NURPUR PLATEAU. 191 



A little to the northwards the gorge again becomes very narrow, 

 and there is much appearance of crushing, the purple sandstone again 

 approaching on either side so as to leave little or no space to be occupied 

 by the salt-marl; slips from above often conceal the true thickness 

 of the rocks, and the purple sandstone in some sections appears earthy 

 or shaly for nearly half its thickness, but for much less in others. 



The magnesian group, where separable, has a thickness of more 



than 50 feet, but the light sandstones are so inter- 

 Group No. 4. . 



calated with dark shales that they seem rather to 

 form a part of the shaly zone below, the whole hardly amounting to 

 100 feet. Above this the speckled and red-banded sandstone occurs, but 

 can hardly be seen from the bottom of the narrow gorge, while the 

 talus of the nummulitic limestone cliff obscures the softer beds beneath 

 that zone. 



In this narrow part of the gorge, as at Khewra, there is again seen 



the same sort of volcanic, lavender, ash-like rock 

 Volcanic rock. 



with an irregular thickness of a few feet, under- 

 lying a gypsum band just at the top of the salt-marl, and associated also 

 with a decomposing layer of the more solid volcanic rock, the same as 

 occurs, in quite a similar situation, at Khewra. 



Where this narrow part of the gorge opens a little, to the northwarci. 

 Salt at narrow part of ^ ^^'^^^^ ^^^ ""^ rock-salt is seen at the surface 

 S^^S^- on the right bank of the stream. It contains 



thin laminae of different colour, and forms four or five beds lyino- 

 quite parallel to the stratification of the overlying purple sandstone 

 close to the base of which it occurs, with a band of the lavender 

 clay just noticed intervening. Kock salt is seen again a little further 

 to the north, with two strongly marked white beds, and a thickness of 60 

 feet. It is also known to exist in very many other parts of the red 



,, . marl of this gorge, and the lavender clay and 



Utner salt mines. *' 



volcanic trap-rock occur pretty generally. The 

 latter was found by Dr. Warth at one spot interposed between some thin 

 layers of bad salt below, and a 30 to 50-feet bed of white gypsum 



{ 191 ) 



