HILLY RANGES AND THEIR NEIGHBOURHOOD FROM BAHADUR KHEL, &C. 171 



side are vertical, rising like a wall, with one very conspicuous peak, be- 

 tween this sandstone and clay ground, and the wide gypsum expansion 

 of Speena (Spina) to the north (called Ispeenha on the map). 



This large exposure of the gypsum occurring within much narrower 

 Speena (Spina) gypsum limits on either side is apparently a resultant of 

 complex thrust and resistance to the contorting 

 forces arriving at this place from different directions, one of the most 

 powerful impulses coming apparently from the westward in the direction 

 of the great synclinal curve occupying the low ground at Nurree (Nurri,) 

 and perhaps influenced by special lines of weakness, which, so to speak, 

 diverted the Nurree (Nurri) fault to the north of this gypsum tract. 



The latter is enclosed on all sides, save where the gypsum continues 



Bounded by vertical from it, by vertically bedded rocks with a tendency 



along the northern side to inversion ; within these 



the gypsum rises covering heavily undulating ground traversed by deep 



nullahs ; its want of variety and contrast to the sharply serrated adjacent 



sandstone and clay country being evidently produced by the homogeneous 



nature of the rock, the white colour of which has 



The gypsum. 



given the place its Pushtu name, though veins of 



reddish and yellow colour also occur. Most of the rock is naked, but 



there is an inclination among the water-courses to silt themselves up, 



thus forming lakes or small alluvial hollows, and where there is any soil, 



it is said to be the most productive in the country. 

 Lakes or " dunds." 



A large pond or c dund ' exists in one of these 



hollows, having no escape unless there be some subterranean exit, and a 

 fabulous reputation for the coldness of its water. In the bed of another, 

 which had evidently found a way to drain itself by a stream course now 

 traversing the spot, small dead Planorbis like shells and the fossilized 

 stems of marsh plants converted into yellow carbonate of lime were 

 found embedded in a stratified gray sandy clay. The latter attracted 

 attention by their numbers and the startling resemblance of their cylin- 

 drical forms to Belemnites. 



( 275 ) 



