82 WYNNE : GEOLOGY OF THE SALT EANGE IN THE PUNJAB, 



Rock-salt, gypsum, and dolomite have always presented, as to their 

 ; Origin of the rock- origin, difficulties too well known to need recapitu- 

 lation.* With regard to their occurrence in this 

 district, notwithstanding the progress of geological knowledge, I may 

 quote and apply this passage of Macculloch, written forty-six years ago : 

 " It is far easier to show that the most simple and obvious hypothesis 

 is wrong or imperfect than to propose a probable one ;" and, further, I 

 might almost use his words, " no rational explanation has yet been 

 suggested, and I have none to offer/'f 



Though the subject still remains very much in the obscurity which 

 surrounded it when that author wrote, a few points bearing upon it 

 may be noticed. 



That the mysterious conditions necessary to the production of these 



deposits have been persistent from very early 



Continuance or recur- , . , . . i t i -i 



rence of the salt-produc- geological time, or else recurrent, is established 



^ ^ ^ ' by the local relations, tha red marl and gypsum 



usually (but not always) accompanying rock-salt being as prominent in 

 this region as in many more modern ones ; while the saline nature of 

 many of the groups would indicate the presence, more or less, of salt- 

 producing conditions, from the silurian or pre-silurian epoch up to 

 tertiary times. 



Most, if not all, of the groups in the Salt Range series appear to have 

 been marine, and saline ingredients of one kind or another effloresce from 

 many of their beds, but as the succession is consecutive, or unbroken up 

 to the base of the tertiary sandstone group, these saline traces do not 

 appear connected with any derivative formation of the newer from the 

 waste of the older rocks. 



* It is the less necessary to discuss these causes here, because a similai' subject has 

 been noticed recently in describing the Trans-Indus Salt Region : Mem. Geol. Surv. Ind., 

 Vol. XI, p. 37. 



t A System of Geology, by John Macculloch, M.D., F.R.S,, Lond., Vol. II, p. 293, 

 Longman, &c.; 1831. 



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