Manual of the Geology of India. 129 
' When treating of the conditions under which the members of the 
Vindhyan Series, the uppermost of the Azoic Series, were deposited, 
Mr. Blanford is led (Introduction, pp. xxi-xxiii) to touch upon 
some interesting speculations as to the possibility of these rocks 
having been deposited prior to the dawn of animal life on the globe. 
He points out also that it is impossible to arrive at any safe con- 
clusion as to the marine or freshwater origin of the series, no fossils 
having as yet been found in it. 
The question as to the importance of the lapse of time indicated by 
the great break or unconformity between the Upper Vindhyans and 
the overlying Gondwanas is next discussed, and the conclusion 
arrived at that “the evidence is too uncertain to be accepted with 
much confidence, but, so far as it goes, it is in favour of the Vindh- 
yans being classed as very ancient and, perhaps, as pre-Silurian.” 
The probability of the various local groups of the transition rocks 
having been deposited in isolated areas is also touched upon, and it 
is pointed out a great part of the country was therefore then over the 
sea, especially in the Upper Vindhyan epoch, and that the great 
break succeeding may indicate an ‘“ extensive and prolonged period 
of terrestrial conditions.” 
Indications of the early Palxozoic rocks must be sought for 
among the Extra-Peninsular rocks of the Punjab and Himalayas. 
The most southerly occurrence of Palzozoic rock is found in the 
Salt Range, one of the most interesting tracts, geologically speaking, 
in all India, and remarkable for its enormous wealth of rock-salt 
imbedded in the lowest series (locally exposed) of bright red marl 
with gypsum, which “ in all probability is of Silurian age at latest.” 
It is overlaid by several hundred feet of sandstones and shales, the 
latter containing a small Brachiopod closely resembling Obolus. At 
the western end of the Range the salt marl is directly overlaid by 
Carboniferous Limestone, with typical Producti and Spirifers. 
Similar limestones occur also in the Suleiman range, in Cashmir, 
and in the trans-Himalayan area far to the eastward. This proves 
the existence of a great break between the salt-marl and Carboni- 
ferous rocks. It is impossible to say more here about this tract, 
which is truly classic for Indian geology—the reader must refer to 
the Manual or to Mr. Wynne’s admirably illustrated memoir on the 
Salt Range (Memoirs G. 8. I.). 
Much difficulty is found in correlating many of the unfossiliferous 
formations in the North-west Punjab and in the Western Himalayan 
region, and several of the determinations can only be accepted as 
provisional, though there is much probability of their being cor- 
rect. Here and there a few reliable horizons have been settled by 
the discovery of fossils, as the Carboniferous beds of Kashmir, and 
perhaps the supposedly Silurian Bhabeh and Muth beds, of Dr. 
Stoliczka, in Spiti. Unquestionably Silurian beds occur to the North 
of Kumaon. If the supposition that the Attock Slates are really a 
continuation of the slates of Lahul, Kishtwar, and Kashmir, should 
prove true, and also that the latter rocks are representatives of the 
marine Silurian rocks of Spiti and Kumaon, a great step will have 
DECADE II.—VOL. VII.—NO, IIL. 9 
