1. — Previously published or written information. 



The previously published geological information concerning the 

 Trans-Indus Salt Region to which we could refer was very limited in 

 amount. Nor is it likely that any such exists regarding a district so 

 comparatively inaccessible of sufficient importance to influence the con- 

 clusions arrived at from independent observation on the ground. 



Burnes. — A paper by Lieutenant A. Burnes, subsequently Sir 

 A. Burnes of the Bombay Army, in the first volume of the Journal of 

 the Asiatic Society, Bengal, refers to the Trans-Indus Salt Region. The 

 author speaks of " a range of hills springing from the roots of the 

 white mountain (Safed Koh)" as part of the high lands of Kabul? tln\ 

 he describes as crossing the Indus at Harabagh (evidently a misprint for 

 Kalabagh), and says it formerly figured in maps under the name of 

 1 Jood/ but that it had received the more appropriate denomination of 

 the Salt Range from the extensive deposits of rock-salt which it contained. 

 He then proceeds to describe the Salt Range proper, or Cis-Indus, and its 

 mines near Pind Dadun Khan, but makes no further allusion to the 

 Trans-Indus workings. 



At the time when this paper was written, the Punjab was not a 

 British possession, and the Kohat Salt Region probably formed a part of 

 Afghanistan or the border country. The author may have observed hills 

 or mountains all the way from the Safed Koh to the ' Hydaspes/ calling 

 the Jhilam river by its old name, but modern geographers would 

 perhaps hardly apply the word range as he does to several long groups of 

 elevations parallel and otherwise, but having no such general and definite 

 direction as might be inferred from his description. The proper conti- 

 nuation of the Salt Range appears to pass sinuously southward of the 

 whole of the Kohat salt-bearing area. 



Fleming. — Dr. Fleming, in one of his letters addressed to Sir 

 Roderick J. Murchison, and published in the Journal of the Geological 



( 109 ) 



