STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY AND THE FORM OF THE GROUND. 15 



The Bannu plain, 1,000 to 1,150 feet above the sea, on the further 

 side of the mountains, and traversed by the Ku- 

 ram, which here receives the Gambela and other 

 rivers, is sandy or even stony round its margin : at some places to the 

 west presenting karewah-like terraces so characteristic of the Kashmir 

 valley, but here covered with stones, many of them coated by a black 

 film of oxides of iron or manganese, apparently weathering from the 

 rock (these are supposed to be the " doza/c ki kanre, hell stones " mentioned 

 in Thorburn^s ' Banu/ page 7) . In such situations, except where slightly 

 cultivated in favourable seasons, the ground is bare, with thinly scattered 

 trees. In more central and lower parts the plain is extensively irrigated, 

 well wooded, and richly cultivated. Its aspect in the cold weather, the 

 wintery look of the trees, the familiar birds, ravens, rooks, flocks of 

 starlings, and the flights of wild fowl, recall November scenes in Britain, 

 a resemblance heightened by distant treeless hills in all directions closing 

 the view. 



CHAPTER II.— RELATIONS BETWEEN THE STRUCTURAL GEOLOGY AND 

 THE FORM OE THE GROUND. 



As may be elsewhere observed in the Punjab, and indeed as is gene- 

 rally the case in most countries, the coincidence 

 Coincidence. 



between the physical features and the geological 



structure of the ground is intimate. The axial lines of the mountains 



carrying on the Salt Range feature are also axes of anticlinals lying 



for the most part along the scarped acclivities presented towards the 



Indus plains. A single anticlinal runs (or ran, for much of it has 



been removed) from Kalabagh to the Kuram ; greatly dislocated in 



the former neighbourhood by disturbances con- 

 Anticlinal structure. . 



nected with the chaotic disarrangement of the 



geological series where the Indus finally leaves the mountain regions of 



Upper India. A double fold traverses the country from the Kuram to 



Shekh Budm, one forming the outer or Khasor range, the other the 



( 225 ) 



