GEOLOGICAL FORMATIONS. 71 



sary here to do more than refer to the older mesozoic and palaeozoic 

 rocks of the Indian Peninsula, but it is a fact that the pliocene beds of 

 Sind and the Himalayas are more disturbed than the ancient azoic 

 Vindhyans of Bundelkhand. The uppermost Manchhar rocks on the 

 edge of the alluvial Indus plain are frequently vertical, and rarely dip at 

 lower angles than 30° or 40°, and it is manifest that the great anticlinal 

 ridges of the Sind mountains have been largely formed in post-pliocene 

 times. 



In the notes on the physical geography of Sind, it was shown that 



Direction of disturb- tne ranges of hills in the province are simple 

 ance# anticlinals with parallel axes, all running nearly 



north and south. This probably proves that the action of disturbance 

 has been unusually simple, and has consisted of a distinct lateral thrust 

 from one direction. To the westward in Baluchistan, and to the north- 

 ward in the Punjab, there is a complete change in the direction of the 

 ranges. 



The cretaceous rocks appear to have been marine, with the possible 



Alternation of marine exception of the unfossiliferous sandstones above 

 and fresh-water beds. the hippuritic limestone, but at the base of the 



Sind tertiary rocks, in the Ranikot beds, proofs of the immediate 

 neighbourhood of land are afforded by the presence of terrestrial plants. 

 It is probable that the thin band of Deccan trap at the base of the 

 Ranikot group is of subaerial origin in Sind as elsewhere, and that the 

 lower Ranikot beds themselves are fluviatile. The upper portion of the 

 Ranikot group, the whole of the Khirthar, and the lower Nari beds, are 

 marine, and the nummulitic limestone may have been deposited far 

 from land, whilst it is certain that a considerable portion of this lime- 

 stone formation is too pure to have accumulated in a sea into which 

 sediment in any quantity was poured by rivers or washed from a coast 

 line. But, as has been shown above, the Khirthar limestone in lower 

 Sind contains intercalated sandstones and shales, showing the admixture 

 of detritus derived from land, and the great limestone band itself 

 disappears in the south-western part of the province, near the Habb river. 



( 71 ) ' 



