1867. J the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 19 



A metamorphosed micaceous limestone, schistose, the foliation being 

 extremely wavy. It has the appearance of a thin-bedded micaceous' 

 and calcareous shale which had been both crumpled and highly meta- 

 morphosed. It is nearly entirely composed of exfoliating mica 

 imbedded into grey bands of magnesian (?) carbonate of lime, which 

 effervesces feebly, and other bands of wbite felspar. The felspar 

 forms bands by itself, a quarter of an inch thick and free of mica. 

 The rock exhibits a foliation or stratification which is thin-bedded and 

 wavy. Grreenish, soapy, spotted chlorite schist. Jaspery flint, bluish 

 and transparent, with veins and patches brownish and opaque, and 

 occasionally threads of milk-white quartz. Quartzite with well 

 formed crystals, six-sided prisms, at one end terminated by a six-sided 

 pyramid. 



These rocks are therefore mostly volcanic ; the four last are, how- 

 ever, metamorphic, and such rocks are not seen in Kashmir ; but they 

 are extensively developed in the most northern portion of the Hima- 

 laya, as in Skardo, Zaskar, &c. 



63. Between the range of the Pir GKil and Shewy Dhur and the 

 plains of the Derajat, is a thick belt of low hills which are nearly 

 entirely made up of nummulitic limestone, slate and shales, and of 

 Miocene sandstone and conglomerate. At Palusseen, however, (see 

 map) under the nummulitic limestone is discovered a rock of a very 

 hard and dirty appearance and not forming beds, but huge masses of 

 flesh-coloured limestone which are imbedded either in a grey sandstone 

 or in the lower beds of the nummulitic limestone. These masses are 

 most evidently old coral reefs, once rising from the bottom of the sea 

 and ultimately covered ,by sand and calcareous mud ; they are a 

 confused agglomeration of corals of many species, imbedding shells, but 

 unfortunately neither corals nor shells are in a good state of preser- 

 vation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the forms of the Coral-Rag 

 of England to say whether this bed is its representative in India, but it 

 is not unlikely to belong to secondary strata, for the following reasons.* 

 1. It is situated under the sandstone, which generally forms the base 

 of the nummulitic formation. 2. It does not contain any of the 



* A coral reef formation, apparently closely analogous both in lithologic 

 characters and mode of occurrence, occurs at the base of the Ootatoor division 

 of the cretaceous rocks in Trichinopoly. See Mem, Geological Survey, Vol. IV, 

 Pt 1, pp. 52-72.— Ed. 



