1382 Mr. Verchére on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 2, 
and the dip E. 8. E. High up the spur, this dip forms a considerable 
angle with the horizon, but it diminishes gradually as we descend 
towards the plain; at the bed of quartzite it isabout 45°, and at 
the limestone it is generally 40°. But these rocks, that is from the 
quartzite upwards, appear to have been upheaved by a narrow band of 
hard rock catching them in the centre and pressing them upwards in 
that central point, whilst the sides of the beds were unsupported. 
Instead of yielding softly and shaping themselves into a carapace- 
like coating, as slate and ash would have done, the limestone and the 
shales have separated into thick bands or slices, and these bands have 
spread themselves out like a fan. At the small end of the fan there 
has been a considerable crushing of the beds one against the other, 
and enormous blocks, indeed whole pieces, of the limestone courses 
have been squeezed out of place; whilst, at the circumference of the 
fan, the beds have been parted from one another, and in some places 
we can see the layers of limestone separated by open intervals two or 
three feet wide. (See horizontal section, Sec. C.) 
25. I will now try to define the character of the Zeeawan bed of 
carboniferous limestone :—Its lithological characters are, that it is a 
rough, coarse and semicrystalline limestone of a dark bluish-grey colour, 
weathering a rich grey. If we break it, we find it made of innumerable 
irregular grains of a darker limestone united by a lighter cement more 
or less crystalline. It is full of debris of fossils ; indeed I am not quite 
sure that the darker grains are not the debris of the organisms or 
excrements of animals. It is foctid. Portions of it are arenaceous or 
rather shaly, and these, when exposed to the air, decompose partially, 
becoming soft and crumbling. The stone is soft to work and cuts 
with great ease, except where there are too many large fossils. It 
contains an immense number of minute crinoid-stems converted into 
spar: it breaks obliquely to the surface and gives flashes of light 
at certain angles. It is interstratified with courses of rich-brown 
calcareous shale, often of a bright rust-colour, and generally much 
decomposed and with bands of a black, not calcareous, sandy shale: 
it is also full of fossils, these being apparently converted into oxide of 
iron. Finally, it contains limited short lenticular layers of a much 
paler limestone, in thin-bedded and false-bedded patches having 
somewhat the appearance of a fine mortar or cement. 
