26 BLANF011D : GEOLOGY OF WESTERN SIND. 



being marked on the survey maps as 6,016 feet above the sea. TheGaj 

 river rises to the westward of the range and cuts through it by an 

 impassable gorge west-south-west of Mehar. South of the Gaj the 

 Khirthar again rises to a height of nearly 5,000 feet, but soon sinks to 

 a lower elevation, and to the southward rarely exceeds 3,500 feet in 

 height. The main ridge is composed of nummulitic limestone, but 

 there are several minor parallel ridges of newer beds to the east of the 

 main range, and the best sections of the tertiary formations are seen on 

 the banks of the streams draining the range. 



It has already been said that Lower Sind west of the Indus consists of 



Minor hill ranges of a nill 7 tract o£ country. Perhaps more correctly 



Lower Sind. ^g area ma y b e described as consisting of parallel 



or sub-parallel ridges of hills, with broad undulating plains between them. 

 It will be well to enumerate the ranges in detail ; the more so as but 

 few of them have definite names. In Sind, as in many other parts of 

 Western India, names are given by the inhabitants of the country to all 

 peaks and prominent hills, to passes, and to small hilly tracts, but not to 

 ranges as a whole, and in describing such ranges it frequently becomes 

 necessary to adopt, for the whole, terms applied by the natives of the 

 country to only a portion. 



The most important range of Lower Sind, from a geological point 



of view, is that commencing at Bhagothoro, 

 Laki range. / 



just south of Sehwan, and extending thence 



to the southward for about 80 miles, until it terminates to the south 



of Bula or Bhule Khan's Thana. Particular portions of this range 



are known by various names, — Dharan and Tiyun to the northward, 



Daphro and Eri farther south, and Surjano to the eastward of Bhule 



Khan's Thana, — but no general term for the whole range exists. The 



northern portion, however, is frequently called the Laki range by 



Europeans from its passing close by the town of Laki (Lukkee) , and this 



term will be applied in the present memoir. The Laki range divides an 



undulating plain to the eastward, known in part as the Vera plain, from 



( 26 ) 



