PHYSICAL GEOLOGY. 23 



forced the ' springs ' of the arches towards each other till the upper 

 portions under this pressure, combined with that of their own weight, 

 assumed a position reversing the natural order of the beds, in those 

 places where planes of dislocation did not allow of one segment of 

 a curve becoming displaced. That the arches were complete and at one 

 time covered by some at least of the newer sandstone strata is suggested 

 by the cross drainage of the country and proved by the fact of consider- 

 able fragmentary portions of the latter rocks once crowning an arch, 

 being now found located among other disordered masses within an ellip- 

 soid of the limestone, nearly beneath their original situations. 



Though the hills are not of great height, seldom exceeding ^,000 

 feet above the valleys where such pressure has been exerted, the struc- 

 ture of the ground points to a former much greater superficial area, 

 occupied by the rocks, quite as well as if they had gone to form higher 

 mountains. 



Former greater superficial area of rocks. — If the curves of the 

 strata be followed and even roughly restored to horizontality, it may 

 not be too much to assume that the strata of the district under notice 

 would before their contortion have reached in a north and south 

 direction at least one-third further than they do at present, but the 

 estimate can only be approximately made. 



This district differs from neighbouring ones eastward in the greater 

 variety of the rocks exposed by these convolutions of the strata ; hence 

 it may, not unreasonably, be presumed that the floor of the country, 

 so to speak, stands generally higher (for instance, than that beneath 

 the Potwar region), and fe gradually rising perhaps in a westerly 

 direction, thus bringing the nummulitic limestone and beds below it 

 more within reach of the influences by which they were exposed. 

 Either this, or a general diminution in the thickness of the overlyino- 

 sandstone and clay rocks, would seem to be the case, as all the divisions 

 of the latter recognised to the eastward are found here, and both regions 

 are highly contorted. 



( 137 ) 



