1866. | the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 105 
the pepper and salt sand has been washed out from between the harder 
beds, whilst in the horizontal strata, the sand has been protected by 
one of the strata of harder rock which acted as a roof over the sand 
underneath. 
Now this pepper and salt sand is the one washed for gold. The 
washings are done during and after the rains, asthe swollen waters of 
the torrents bring down to the beds of the rivers a large quantity of 
fresh sand. It is washed in the usual manner, and gives a residue of a 
black sand which is composed of shining grains of magnetic iron ore 
and grains of augite. A little more washing in a smaller vessel 
removes the augite and a great part of the iron; and the gold, which 
is rarely visible with the naked eye, is picked up by mercury. 
If we examine the pepper and salt sand in situ, we shall very soon 
become convinced that it is nothing but the porphyry of the Himalaya 
ground down to powder, for we find in it numerous pieces of the 
porphyry not quite crushed to sand. I have found some of these pieces 
half an inch long and composed of a hard fragment of albite supporting 
specks of augite. Pieces of the large felspathic crystals I have 
seen also, and the smaller crystals of quartz are frequent and hardly 
altered and rubbed. The sandstone consists mostly of undecomposed 
albite and augite. It is not easy to describe in words the great 
similarity between the porphyry and the white sand, but their 
complete identity strikes one at once when we study the beds. 
Dr. Fleming made therefore a good guess when he wrote the following 
passage: ‘‘ We have been quite unable to trace the source whence 
the gold has been derived, and are not aware that amongst the 
quartzites and quartzose mica slates (felstone is meant,) which are 
much developed in the Punjal Range, near the Baramoola Pass into 
Kashmir, and stretch west into the northern Hazara mountains, the 
metal has ever been detected in situ. From similar rocks there can 
be little doubt that the auriferous sands have been derived.”’* 
And again he writes: ‘In the neighbourhood of the Salt Range 
the scales of gold are small and almost invisible, but we have heard 
from natives, that, in Hazara, grains of gold are sometimes found of 
a size such as to admit of their being picked out of the sand. If 
* Report on Geological Structure of Salt Range ; Selections, P, Govt. Vol. II. 
1855, page 342, , 
° 
