SALINE GROUP. 81 



has been ascertained that this potash salt forms only a local lenticular 

 deposit : it has not been found except in this instance, so far as I am 

 aware. 



As to size and quantity, the salt deposits of this district rank high 



among known localities for the mineral, numerous 

 Size and quantify. 



though these are known to be.* The salt group 



of the Salt Range, though occupying a much greater longitudinal extent 



of country, displays much less salt at the surface than is exposed in the 



Trans-Indus salt region. The mineral is found at not very distant 



intervals along the south side of the range for a distance of 120 miles. 



How much of the salt formerly existing has been removed by the 

 percolation of fresh water, and perhaps subterraneously distributed to the 

 southward, cannot of course be known, but it is on record that the water 

 of the Thull or Bar and of many places in that direction is brackish 

 or sufficiently saline for salt to be manufactured from it; this is at 

 great distances from the Salt Range. 



It is not easy to attempt even a rough estimate of the quantity of 

 salt in the Salt Range. If an average thickness of only 135 feet and a 

 width of three miles be assigned to the salt beds, then, in the 130 

 miles along which these are seen, there may be 130 miles X 3 miles 

 X 135 feet of beds, giving as the solid content of the salt deposits 

 nearly 10 cubic miles. 



* Large deposits of salt are known to occur at Hormuz in the Persian Gtilf, near the 

 chores of the Caspian Sea, in Persia, in Algeria, in Europe, and America; hut still those of 

 the Salt Range seem hardly inferior to any of those recorded by Dr. Karsten {Lehrluch 



der Salinenkunde, Berlin). Salt is not known to occur in the valley of Kashmir, see 



Dana's Mineralogy, Art. Salt. 



A shaft which took several years to sink is stated to have passed through 3,907 feet 

 of rock-salt at Sperenberg, twenty miles from Berlin, without reaching the limit of the 

 deposit (Sitzunsber d. Naturf. G«sellsch. zu Halle, 1867, 23, Nov.) The salt was met with 

 at 280 feet from the surface of the ground, but the dip not being given, the thickness 

 cannot be estimated. A measured section at Bahadur Kheyl, trans-Indus, gave a thickness 

 of 1,000 to 1,200 feet of salt, the very magnitude of which rendered it doubtful whether 

 there were not concealed faults. 



L ( 81 ) 



