GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 33 



any of the lower beds on the G aj and the cretaceous rocks of the Laki 

 range. 



1. Cretaceous beds. — The only locality in Sind in which beds of 

 older date than eocene have been identified, is in the Laki range. South- 

 west of Amri on the Indus, a number of very dark-coloured hills are 

 seen in this range ; they contrast strongly with the cliffs of grey and 

 whitish nunamulitic limestone behind them. These dark hills consist of 



Cretaceous rocks of cretaceous beds, but the lowest member of the 

 Laki hills. series is only exposed in a single spot, at the base 



of a hill known as Barrah, lying about 10 miles south-west of Amri. 

 The whole range here consists of three parallel ridges, the outer and 

 inner composed of tertiary rocks (see section 1 ) ; while the intermediate 

 one consists of cretaceous beds, faulted to the eastward against the lower 

 eocene strata, and dipping under them to the westward. Close to the fault 

 some whitish limestone is found, compact and hard ; the lower portion pure ; 

 the upper portion, often containing ferruginous concretions, is sandy and 

 gritty, and forms a passage into the overlying sandstones. The base of this 

 limestone is not seen; the whole thickness exposed is a little over 300 feet, 

 and the length of the outcrop does not exceed half a mile. The limestone 

 is f ossiliferous, and contains echinoderms and mollusca, but it is so hard and 

 homogeneous, that nothing that has been obtained from it can be easily 

 recognised, except one fragment of a hippurite. This fossil is, however, 



Limestone with hip- °^ 8" reat importance, because it shows that the 

 P untes - white limestone may very probably be an eastern 



representative of the hippuritic limestone so extensively developed in 

 Persia, and found in numerous localities, 3 from Tehran to east of 

 Karman, in longitude 58°, just 10 degrees west of the Laki range in 

 Sind. Of course the same formation may be found in the intervening 

 country, the geology of which is unknown. The precise position of the 

 Persian hippuritic limestone in the cretaceous series has not been deter- 

 mined, but the European formation, which is very similar and probably 

 identical, is of the age of the lower chalk (turonian) . 



1 The section is represented on Plate V, fig. 2, Chapter VII. 



2 Eastern Persia, ii, pp. 457, 485, 



( 33 ) 



