4 . WAAGEN WYNNE : GEOLOGY OF MOUNT SIRBAN. 



is not always perfectly developed in the immediate neighbourhood^ but 

 at no great distance, these slates might very possibly afford tolerable 

 roofing material if suitable excavations were made for the purpose of 

 proviug them. The beds dip at high angles with a general strike to 

 the north-east. 



No dykes, nor igneous rocks, have been observed associated with 

 this series about Sirban. The age of these slates is as yet unknown, no 

 organic remains having been discovered ; but judging from analogy 

 with other parts of the Himalaya, their transition to the northward 

 into micaceous slates, talcose schists, and porphyritic syenite, would point 

 to their connexion more or less with the crystalline series. A slate 

 series in Spiti is mentioned by Dr. Stoliczka, of bluish colour and often 

 silky aspect, in which are interstratified greenish silicious sandstones. 

 To this he attributes a silurian age ; and probably, if there were more 

 points for comparison, the Attock slates would prove the same. The 

 thickness of the series must be immense. 



Crystalline rocks (quartzites and mica slates) were known to exist 

 in the north of Hazara by Dr. Fleming — see Eep. on the geol. structure 

 of the Salt Range, Jour. Asiat. Soc, Beng., vol. xxii, 1853, p. 354, 



The same fact is referred to by Dr. Verchere in his paper on the 

 geology of Kashmir, the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains — 

 Jour. Asiat. Soc, Beng., 1866, pt. ii, p. 109, and foot note from Jour. 

 Agri.-Hort. Soc, India, vol. xiii. 



With regard to the possibility of the Attock slates being silurian, 

 or associated with rocks of this age in their extension westward from 

 Sirban, it is on record that Dr. Falconer found lower silurian fossils 

 derived from the Khyber hills in the bed of the Cabul river, and 

 hence in the region most probably occupied by the continuation of the 

 slates beyond Attock — see papers on the Carb. rocks of Cashmere, by 

 Captain Godwin- Austen, Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, Lond., vol. xxii, 1866, 

 p. 29. 



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