ALCYONAEIA OF SIND. 11 



sandstones, a few bands of clay, shale, or ironstone are interstratified, and bands of 

 conglomerate occasionally occur. The Nari beds in their typical form extend through- 

 out the eastern flank of the Khirthar range, and occupy a belt of varying width, from 

 one or two to as much as 10 miles in breadth, between the underlying Khirthar and 

 the overlying Gaj beds. On the western side of the Bhagotoro hills, 4 or 5 miles south 

 of Sehwan, there is a break in the Nari beds, and some variegated shales, clays, and 

 sandstones, richly tinted in parts with brown and red, and representing the massive 

 sandstones of the upper Nari group, rest unconformably on the denuded edges of the 

 lower Nari brown limestones and shales. The break is evidently local. To the east of 

 the Laki range the Nari beds are entirely wanting, and it appears very possible that 

 they have never been deposited in this portion of the Indus valley. 



" From the neighbourhood of Sehwan to Jhirak, Manchhar beds rest, with more or 

 less unconformity, on the Khirthar, a very faint and imperfect representative of the 

 Gaj group occasionally intervening. But west of the Laki range, throughout Lower 

 Sind, the Nari beds are found exposed almost wherever the base of the Gaj group is 

 seen ; they increase in thickness to the westward, and the Habb valley, from the spot 

 where the river first forms the boundary of British territory to the sea, consists entirely 

 of these strata. There is, however, in this part of the country no longer any such 

 marked distinction between the subdivisions of the Tertiary series as is found in the 

 Khirthar range. The disappearance of the Khirthar limestone has already been 

 mentioned, and with it the lower Nari limestones with Nummulites Garansensis and 

 ]V. suhlcevigata also disappear, so that it is no longer possible to draw a distinct line 

 between the two groups, for the shaly beds at the base of the Naris are undistinguish- 

 able from similar rocks in the Khirthar. The calcareous shales, with the characteristic 

 Khirthar Nummulites, below, and the massive Nari sandstones above, are still recog- 

 nizable, and the two groups can consequently still be traced, although the dividing line 

 between them is obscured. Beds of brown limestone, too, full of Orhitoides papyracea 

 (or 0. Fortisi), a fossil closely resembling a Nummulite, and associated in abundance - 

 with N. Garansensis in the typical lower Nari limestones, occur in the Nari beds 

 of the Habb valley ; but instead of being found at the base, they appear in the middle 

 of the group. Again, just as at the base of the Nari beds, there is a difficulty in 

 distinguishing them from the Khirthar, so the beds at the top of the former group 

 can only be separated by an arbitrary line from the overlying Gaj beds. 



" In the Khirthar range the upper boundary of the Nari group, although there is 

 no unconformity, is distinct and definite, limestones with marine fossils of the Gaj 

 group resting immediately upon the upper Nari sandstones. But in Southern Sind 

 bands of limestones, or calcareous sandstones, with marine fossils, some of which are 

 well-marked Gaj species, occur in the upper part of the Nari group, whilst limestone 

 bands with the Nari OrMtoides papyracea are found in the Gaj . 



" PalcBontology .—The sandstones, which form so large a portion of the Nari group, 

 have hitherto proved destitute of animal remains, and in the typical area in Upper Sind 

 no beds with marine fossils are intercalated in the upper portion of the group ; but the 

 occasional interstratifications of shales and clays often contain fragments of plants, and 



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