16 WYNNE : TRANS-INDUS EXTENSION OF THE PUNJAB SALT RANGE. 



Nila Rob. and Battani hills. This last is complicated by minor convo- 

 lutions in the Makdum Grind or mass of Shekh Budin itself. 



Along the escarpments denudation has reached the axis of curvature 

 from the side towards the plains and removed 

 much of that half of the anticlinial fold, or else 

 so completely obscured it as to raise a doubt whether the atmospheric 

 erosion has not been assisted in developing the escarpment, by extensive 

 parallel fractures lying in the vicinity of the outer base of all these 

 border ranges of the Indus plains, — fractures to the existence of which, as 

 much as to the elevation of the arches, is due perhaps the striking con- 

 trast between the dead flat of the level ground and the abrupt harshly- 

 pronounced features of the boldly scarped facade of the mountains. 



In other (outer Himalayan) regions such long parallel fractures are 

 closely associated with the scarps of the lesser ranges, and here where 

 outer Himalayan orographical features blend with those of the outer 

 Sulemani area, the existence of similar fractures just within the hills is 

 ascertained, while better evidence to show the original anticlinal structure 

 of now uniclinal scarps than the Salt Range escarpment affords, is here found 

 in the partial occurrence of the missing side of the once continuous arch. 

 The former existence of arches where there are now escarpments is even 

 more conclusively shown by the way the cliff line of the Chichali and 

 Maidan ranges passes into the long anticlinal ridge of the Marwat hills 

 (Nila Roh and Battani Roh), confluent for along distance with a feature 

 of the same scarped-anticlinal nature forming the Khasor range. 



Another Salt Range feature, most prominent near Kalabagh, where 

 the salt marl is present, is the extremely disordered, 

 slipped, faulted and displaced arrangement of the 

 undercliff and talus portions of the escarpment. This is also present 

 along all the border of the Isa Khel plain, but even more noticeable on 

 the Indus face of the Khasor range. The cause of this confusion is 

 traceable to the superposition of the hard carboniferous or other lime- 

 stones upon such soft or destructible rocks as the more sandy groups, 

 the salt marl and gypsum, or the hardly less easily reduced gypseous and 

 ( 226 ) 



