GEOLOGY. 01 



gypsum only in thin cross veins or flaggy layers close to its junction with 

 the mass below and in no considerable quantity. There are other dis- 

 tinctive characters besides to be mentioned in their proper place, and 

 the slight similarity, so far as position, does nothing towards establishing 

 any degree of identity between the deposits. 



The whole aspect of the salt here is also different : none of the 

 compact variety used along the Salt Range for turning into ornamental 

 utensils occurs here, nor any furnishing the fine large cubic crystals 

 which make up whole beds at Kalabagh. The only approach to this is 

 in the blotches of shishi nimuJc, from which, when of some size, beautiful 

 crystals may be cleaved exceeding in transparency those of the* last 

 named locality. The absence of foreign salts here, which have been 

 found disseminated and as a separate deposit in the Salt Range salt, is 

 another point of dissimilarity ; as is also the impregnation of some of 

 the salt here with mineral-oil, a feature not observed in that locality, 

 though bituminous shale and clay, much associated with the gypsum 

 here, occurs there also in one small band or deposit, with the gypsum 

 of the Kheura gorge. 



In a word, the salt deposits of the two regions are so strikingly 

 unlike that even small samples, if not reduced to powder, are declared 

 capable of being sworn to with confidence by those whose duty it is to 

 prevent the Kohat salt from entering the country on the other side of 

 the Indus. 



The rock-salt of Persia lying far to the west of this district has 

 probably no close connection with that in Kohat, as the Persian gypseous 

 series, (and the salt) overlies the nummulitic formation, (Blanford, Quar. 

 Jour. Geol. Soc, Lond., Vol. XXIX, p. 501). 



The salt of the once famous island of Ormuz in the Persian Gulf is 

 of rather uncertain, but possibly early tertiary, age, and in its manner 

 of occurrence associated with volcanic rocks, (dolerites, trachytes), and 

 micaceous iron, presents no analogy with that of the Kohat district. 



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