1867.] the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 23 



salt of the Punjab, before forwarding this paper to the Society ; but I 

 see at present but little chance of my being able to visit again and 

 study the Salt Range within a reasonable time. My own impression, 

 from what I have seen, is that the Saliferian of the Punjab is Triassic 

 or Permian. 



This Saliferian formation, (whatever its age may be,) plays a very 

 important part in the economy of Upper India, and may possibly be 

 made a great deal more of than at present. It gives a supply of salt 

 which pays to the State a handsome revenue ; it has been the original 

 source of the Reh or Kullur of the soil, an impure and effervescing 

 mixture of saltpetre, of soda and chloride of sodium, which renders 

 fields barren and thus causes very serious losses to that same revenue^ 

 There can be little doubt that it contains some at least of the numer- 

 ous minerals discovered in the Russian salt mines of Stassfust-Anhalt, 

 and it is very possible that it will one day give some fertilizing material 

 which will more than repay the loss caused by the Reh. It is a fine 

 field for research, and only wants work bestowed upon it to yield 

 valuable results. 



Any one who has visited the Saliferian of the Punjab must have 

 been struck by the much disturbed state of the beds. These appear 

 as if they had been raised into a succession of small cones or 

 " boursoufnures," and suggests at first sight the idea of the Saliferian 

 having been at some time or another violently dislocated by eruptive 

 gases and sublimated minerals. This is so marked in some localities 

 that Dr. A. Fleming advances, as a possible hypothesis, that the salt 

 may be of volcanic origin. But the stratification is generally so well 

 defined (the courses of salt being separated by thin layers of red marl 

 or of cellular gypsum) that we cannot regard the salt as intrusive ; 

 it is decidedly sedimentary. That the disposition of the salt gypsum, 

 bipyramidal quartz crystals, &c, &c, took place under the influence 

 of heat, due probably to hot springs, is pretty certain. For Charpeutin 

 and de Beaumont have shewn that the gypsum was first deposited as 

 anhydrite, and this anhydrite must of necessity have been precipited 

 from hot solutions ; neither do we see how sea water could deposit 

 gypsum, unless submitted to a high temperature ; whilst, high tem- 

 perature being admitted, the precipitation of gypsum becomes easily 

 explained, if we remember Mr. David Forbes's observation in Peru : 



