NURPUR PLATEAU. 195 



^ f 1. Hard thick -bedded calcareous sandstone full of fossils, 



o S ! Beleroplion, Productus, Fusulina, &c., &c. ... 41 ft. (and upwards.) 



n O •{ V J. / 



§ B3 I More beds of the same group (?) concealed below by a 



^ ^ L talus. 



From the mouth of the Nilawan ravine westward stretches the lofty 

 , but greatly concealed Verala scarp. In the upper 



portion of this hardly any rock can be pronounced 

 in situ among the masses of debris, but lower down, here and there, small 

 exposures of the red marl, purple sandstone, and next overlying groups 

 occur. Where seen, the rocks appear to have been much affected by dis- 

 location, some of the fractures being probably connected with the large 

 and fine springs of fresh water beneath the escarpment, called the Verala 

 Chashma. Just above these, a portion of the limestone of the plateau 

 has sunk along two small parallel north -north-west faults, through which 

 water percolating and arrested by shaly beds below, might easily burst 

 from the escarpment in the form of springs. In the neighbourhood of 

 these springs many of the fragments are of sandy limestone, full of 

 Fusulina, Spirifers, Crinoid rings, and other carboniferous fossils, the 

 parent beds of which doubtless exist in the escarpment, and from the 

 quantity of the debris would appear to form a strong band. 



Along a track leading obliquely up the escarpment from the Verala 



escarpment to Pail, the dark shaly silurian zone 

 Track to Pail. ^ , ^ . •„ p ii -, a r. 



is exposed, and is seen still fully 100 feet in 



thickness in the face of some fine cliffs to the westward. The beds are 

 micaceous, and more sandy and clunchy than in the east, and they con- 

 tain conglomeratic bands with pebbles of crystalline rock. Many of the 

 flaggy and thin sandstones are whitish and speckled, their surfaces being 

 covered with ripple-marks and tracks like those of Annelids. 



In this neighbourhood, both the purple sandstones below and tLe 

 speckled sandstones immediately above the silurian beds are largely 

 developed, and of more than usual thickness. Further up the track, 

 near the pass leading on to the plateau, the carboniferous beds 

 show themselves in the escarpment to the right of the road, with a 



( 195 ) 



