38 Dr. Verchere on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 1, 



in the Afghan mountains, where they are called in Pooshtoo 

 Ragzhie. I have examined some of these ragzhies, of which the 

 plateau of Rushmuk in Waziristan is a good example at an elevation 

 of 7,000 feet, and I feel satisfied of their fluvio-lacustrine origin 

 and of their age being posterior to the final upheaval of the Hima- 

 laya and Afghan mountains.* 



Zaskar and Raksku or Rupsku are interesting districts, on account 

 of their lakes, numerous hot springs and borax mines. The country 

 is an elevated labyrinth of mountains and valleys, having a mean 

 height of 15,600 feet. The principal peaks are the Korsok Too 

 (above 20,000 feet) and the Napko Grondo ; but there are great many 

 other nameless peaks ; the passes are all a good deal above 17,000 

 feet. In Zaskar we find a great mass of gneiss and schist which 

 appears to be the eastern extension of similar rocks which begin in 

 Surti, and, after entering largely in the formation of the mountains 

 of the highland of Zaskar, are prolonged eastward into Rukshu, where 

 they graduate into beds of metamorphic slate on which rest fossili- 

 ferous rocks. The gneiss, schist, slate and limestone are all stratified 

 and conformable together, and they all dip towards the S. S. W. 

 The limestone appears to be the continuation of the bed of limestone 

 seen in Suru reposing on the gneiss and schist of the foot of the Ser 

 and Mer peaks. 



The occurrence of fossils in Rukshu had been noticed by several 

 travellers, but little was satisfactorily known, and to Captain Gr. 

 Austen is therefore due the credit of having first brought trustworthy 

 fossils from Rukshu, and to him I am indebted for the following 

 details : — 



Two of the valleys of Rukshu are the Tso Moreri valley and the 

 Pang-po-loomba ; they are separated one from the other by the 

 ridge of the Korsok Tso, composed of granitoid rocks and of gneiss 

 and schist. From the Pang-po-loomba (valley) one passes into the 

 valley of the Tsa Rup (river) by the Pang-po-la (pass), towards 

 Zaskar. This Pang-po-loomba (valley) and Pang-po-la (pass) are 

 the localities where fossiliferous beds have been^ noticed. The 



* Col. E. Strachey appears inclined to regard these horizontal beds of the 

 Great Thibet plateau as contemporary of the Siwalik hills and a sea-formation. 

 I believe that both hypotheses are untenable. 



