1878.] W. T. Blanford— 0;^ tlie Geology of Sind. 7 



Above the white or grey nummulitic limestone, there are generally 

 found some bands of brown limestone, also containing Niimmulites and 

 Orhitoides, but of different species, none of the forms so common in the 

 Khirthar beds being found, but being replaced by an abundance of N'tcm- 

 mulites Garansensis, N. suhlcevigata and Orhitoides papyracea. The latter 

 is very characteristic, being very thin and often of large size, a diameter of 

 two to three inches being not uncommon. Nummulites suhlcBvigata is 

 unknown in Europe. N. Garansensis there, as in Sind, belongs to the 

 highest beds containing nummulites, and extends into the formations of 

 the lower miocene period. With the brown limestones dark shales are 

 associated, and these gradually pass up into a great thickness of unfossil- 

 iferous sandstones, forming the upper Nari group. 



In the Khirthar range there is a sharp change from the Nari sandstones 

 to the limestones of the Gaj group, but further south the passage is more 

 gradual, bands of limestone with marine fossils being found here and there 

 in the upper Nari beds. The Gaj group is highly fossiliferous, but no 

 nummulites have been detected in it : an Or5i^o/f/(9s, apparently O. pajpyracea, 

 is however found. Corals, echinoderms and mollusca abound in places and 

 are exquisitely preserved ; the most typical fossils are Ostrea multicostata 

 and Breynia carinata, but Clypeasteo% JEchino discus, EcJiinolampas Jacque- 

 montii, Kuphus rectus, Venus granosa, Pecten JFavrei, Turritella angulata 

 and Balanus sublcevis are all common. 



The highest tertiary group, to which the name of Manchhar has been 

 given, is of immense thickness, in places approaching 10,000 feet from top 

 to bottom. The lower subdivision consists of grey sandstones, with brown, 

 grey and red clays, and a few conglomeratic beds containing fragmentary 

 mammalian bones ; the upper portion is chiefly composed of clays with sub- 

 ordinate beds of sandstone (though there is much variation in the relative 

 development of argillaceous and sandy beds) and some conglomerates 

 containing pebbles of nummulitic limestone, which have not been observed 

 in the lower portion of the group. Capping the whole is a considerable 

 thickness of coarse conglomerate. Bones are of very rare occurrence in 

 the upper portion of the group. As a whole this important formation 

 probably represents the Sevaliks of northern India, and some of the 

 mammalia, identified by Mr. Lydekker, appear identical, but the genera 

 represented are as a rule older, forms like Dinotheriwn and Merycopotamus 

 prevailing and the only common living genus being Rhinoceros. This 

 appearance of greater age is doubtless due to the lower horizon at which 

 the fossils occur in Sind, where the ossiferous beds are near the base of the 

 whole group, close to the miocene Gaj beds, into which there is a complete 

 passage from the lower Manchhars, the passage beds containing estuarine 

 mollusca, whilst in the typical Sivalik area the fossiliferous beds are near 

 the top of the series. 



