GLACIAL CONDITIOIS'S IN THE PALAEOZOIC ERA, ETC. 255 



fest that either the beds between the Gardita-Beaumonti zone and 

 the Magnesian Sandstone represent all the geological sequence from 

 Lower Carboniferous or even older to Upper Cretaceous, or else that 

 one or more breaks, representing vast lapses of time, occur in the 

 sequence. 



Here, as elsewhere in the Salt Eange, we are assured by all 

 observers, there is the most marked parallelism and apparent con- 

 formity in all the beds *. In the absence of fossils, the only clue 

 to subdivisions of the sequence is in changes of mineral character. 

 There is thus no a priori reason, so far as the description leads us, 

 why a break should not exist in the middle of the Olive Group ; and, 

 according to Waagen's view, a great break does occur here. 



This, however, is not the only instance of boulder-beds occurring 

 in the Salt Eange. Two other instances, at least, occur. One of 

 these is in the " Speckled Sandstone '' just mentioned as occurring 

 at the base of the Proc?i«c^MS-]imestone ; the other, apparently the 

 most important of all, is to the west of the Indus, in beds immedi- 

 ately beneath the Productus-Wme^ione. These two are evidently on 

 nearly the same horizon, and were, I believe, regarded by Mr. 

 Wynne t as identical. Polished and striated blocks were observed 

 by him J in the bed west of the Indus. 



Before proceeding further, it is essential to mention that the Pro- 

 c^wc^i^s-limestone of the Salt Range is divided by Dr. Waagen into 

 three stages, the two upper of which he classes as representing the 

 Permian, and the third as the equivalent of the upper part of the 

 European Coal-measures §, and that, in his introduction to his work 

 on the Productus-imie^toiie fossils ||, he includes the Magnesian 

 Sandstone (and of course the Speckled Sandstone overlying the Mag- 

 nesian Sandstone) in the Proc?^tCi^MS-limestone system. Indeed, he 

 especially insists on the close connexion of the Speckled Sandstone 

 with the lower beds of the Prodiictus-\\me^ioue^. 



In the neighbourhood of Choya Saidan Shah (near Karangli and 

 the Xhewra salt-mines) Dr. H. Warth, a mining-engineer in the 

 service of the Government of India, found, about the beginning of 

 last year, a marine fossil in what he then supposed to be a pebble of 

 the boulder-bed. The fossil was a Comdaria, and the nodule in 

 which it occurred was at first supposed to have been brought from, 

 a distance. But Dr. Warth subsequently obtained numerous addi- 

 tional specimens in similar nodules, and ascertained that these 

 nodules were confined to a thin layer at the top of the boulder-bed, 

 and this layer he traced over an area exceeding ten square miles. 

 This discovery, and also the circumstance that all the nodules are of 

 about the same size and of an oval form, led to the conclusion (which, 



* This 'is very remarkable, as it appears to show that throughout all geo- 

 logical time from the date of the Salt Marls (older Palaeozoic) to Eocene and per- 

 haps later, there was a complete absence of disturbance in this area. Yet for 

 a considerable portion of the time the tract appears to have been on or near a 

 coast-line. 



t Mem. O. S. I. vol. xvii. p. (236) 26. J Ibid. p. (239) 29. 



§ Rec. G. S. I. 1886, p. 32. |1 Pal. Ind. ser. xiii. p. 3. 



f Rec. G. S. I. 1886, p. 32. 



