GEOLOGY OE STNft. 11 



Similar sections occur in other places, and arc described at length in 

 Dr. Carter's valuable memoir. It is unnecessary to do more than refer 

 to them here. In his " Tabular arrangement" of the strata, at the end 

 of his paper, he refers all the argillaceous strata to the lower creta- 

 ceous period, and classes the limestone containing cyclolina and alveolincc 

 as upper cretaceous. If I understand his opinions correctly, he considers 

 the Muskat and Masira sections as higher than the other, and while the 

 first are believed to be eocene, the latter is classed as cretaceous.^ In 

 his "Summary of the Geology of India" (2nd Edition), however, he 

 distinctly states that " this marl or clay, or sandy deposit, which under- 

 lies the ' nummulitiferous limestone at Muskat, Masira, on the mainland 

 of Arabia, in Cutch, and in Sind/-' is the lowest number of the nummu- 

 litic series.t 



It is out of place here to enter further into the discussion of the re- 

 lations of these beds ; it is sufficient to show that in Arabia, as in Sind 

 and the salt range, beds of clay and sandstone immediately underlie the 

 nummulitic series. But the most interesting point is the fact of these 

 clays resting on diorite and euphotide. As Dr. Carter occasionally 



* Geological Papers on Western India, p. 699. 



t From the manner in which Dr. Carter's publications appear in the ' Geological Papers 

 on Western India,' with merely scattered annotations, it is not always easy to learn what his 

 final opinions were. But at page 700, in a note, he allows that the evidence on which he 

 had mainly relied for the cretaceous age of the rocks of the Marbat scarp, viz., the presence 

 of cyclolina, stated by D'Orbigny to be a cretaceous form, is insufficient. He had previously* 

 described a species of cyclolina from the Buran Eiver near Jerruck, in Sind, and noted its 

 resemblance to the species occurring in Arabia. In both cases it was accompanied by alveolina. 

 There can be very little doubt of the Sind beds being tertiary, and in all probability, the very 

 similar beds of Marbat and other localities in Arabia are equally so. The distinctively 

 mesozoic fossils, as ammonites, appear to have been only found in the lowest part of the 

 sandstone, which may be of distinct age from the argillaceous beds at the base of the 

 limestone. At the same time the circumstance of that limestone being of nummulitic age 

 does not pi'ove the argillaceous beds to be newer than mesozoic. 



* Jour. Bombay Br. R. A. S., V. p. 140. 



