PSEUDOMORPHIC SALT-CRYSTAL ZONE. 99 



of numerous pseudomorphic casts of crystals of common salt. These 

 might be taken to indicate for it a triassic horizon as an isolated deposit 

 of the period, to which also its general place in the series would accord. 



It must be admitted that this method of identification is open to 

 much objection, as it closely resembles the erroneous reasoning which 

 led to the red salt marl itself being thought triassic ; but for want of 

 better grounds, in adopting for it provisionally the place here indicated, 

 I am compelled to take advantage of all petrographic aid where fossils 

 are non-existent, and in classifying the group as triassic, to do so with 

 the reservation that it may belong to any of the three formations 

 (Nos. 6, 7, or 9) named, and if not to the upper part of the triassic beds, 

 possibly to the Jurassic period. 



As in almost every group of the range, the sections in this present 



local differences. Where best developed the lower 

 Local difEerence. 



portion is the most flaggy, the flags being out- 

 wardly red, but often greyish or whitish inside. Here the upper part of 

 the zone, which is thicker than the lower, is formed of red and liver- 

 coloured, variegated, argillaceous beds, passing upwards from shales into 

 clays. In other places variegated purplish and red clays and shales pre- 

 dominate below, and where the group is thinnest, it is generally formed of 

 flags, to the exclusion of most of the shales and clays. The more earthy 



portions disintegrate into minute angular fraff- 

 Hsematitic concretions. ° 



ments, and sometimes contain little nodules of 



haematite used by native shikaris as bullets. Greenish spots or veins or 



layers are common, as is often the case in ferruginous rocks, but the most 



characteristic marks of the group are the cubical salt pseudomorphs or 



casts which prevail almost everywhere in the more 

 Salt pseudomorphs. '' 



flaggy layers. These separate so as to show the 

 casts thickly studded over the lower surfaces of the flags, a solid angle of 

 each cast generally projecting. Similar pseudomorphs of salt have been 

 noticed by Strickland at Blaisdon in Gloucestershire, and by Professor 

 Phillips at Spetchly in Worcestershire.^ According to Dr. Warth they 



* Jour. Geol. Soc. Lond,, Vol. IX, p. 5. 



{ 99 ) 



