or WESTERN SIND. 103 



rather massive beds of Nummulitiferous dark-grey limestone, very diflferent in character 

 from the pale-coloured Khirthar limestone, are found west of the Habb, but their 

 precise position in the series is not known ; and the rocks appearing from beneath the 

 Nari group, in the place of the Khirthar limestone, consist of shales and sandstones, 

 with some calcareous bands abounding in Nummulites, and closely resembling, both in 

 character and in the species of Foraminifera they contain, the Nummulitic shales 

 beneath the massive limestone on the Gaj river. It is not known to what extent the 

 typical Khirthar limestone is developed in Baluchistan; around Kelat, to the north- 

 ward, this band appears to be extensively exposed, but to the westward, near Gwadar, 

 the rocks supposed to represent the older Tertiary beds consist of an immense thickness 

 of shales, shaly sandstones, and unfossiliferous calcareous bands, resembling the lower 

 Khirthars of the Gaj and the beds of the Habb valley, and limestones with Nummulites 

 are of frequent and local occurrence. It is thus evident that the Khirthar limestone, 

 although it is so conspicuous in most parts of Sind, and although it attains a consider- 

 able thickness, is not by any means universally distributed." 



The character of the organic remains of the Khirthar series is unquestionably 

 Eocene, and the various faunae are distinctly comparable with those homotaxially 

 related to them in other parts of the world. Foraminifera are richly represented, and 

 Mollusca are numerous. Out of 17 species of Foraminifera mentioned in Mr. Fedden's 

 list*, 4 species pass down into the Eanikot series, the remainder being peculiar to the 

 Khirthar, and none pass up into the Nari. 



Out of 43 species of Mollusca t (omitting those whose determination was doubtful), 

 14 species pass down into the Ranikot, 2 of these extending into the transition beds ; 

 3 species pass up into the Nari, these three being also amongst those Khirthar forms 

 which are found in the Eanikot ; and 1 species passes up into the Ga^ which has not 

 yet been found in the Nari. 



The Coral fauna J is represented by a comparatively limited number of forms. 

 Out of 16 species accredited to this formation, 10 are from beds so high in the series 

 that it is uncertain whether they may not belong to the more recent Nari series. Of 

 the remaining 6 species, 2 are identical with fossil forms from European strata. 



The Echinoderm fauna is rich both in number of species and of individuals. 

 70 species and varieties of Echinoidea are noticed in the following pages. The cha- 

 racter of the Echinoidean fauna of the Khirthar series is, like that of the Eanikot series, 

 remarkably isolated. 63 species and varieties belong unquestionably to these strata 

 exclusively — that is to say, they have not yet been found in other geological horizons. 

 Four of the remaining 7 species are characteristic Khirthar forms, but were included in 

 the collection of Echinoids from the Eanikot series, to which formation they were also 

 ascribed. That the specimens in question really belonged to the Eanikot age is 

 very doubtful; and in a future page we shall discuss the evidence upon which we 

 consider it highly probable that they were derived from Khirthar beds. Three other 

 species, of which only single and fragmentary specimens are included in the collection, 



* Memoirs Geol. Surv. India, vol. xvii. p. 197 et seq. f Op. eit. p. 201. 



J P. Martin Duncan, « Fossil Corals of Sind," Pal. Ind. ser. xiv. (1880). 



P 2 



