58 BLANFORD ! GEOLOGY OF WESTERN SIND. 



The Manchhar group of Sind consists of clays, sandstones, and 



Mineral character and conglomerates, and attains in places a thickness 



sub-divisions. f Dut little^ if at all, less than 10,000 feet on the 



flanks of the Khirthar range. Although it is difficult to draw an 



absolute line between the sub-divisions, the whole 

 Lower Manchhar. , . 



group may be divided, wherever it is well 



exposed, into two portions; the lower consisting mainly of a 



characteristic grey sandstone, rather soft, moderately fine grained, 



and composed of quartz, with some feldspar and hornblende, together 



with red sandstones, conglomeratic beds, and, towards the base, red, 



brown, and grey clays ; the latter, however, being much less largely 



developed than in the upper sub-division. The conglomeratic beds 



chiefly contain nodules of clay and of soft sandstone, apparently derived 



from beds precisely similar to those of the Manchhars themselves; 



so far as has been observed, these conglomerates do not contain 



fragments derived from the older tertiary rocks, no pebbles either 



of the characteristic Gaj limestones or of the still more easily recognized 



nummulitic limestone of the Khirthars having been noticed in the beds 



of the lower Manchhars, although both abound in the upper strata of 



the group. These conglomeratic beds of the lower Manchhars are 



frequently ossiferous, the bones and teeth contained in them being, 



however, usually isolated and fragmentary. 



The upper Manchhar sub-division, where it is best seen on the flanks 



of the Khirthar range, west of Larkana, is thicker 

 Upper Manchhar. . . 



than the lower, and consists principally, towards 



the base, of a great thickness of orange or brown clays, with subordinate 

 bands of sandstone and conglomerate. The sandstones are usually 

 light-brown, but occasionally grey, like the characteristic beds of the 

 lower sub-division. The higher portion of this upper sub-group con- 

 tains more sandstone and conglomerate, and the whole is capped by a 

 thick band of massive coarse conglomerate, which throughout a great 

 part of Upper Sind forms a conspicuous ridge along the edge of the Indus 

 alluvium. This conglomerate contains numerous large pebbles of num- 

 ( 58 ) 



