A. B. Wynne—Paleozoic Rocks of the N. Punjab. 315 
surmounted by Nummulitic limestones and later Tertiary sandstones 
and clays. 
The black slate group, No. 1, apparently occupying the lowest 
stratigraphical position; from its extension westwards towards the 
Khyber route to Kabul, had long been supposed to be the formation 
in which the Silurian fossils had been found by Falconer and Vicary, 
but what these fossils really were has become doubtful, and it is 
uncertain from which group they came. Recently, however, Dr. 
Waagen has obtained from the Geological Society of London some 
specimens of a Carboniferous Spirifer (Spirifer Rajah, Salter) in a 
black slate which he considers identical with similar rock in the 
Attock slates.’ 
The conclusion from this, that the Attock slates are of Carboni- 
ferous age, is unfortunately of little more value (if any) than the con- 
jecture that they are Silurian. The fossils were only labelled 
‘Punjab,’ and if Punjab labelling were to be relied upon, these 
Attock slates ought to have been Tertiary ; an old collection of some- 
what pre-Siwalik forms, which never came from Attock, having long 
borne the name of the “‘ Attock fossils.” Besides this there are several 
rock groups in the Punjab which contain dark or even black slaty 
beds as well as the Attock slates; they can be found in the Salt 
Range Carboniferous, and in the T'anéls, quite indistinguishable from 
some of the Attock slate; as well as in the newer formations, while 
slaty cleavage may be present or absent, accidentally, in any of the 
older groups of the country. 
Even supposing some of the earlier trans-frontier collections had 
been re-discovered, and that the fossils came from these slates 
near the Khyber Pass (Spirifer being among those mentioned by 
Vicary), much more evidence than that given by a single species 
-would be required, and it should be shown that the occurrence of 
Spirifer Rajah anywhere except in the Carboniferous is an im- 
possibility. Dr. Waagen having found Ammonites in the Punjab 
Carboniferous, it would become desirable to receive with consider- 
able doubt the evidence of one Carboniferous species, in a rock 
labelled ‘ Punjab,’ even though petrographically similar to part of a 
great formation marked by considerable variation amongst its beds. 
I have searched these Attock slates so extensively for fossils with- 
eut success that Iam rather incredulous as to their containing, at 
least in the Punjab, any except microscopic organisms: in some 
of the limestone bands belonging to or associated with them I 
have found faint traces of fossils, but never any in the slates nor 
any that presented a hope of recognition anywhere. There are 
slaty rocks in the Carboniferous groups of Kashmir, and in those at 
Hishmakam I found Bryozoa and Trilobites; but the rocks differ 
considerably in aspect from any part of the Attock slates with which 
I am acquainted. 
The attempt has been made to draw a parallel between the strong, 
dark, frilled and altered limestones, interstratified with the Attock 
slates of the Gandgarh range (Hazara), and those called the ‘ great 
1 Records Geol. Surv. Ind. vol. xii. pt. 4. 
