490 G. C. Crick — Cephalopods from W.W. Indian Frontier. 



Eocene basin may lie under the sea in Mount's Bay and the western 

 part of the English Channel. It is by no means impossible that 

 the last of the series of movements resulting in the formation of 

 the suggested basin was that which caused the recent Penzance 

 earthquake. 



V. — Note on two Cephalopods obtained by Lieut.-Col, Skinner, 

 R.A.M.C., FKOM THE Valley of the Tochi Eiveh on the north- 

 avest frontier of India. 



By G. C. Crick, F.G.S., of the British Museum (Xatural History). 



rriHE valley of the Tochi River is an outlying corner of the British 

 X Empire in India forming a portion of Waziristan, the boundary 

 of which was delineated in 1894-5 by an Anglo-Afghan Commission 

 from the Afghan provinces of Khost on the north and Birraul on 

 the west.^ Mr. F. H. Smith, of the Geological Survey of India, 

 accompanied this Commission as geologist, and his observations " On 

 the Geology of the Tochi Valley " were published in 1895 in the 

 " Records of the Geological Survey of India " (vol. xxxviii, pt. 3, 

 pp. 106-110, pi. iii). On p. 109 he says: — "The range of hills 

 between Idak and Miran Shah- is formed by an anticlinal ridge 

 which approximately strikes north and south, and which is composed 

 of these lower eocene beds. In the core of the anticlinal a con- 

 siderable thickness of massive dark grey limestone is exposed, in 

 which I could find no fossil remains; the age of this limestone is 

 therefore doubtful, and there is no evidence of any kind to show 

 whether it belongs to the lowest tertiary or upper niesozoic age." 



In 1897 the Tochi Valley was visited by an expedition sent there 

 to avenge an assault upon our troops that was made at Maizar in 

 June of that year by the Madda Khel, a section of the tribe of the 

 Darwesh Khel Waziris who inhabit the locality. Major (now 

 Lieut.-Col.) B. M. Skinner, R.A.M.C., who accompanied this 

 expedition, was fortunate enough to obtain from the anticlinal ridge 

 referred to by Mr. Smith, besides several fragments of coral, the 

 two Cephalopods (an Ammonoid and a Belemnite) which form the 

 subject of the present note. 



The information accompanying the Ammonoid (No. 213) is as 

 follows: — "Derived : found in the Alveolina limestone at Miram Shah, 

 E. of Dandi plain"; whilst the locality of the Belemnite (No. 225) 

 is recorded as " E. of Miram Shah, halfway to Idak." The portion 

 of Mr. Smith's section referring to this locality is reproduced in the 

 accompanying figure, and Lieut.-Col. Skinner has been so good as 

 to indicate on the section the localities of his fossils. The fragments 

 of coral were found at the spot marked a ; the Ammonoid was 

 obtained from the debris in the neighbourhood of the limestone at b ; 

 whilst the Belemnite was found in situ at the point marked d. At 

 the spot marked c Lieut.-Col. Skinner tells me that he observed in 



1 See Major (now Lieut.-Col.) B. M. Skinuer, E.A.M.C, " The Valley of the 

 Tochi River," Science Gossip, November, 1899, pp. 163-4. 

 ^ Also spelt Mil-am Shah. 



