INTRODUCTORY. 5 



§>ind published was that by Captain N. Vicary, 1 who in 1845 made 



a journey from Karachi to Sukkur, and visited on 

 Vicary, 1847. ' 



the way some of the ranges west of Sehwan and 



the outer hills of the Khirthar range at the Gaj river. Unfortunately 

 his visit to the Gaj was cut short by want of supplies, and his intentions 

 of re-visiting the section, the importance of which he recognized, were 

 frustrated by the news he received of the preparations for the Punjab 

 campaign. 



Captain Vicary, in his paper, described the rocks around Karachi, and 

 especially the " arenaceo-calcareous rock " found in the vicinity. This he 

 correctly recognized as of later date than the nummulitic limestone. He 

 was, however, mistaken in supposing that the rocks around Munga Peer 

 (Mugger Peer) were nummulitic, and he was apparently under the 

 erroneous impression that the "nummulitic limestone of the Hala 

 range " extended to Cape Monze. From Karachi he marched to Kotri 

 by a road passing for part of the distance near the course now followed 

 by the railway, but running much more to the northward near Jung- 

 shahi. At first he appears to have identified the rocks correctly, but in 

 the neighbourhood of Kotri he evidently confounded the infra-nummu- 

 litic beds (Ranikot) with the upper nummulitic yellow limestones (Nari), 

 From Kotri to Sehwan he traversed the low hills and the plain alter- 

 nately, never going far from the river Indus. He gives a section of the 

 hill range at the Laki hot spring, but he is again mistaken in his identi- 

 fication of the rocks near the spring with the groups overlying the 

 typical nummulitic limestone. 



Prom Sehwan he went to Tahani (Treenee), on the Manchhar Lake, 

 which he supposed to have been excavated by the Indus in former times, 

 and thence he marched via Shah Hassan, at the western end of the lake, 

 to Gaza Pir. He gives an excellent description of the remarkable tufa 

 deposits formed by the hot spring near that locality, and appears to have 

 identified the rocks near Gaza Pir, and especially the miocene beds (his 



1 Note on the geological structure of parts of Sind. Quart. Jour. Geol. Soc. 1847. 

 Vol. iii, pp. 334 to 349 ; reprinted in Carter's Geological papers on Western India, p. 501 



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