38 



SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 



April 3rd t KogachaJc, near Aktdsh. [Frontier of Sarikol belonging to Kashghar, and 

 Wakhan under the rule of Kabul.] Followed up the valley for about a mile, when the gneiss 

 was apparently underlain by black palaeozoic slates, strike almost from east to west, and the dip 

 very little towards the gneiss or, rather, the beds were vertical. I could not find a trace of 

 fossils. The slate is brittle, and very much cleaved in different directions : it would not do for 

 roofing purposes, unless large quarries were opened. The slates continued for more than a 

 mile, then they gradually became calcareous, and a series of thin-bedded whitish limestones 

 followed first, again, almost vertical, but, a little further on, distinctly dipping at an angle of 

 about 50 towards the slates, though evidently younger. The limestone was dolomitic and 

 highly bituminous, but unfossiliferous. After about a mile it changed to grey limestone, and 

 became slaty. Then followed a band of greenstone for about half a mile, overlain by 

 brownish-black shales, apparently carboniferous ; and these shales were overlain by greenish 

 dolomitic crinoidal limestones, lithologically the same as those which I found to be carbonifer- 

 ous in the Artysh district. I dare say this limestone is also carboniferous. However, the 

 upper beds of this limestone series are paler, and apparently less dolomitic ; and in them I found 

 a cordiform pelecypod, like Megalodon, very common. Possibly the whole of the limestones, 

 but certainly those on the western side of the range, are triassic. They rest here on purple 

 and greenish shales and slates, which are afterwards traversed by greenstone. (See also diary 

 of May 6th.) 



April 4th, Onkul. A march of about 24 miles. Crossed a spur over an old gravel 

 deposit, and traversed a valley, the rocks on both sides of which were whitish triassic lime- 

 stone, resting on reddish shaly rock, which, again, overlaid black slates, evidently palaeozoic . 

 Before we reached camp the slates rested on gneiss. 



April 5th, Oi-kul or Kul-i-Pdmir Khurd (Little Pamir Lake). Marched about 24 miles 

 along the valley of Pamir Khurd, or Little Pamir. The rocks composing the hills to the left 

 of the valley are all gneiss to an elevation of 2,000 or 2,500 feet above the valley; those to the 

 right are higher and more sharply ridged, but their composition could not be ascertained. 



April 6th, Langar. Marched about 24 miles. After 6 miles, in a west by south 

 direction, the hills to the north became black slates, resting on gneiss. These same slates 

 were seen dipping at an angle of about 60 to north-east by north at the entrance into the 

 valley, which was here very narrow. They were overlain higher up by reddish slates and con- 

 glomerates, and the whole of the series has bands of quartzite, often intercalated : one of these 

 quartzite bands seems to have passed right across the stratification of the slaty rocks at the 

 entrance of the narrow part of the valley from the Pamir, which here terminates. The 

 gneiss on the Pamir appears to have had only a very slight dip to north. The black slaty 

 rock continued all the way to camp. 



April 7th, Daraz-diicdn, 15 miles. Black slates, dipping north by east, were seen on 

 both sides of the valley, and on the right the purplish or reddish slates and conglomerates rested 

 on them. The conglomerates consisted of angular boulders of white quartzite in a reddish or 

 purplish matrix. I saw fragments of similar conglomerate in the Sanju river. 



April 8th, Sarhada. March of 11 miles. For the first 2 miles black slates were seen along 

 the road, which was above the level of the river ; further on, the slates rested on the same fine- 

 grained gneiss which we had seen at Pamir Khurd, until within half a mile of Sarhada, where 

 the slate again came down into the valley. 



Throughout the valley, from the spot where it was entered from Pamir Khurd, old banks 

 of bedded clay and gravel are seen up to 1,200 and 1,500 feet above the present level of the 



