 

 large pelecypods and indistinct gastropod traces, and in some round rolled fragments I 

 thought I saw nummulites, but I cannot be sure of it. Similar lumps of the same limestone 

 I saw in the serpentine region before reaching the Indus, and it is just possible that some of 

 the slates and sandstones here are really tertiary. I rather think this very probable. At 

 Snurla the tertiary slates and shales, greenish and reddish beds alternating with each other, 

 occupy both banks of the Indus, mostly dipping at high angles towards the south. Conglom- 

 erates are locally to be found reaching to a couple of hundred feet or less along the whole 

 road. 



25th, Saspul. All the way we passed through the tertiary red and greenish shales and 

 sandstones, mostly along the strike of the rocks, which dip at a high angle of between 60 

 and 80 to south-west or south by west. The crystalline rocks appear to occupy the hills 

 above Himis. Diluvial conglomerate is extensively developed along the river, and particularly 

 about Saspul. 



25th and 26th, Saspul to Leh. The same rocks for the greatest part of the distance ; the 

 gneiss and hornblendic gneiss do not touch the river till just before Pittuk, beyond the village 

 of Phayang. The diluvial deposits are very extensive, and are very thick just east of 

 Snemo. 



