90 BLANFORD : GEOLOGY OF WESTERN SIND. 



some miles to the northward and southward. This bed is particularly 

 well seen to the north of the Gaj, and occupies a ridge between a tribu- 

 tary water-course and the gravel slope on the edge of the alluvium. The 

 dip of the conglomerate is about 25°, and the breadth of the outcrop more 

 than half a mile. The conglomerate is coarse, most of the pebbles being 3 

 to 6 inches in diameter, and many larger ; they are evidently stream-worn, 

 not marine, being very oblate spheroids or ellipsoids ; some, 3 or 4 inches 

 in diameter, are not much more than an inch thick. The majority of 

 the pebbles are of nummulitic limestone, especially close to the river. 

 Three miles farther north there appeared to be a larger proportion of 

 hard sandstone and quartzite fragments. The greatly increased thick- 

 ness of this conglomerate near the Gaj river, and the corresponding 

 development of the Siwalik conglomerate on the Himalayan range, 

 near the places where great rivers run out, has already been noticed in 

 Chapter III. 



Below the conglomerate there is a great thickness of red, brown, and 

 Manchhar group of ^rif sandstones, with some clays and occasionally 

 Gaj section. conglomeratic bands. The dip becomes higher, 



about 45° to 50°, diminishing again to 30° near the base of the Man- 

 chhar beds. The whole thickness of the group cannot be less than 7,000 

 to 8,000 feet. In the lower portion reddish yellow and variegated 

 argillaceous beds prevail, with brown and grey sandstones and conglo- 

 merates ; the latter are frequently ossiferous, especially close to the bottom 

 of the group. These conglomerates contain nodules of cream-coloured 

 clay and of soft sandstone, but no nummulitic limestone. Some sub-angular 

 fragments of purple quartzite, micaceous slate, and gneiss were, however, 

 found ; it is difficult to say whence they can have been derived. In one 

 of the ossiferous bands casts of a small spiral shell were discovered 

 by Mr. Fedden; the genus could not be determined with certainty. 

 Amougst the remains of Vertebrata found here 1 were teeth of Mastodon, 

 DinotJierium, Rhinoceros, bones of genera allied to Merycopotamus, frag- 



1 Partly by Mr. Fedden, partly by Hira Lai, one of the native assistants attached to the 



Survey. 



( 90 ) 



