1878.] W. T. Blanford— Ow tie Geology of Sind, 3 



The Chair was then taken by tlie President, the Hon. Sm E. C. Batlet, 

 K C. S. I., C. I. E. 



Mr. W. T. Blanford exhibited the Geological map of Sind recently 

 completed, and gave the following account of the Geology of the Province, 

 which had been mapped in the course of the last three years by Mr. Fedden 

 and himself. 



The greater portion of Sind, including all tbe richer and more popu- 

 lous parts of the province, consists of the alluvial flat of the Indus, and is 

 a portion of the great Indo-Gangetic plain of northern India. But to the 

 west of the river, at a variable distance, barren rocky hills arise, in upper 

 Sind consisting chiefly of a great north and south range, known as the 

 Khirthar, which sejDarates Sind from the Kelat territory, (or Baluchistan,) 

 and in lower Sind, south of Sehwan, of several minor ranges, having a 

 general north and south direction. All these ranges, if of any height, con- 

 sist chiefly of nummulitic limestone, and the ridges in Lower Sind are for 

 the most part anticlinal rolls, higher beds occupying the intervening valleys. 

 The Geology of the province is singularly simple, faults being rare, whilst 

 the disturbance of the rocks is just sufficient to afford good sections, with- 

 out rendering the relations of the beds so complicated as to be difficult to 

 trace. 



Until recently the Geology was chiefly known from the researches of 

 Captain Yicary published no less than thirty years ago,* and these research- 

 es were limited to a very small portion of the province. The fossils col- 

 lected by Captain Yicary and others were described and elaborately figured 

 by MM. d'Archiac and Haimef in 1853, the whole of the marine fauna 

 being supposed to be eocene. It was however subsequently shewn by 

 Professor Martin Duncan :|: and by Mr. Jenkins § that there was a mixture 

 of later tertiary forms amongst the supposed eocene fossils, and it was 

 noticed by Captain Yicary that above the marine beds were conglomerates 

 and sandstones containing fossil bones. 



Such was, in brief, the information available when the Survey was com- 

 menced, and the result of a more thorough investigation has naturally 

 added much without depriving the earlier information of its value. Indeed 

 the beautiful figures of d'Archiac and Haime's work have been of the 

 greatest service in the field, by enabling us at once to identify many of 

 the fossils found. The results of the first year's work have been briefly 

 described on the Records of the Geological Survey, || but much additional 



* Quart. Joum. Geol. Soc, III, p. 334. 



t Description des Animaux fossiles dii groupe nummulitique de I'lnde. 



X Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist. 3, XIII, p. 295. 



§ Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, XX, p. 45. 



II Vol. IX., p. 8. 



