204 WYNNE : GEOLOGY OF KTITCH. [PART 11. 



carried to a depth of 22 cubits. In these passages the alum bed is 

 found to be an irregular deposit of black and gray shale^ in places bree- 

 ciated and penetrated by numerous veins of the lighter coloured over- 

 lying pseudo-breccia. Its dip could not be clearly made out, but 

 appeared to have a southerly inclination, and the miners said, its 

 thickness had never been proved, as the water from the strata prevented 

 their being able to sink sufficiently low. 



Portions of the shale brought to the surface contained numerous 

 impressions of plant and woody fragments, small lumps of amber or 

 mineral resin, with large but imperfect casts of monocotyledonous and 

 many smaller dicotyledonous leaves. 



The shale decomposes rapidly, and seems to contain less iron pyrites 

 in the fresh portions than would have been supposed from the appear- 

 ance of the weathered heaps, and some of the old workings are lined 

 with exfoliating efflorescences of potash alum with a little saltpetre. 



Eastward of the alum works the dark gray traps do not show 



much stratification in small exposures, but are 



as eaumwor-s, ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^ ^.^^^ ^^ ^^^^ ^ south-westerly 



dip. Their uppermost portion was found to be highly ferruginous and 

 concretionary, and the overlying soft breccia, as elsewhere, contained 

 large concretions with coatings of different degrees of hardness, the 

 centres being formed of trap precisely the same as the underlying flow. 



The soft breccia is as usual irregular, and passes upwards into 

 more sandy varieties of ash (?) with a few coarse sandstone layers and 

 thin bands of carbonaceous shale. Eed and white variegated and pure 

 white earthy beds succeed with bands of laterite, and, above all, are soft 

 yellow clays and shales. In this direction, and indeed in many parts 

 of the valley, the ground is obscured by the occurrence of sub-recent 

 concrete, which is supposed to have furnished the highly calcareous 

 specimens noted from this place by Colonel Grant. 

 ( 264 ) 



