7^ WYNNE: TRANS-INDUS .SALT RE6I0N, KOHAT DISTRICT. 



(For convenience of reference the spelling of the map will be gener- 

 ally adopted in the following pages, the official spelling being added in 

 brackets). 



1. — The ground westzvard of Lachee. 



Lachee (Lachi), a considerable village on the road from Kohat to 



Bannu, possessing an enclosed fort or structure 

 Lachee. 



which answers the double purpose of travellers' 



serai and rest-house as well as military post for frontier force. The place 



seems to be chiefly remarkable for the manufacture of saltpetre from the 



village refuse and soil, and therewith gunpowder of a coarse kind used 



for blasting at the salt quarries. 



The country may be briefly described as hilly to the west of the vil- 



Hilly to the west of la £ e ' there bein » SOme four 0r five nearl 7 east and 

 villa § e - west anticlinal axes of the strata coinciding with as 



many eocene limestone ridges. There are two considerable valleys open- 

 ing towards, and other smaller ones occupied by, the tertiary sandstones, 

 &c, these valleys being themselves hilly rather than flat, and having 

 their heads towards the westward, so that the sandstone ground becomes 

 deeply embayed among the nummulitic limestone hills. 



Close to Lachee (Lachi) one of these limestone ridges terminates, 

 that particular anticlinal axis becoming depressed below the level of com- 

 paratively open ground to the east just before the ridge sinks ; however, 

 t l id s It uar- * n P erna P s the least likely situation for such an ex- 

 ries - posure, the limestone beds have been removed by 



erosion, displaying a good deal of apparently somewhat displaced gypsum 

 in which deep hollows mark the sites of former salt quarries, the nearest 

 or most accessible in the district to Kohat. None of the salt is now 

 visible, nor is the place specially suited for mining, yet in other localities 

 it would doubtless be considered a valuable possession. 



Westward from the old salt-pits the ridge exhibits its anticlinal 

 structure strongly, being covered with a thick sheeting of hard Alveolina 

 ( 182 ) 



