196 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



freshwater or estuariiie origin. The upper argillaceous limestones 

 pass by insensible degrees into alternating strata of bituminous shales, 

 blue clays with septaria, and seams of lignite (No. 7). The lignite 

 seams are of irregular thickness, in some places being 5 feet thick, 

 while 100 yards distant on either side they degenerate into mere 

 films among bituminous shales. Although the lignite generally 

 presents the characters of brown coal, it is in many places highly 

 bituminous and has the aspect of ancient coal. 



Superior to the lignite is a white concretionary hmestone (No. 8), 

 which has frequently an oolitic structure. Its lower strata are often 

 as white as chalk, and have the surface covered by a magnesian efflo- 

 rescence. This limestone abounds in many places with spherical 

 Alveolince, and in its softer parts the author has obtained two Shark- 

 teeth, three or four Echinoderms, a Neritinal, and several other 

 marine shells. The concretionary limestone becomes in its upper 

 part more and more compact, and passes into a splintery limestone 

 (No. 9), of a dirty white colour, with layers of black flint, and 

 abounding in Nummulites, in some places being entirely composed 

 of these organisms. This is the highest rock of the Salt Range*, the 

 top of which on an average is about 2000 feet above the sea-level, 

 and about 1500 feet above the plain at Pind Dadun Khan. The 

 limestone on its weathered surfaces has a white chalky appear- 

 ance in the distance, and forms precipices, on the south side of the 

 Salt Range, in some places 300 or 400 feet high. It abounds -mill 

 Nummulites and marine shells, viz. Conus, Terebellum, Cerithium, 

 Neritina 1, &c. Two or three species of Echinoderms also are found. 

 The nummulitic limestone forms the northern side of the Salt 

 Range, to near its base, where on it are seen reposing a series of 

 more recent incoherent calcareous sandstones, marls, and red clays 

 (No. 10), which in the author's Report to Government in June 

 1848, he referred to as being younger than the nummulite- 

 limestone and of the tertiary age, and described as flanking the 

 Salt Range and dipping under the table-land between the Salt 

 Range and Hayara (north of the Peshawur Road, between Rotas 

 and Attock), and bounded to the west by the Indus. These 

 sandstones are the same as Major Vicary described in his paper 

 published after the battle of Goojerat in 1849 f. The strata forming 

 the Salt Range proper appear to have been upheaved subsequently to 

 the deposition of these younger tertiary sands, &c., as along the north 

 side of the Salt Range they lie conformably on the nummulitic 

 limestone, and are seen encircling the base of Mount Teela, near 

 Jelum (the most easterly point of the Salt Range), and again, in 

 nearly perpendicular strata, resting on the up-tilted strata forming 

 the scarped southern side of the Salt Range at Jelalpoor, the older 

 rocks having been evidently forced up through them. From thence 

 thev stretch across the Jelum in nearly horizontal strata, and form 



* One of its highest ridges, Mount Sihesur, is by barometric measurement 5183 

 feet above the sea. 



t See Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. vii. p. 38 et seq. 



