1849.] HAMILTON ON THE GEOLOGY OF ASIA MINOR. 373 



line of hills of red sandstone rises, having an easterly dip of 50°, 

 which soon increases to 70° E., and then becoming gradually vertical 

 continues so for more than two miles ; the beds here consist of alter- 

 nating red and grey sandstone, the grey being the hardest, and from 

 its greater power of resistance to the effects of weathering constituting 

 the highest ridges of the hills ; the strike is here also from N. to S. 

 On reaching the Delhiji Su, the waters of which are highly saline, the . 

 red sandstone rocks which are still vertical suddenly cease, and are 

 succeeded unconformably by low hills of marl full of selenite and 

 horizontally stratified. Still proceeding to the westward, along the 

 line of section, the red sandstone beds with their associated marls and 

 conglomerates again appear about fifteen miles further west, and 

 about two miles east of their junction with the underlying nummulitic 

 limestone. They are here seen dipping west at an angle of 45°, im- 

 mediately to the west of a great outburst of trap rock, by which they 

 have been probably elevated and broken off; as we ascend the hill 

 the angle of inclination of the red sandstone beds gradually dimi- 

 nishes, mitil on reaching the summit of the ridge it is almost hori- 

 zontal. 



On descending into the deep gorge of Barsek Dere the beds are 

 again found after a short distance to be almost vertical, evidently 

 forming the western side of a deep synclinal trough. To the north 

 the red sandstone hills are conspicuously seen extending to a great 

 distance, whilst on the line of section they are cut off by the 

 igneous rocks which now become the predominating beds towards 

 Angora. 



2. Basins of Rock-Salty Blue Marl, Sand and Gypsum. 



Although the basins of rock-salt, so far at least as I had an op- 

 portunity of examining them, do not occur in immediate connec- 

 tion with the gypseous beds of this formation, I have considered it 

 more correct to class them together on account of the uniform hori- 

 zontality of both formations, in contradistinction to the upturned 

 strata of the underlying nummulitic and red sandstone beds ; and I 

 call this the gypseous formation, although selenite undoubtedly occurs 

 abimdantly in some of the red sandstone beds, in order to distinguish 

 it from the underlying unconformable formations. 



The rock-salt occurs in small basins in the centre of the vertical 

 beds of red sandstone, the strike of which is north and south, and by 

 which it is entirely surrounded. The salt itself is perfectly horizon- 

 tal, very hard and compact, and is obtained by blasting it with gun- 

 powder ; the thin laminations or strata are slightly wavy and undu- 

 lating as well as its upper surface. It is overlaid by a thick bed of 

 horizontal blue clay four or five feet thick, over which is another bed 

 of clay, gravel and sand. The position of this salt is certainly very 

 remarkable ; it must have been formed not only subsequently to the 

 deposition of the red sandstones, but even subsequently to their 

 having been raised into their present vertical position (see Section 

 fig. 5). 



