48 



SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 



North of the metamorphic axis of the Kuenluen range, the hills sloping down to the 

 plain of Yarkand consist principally of various forms of schistose rock, slates, and limestone. 

 In the latter, north of Sanju, carboniferous fossils were found in some places, but the rocks 

 are, as a rule, destitute of organic remains. On the western route the only limestone seen 

 was dolomitic and unfossiliferous. Towards the edge of the plain, formations of later date 

 crop out ; and near Sanju red sandstones, capped by grey calcareous sandstones and chloritic 

 marls, are found, the latter containing cretaceous fossils ; and upon these, again, rest gravels 

 and clays of still later date. The cretaceous rocks were not observed further west. 



The ranges lying west of the Yarkand plain, and intervening between it and the Pamir 

 watershed, appear to be composed chiefly of the same rocks as the Kuenluen, south of 

 Yarkand. Only one section was examined, and this was traversed twice. Near the plain 

 the prevailing beds are carbonaceous slates, sandstones, and conglomerates, probably palseozoic, 

 with which greenstone is associated. A few limestones were seen, and traces of the red 

 cretaceous sandstones of Sanju : the latter, however, was not examined in situ. No fossili- 

 ferous beds were observed, but the slates, sandstones, and conglomerates are probably palaeozoic, 

 like the corresponding rocks in the Kuenluen. Further from the plain, in the district of 

 Sarikol, the slates and their associated beds become metamorphosed, and pass into schist and 

 gneiss, upon which, close to the frontier of Wakhan, near Aktash, rest black slates, and lime- 

 stones of apparently carboniferous age ; and above these, again, other limestones" with triassic 

 fossils, and sandstones. 



The Pamir itself between the Yarkand frontier at Aktash and Panjah, the principal village 

 of Wakhan, was twice crossed, the return route lying a little north of the other, and each 

 following one of the two streams, which unite to form the head of the southern or main 

 source of the Oxus. The geology throughout is of the very simplest description. The carboni- 

 ferous and triassic limestones were only found for a very short distance west of the Yarkand 

 frontier ; and thence to Panjah the whole country consisted of black slates, occasionally capped 

 by reddish slates and conglomerates, and resting upon gneiss, which forms the great mass of 

 the plateau. The slates are, doubtless, palaeozoic ; but no evidence of their precise age was 

 obtained. The gneiss is fine-grained ; it contains biotite, and is, in places, traversed by veins 

 of albite granite, and it altogether so much resembles the " central gneiss " of the Himalayas 

 north of Simla, that it may be a continuation of the same rock. Immense accumulations of 

 boulders and sand were observed on the Pamir, in all the river valleys and around the lakes. 



The two journeys made to the mountains north of Kashghar, which are a continuation 

 of the Thian Shan range, and unite it to the Pamir or Bolor, scarcely extended beyond 

 the southern skirts of the range, the greater portion of which lies within the Russian terri- 

 tory. The first of these journeys extended nearly 100 miles in a direction north by west, 

 from Kashghar to a lake called the Chadyr-kul ; the second, to a distance of about 120 miles 

 north-east to the Belauti pass. After passing the gravel slopes on the edge of the Kashghar plain, 

 and some ridges of sand and clays, which appear to be of tertiary date, and which Dr. Stoliczka 

 calls the Artysh beds, the first range met with to the .westward consists of dark triassic 

 limestones, resting on greenish shales, and the next range of old shales, slates, and sandstones, 

 with crystalline limestone. More to the eastward all the fossiliferous rocks are of carboniferous 

 age : they consist of grey dolomitic limestone, resting on a limestone breccia, passing into con- 

 glomerate, and locally interstratified with greenish shales. This series, probably, represents the 

 old slates and their associates seen further to the west. On this eastern route the carboniferous 

 limestones extend to the Belauti pass, where they are capped by darker limestones, on which 



