LOFTUS TURKO-PERSIAN FRONTIER. 2/3 



7. (id) Blue, grey, or fawn-coloured limestone, exceedingly hard, 



compact, and heavy ; contsaning Nummulites per/o?'at a (small 

 variety), N. {Assilina) exponens, Orbitoides dispansus, Alveo- 

 Una subpyrenaica ; with a few spines and broken shells of 

 Echinoderms. This bed passes into the following — 



8. (3 e) Bluish-grey rock, consisting of Nummulites, &c., ce- 



mented in carbonate of lime, and containing the same fossils 

 as occur in bed No. 7 : interspersed are a few layers of fra- 

 gile grey marl. 



By barometrical measurement, our camp on the gravel- conglomerate 

 (bed No. 5) was 1951 feet below the summit-edge of the overhanging 

 clifF. The above section, therefore, cannot be less than 3000 feet in 

 height. I regret that I am unable to give the thickness of the 

 several beds ; but the nature of the cliff renders measurement quite 

 out of the question. 



From the presence of an Ostrea (sp. undet.) in the limestone 

 No. 2, and also at the head of the Tauk-i-Girrah Pass, as before men- 

 tioned (p. 267), in connexion with the gypseous deposits, there is 

 reason to believe that the bed No. 2 lies near, if not quite at the top 

 of the nummulitic rocks. It is just possible that it may represent 

 the fossiliferous marls of the gypsum-series discovered at Kirrind 

 (see p. 265), since the forms of the contained fossils appear to be 

 nearly allied ; although casts, such as these, are always difficult to 

 identify. 



The beds Nos. 7 and 8 were well exposed in the sides of a deep 

 ravine, formed by a mountain torrent in the basin of Mungerrah, 

 which afterwards forces its way through a difficult gorge to join the 

 Balad-riid River. Large blocks of this shell-conglomerate, literally 

 composed of Nummulites perforata and N. exponens, with Alveolina 

 subpyrenaica, lie in the channel of the stream a few miles below the 

 gorge, showing that this bed is very largely developed somewhere in 

 the neighbourhood, though I was not so fortunate as to discover the 

 particular locality. The last-named fossil is called by the natives 

 ** Sangi Berinj," or Rice-stone, from its fancied resemblance to grains 

 of rice. See p. 278. 



The Section fig. 8, taken from the summit of Chaouni, gives a 

 general idea of the arrangement of the beds of this formation, and 

 of the strange dislocation which has taken place near Mungerrah by 

 the elevation of the Bi A'b Mountain. The upper beds of the lime- 

 stone, which is here white and saccharoidal, are inverted, and form a 

 high peak, with quantities of angular debris upon the slope. This 

 peak in the outline of the mountains as seen from Dizfdl* is repre- 

 sented by a conical protuberance. Not having had an opportunity 

 of examining the Bi A'b, I am unable to say positively to what forma- 

 tion the rocks composing it belong, but I have seen fragments of 

 Ammonites which were said to have been picked up in crossing it. 

 This, together with the conformable dip of the overlying beds, leads 

 me to the conclusion that it is cretaceous. 



* The author has given in the original MS. a coloured sketch of the outline 

 here alluded to. — Ed. 



VOL. XI. — PART I. U 



