236 Correspondence — Mr. A. B. Wynne. 



I venture to send you this communication in the hope that it may- 

 attract the attention of some naturalist in South Africa, of greater 

 experience than myself, as the subject is one of considerable interest 

 to the geologist. — I am, Sir, your obedient servant, 



"Wells, Norfolk, 2nd April, 1886. H. W. Feilden. 



DISCOVERIES IN THE PUNJAB SALT-RANGE. 



Sir, — Since the abstract of my paper to the Eoyal Geol. Soc. of 

 Ireland on the subject of Dr. Warth's discoveries in the Eastern 

 Salt-range appeared in the Geological Magazine for March, a 

 paper on the same subject by Dr. Waagen, of Prague, in the Eecords 

 of the Geol. Survey of India (vol. xix. pt. 1), has reached me. 

 Several points in this paper relate to the stratigraphy of the Salt- 

 range as interpreted in my Geological Survey Report, and one or 

 two especially touch portions of my paper referred to, and its 

 abstract. 



With reference to these last, I may notice that certain of the 

 fossils to which I alluded as undetermined have now been fully 

 described by Dr. Waagen, and are referred to the Carboniferous, not 

 Devonian age, as I had been informed. Beyond accepting the 

 purely palasontological determinations of Dr. Waagen, I have little to 

 say : he gives his evidence, describing most of the species as new or 

 indeterminate, or requiring further comparison, and he appears to be 

 now satisfied as to their age. Their reference to the later period 

 tends to reduce the interest which the discovery of Devonian forms 

 would have possessed, on account of the absence of recognizable 

 Devonian rocks, in that or the adjacent country. 



Dr. Waagen's paper, however, differs from my own in describing 

 these fossils as having been found in concretions, not in pebbles, and 

 as occurring in situ in the Conularia layer. Upon this point rest 

 very extensive and important deductions, and it is one upon which 

 some uncertainty seems to have prevailed, leading both Dr. Warth 

 and Dr. Waagen to reconsider matters and to change their minds : 

 hence I am glad to learn we may expect to hear further about the 

 matter from the officers of the Geological Survey of India. 



Dr. Waagen's latest announcements, as above stated, seem to date 

 from the end of last year or the very commencement of 1886. Dr. 

 Warth, writing to me with specimens from this layer (and some others) 

 under date Dec. 1, 1885, strongly maintains that the fossils are not 

 in situ, but derived, and in support of this he calls attention to one 

 of the specimens, a single rolled fossil Conularia, which itself formed 

 one of the pebbles of the layer. Turning to the specimens I 

 received (and they were few), I found they consisted of fine, pale, 

 non-calcareous sandstone, presenting no signs of concretionary 

 structure, their smoothed surfaces intersecting the inclosed fossils, 

 while the special example referred to has all the appearance of a 

 once more perfect fossil detached from its matrix, abraded and rolled 

 till its general form alone remains, with just sufficient of its original 

 markings to show certainly what it is. Another of the same kind 

 shows only the outer form, and greater abrasion. 



