27G THE FOSSIL ECHINOIDEA 



It is very important to notice that there is another marine series of the Tertiaries 

 in relation to the Gaj group. 



The normal succession is that of the freshwater Manchhar beds, one of the 

 Rhinoceridse of which has been discovered in the Gaj beds. But B Ian ford has 

 described the Makran beds, and the following is an abstract of what is said regarding 

 them in the ' Manual of the Geology of India,' p. 470 : — 



" Belations to Makran group. — The Manchhar beds extend along the edge of the 

 sea, west of Karachi, almost to the end of Cape Monze ; but no representative of this 

 formation is seen for a considerable distance to the westward of the Cape. But west 

 of Sommiani Bay, in the neighbourhood of Hinglaj, a well-known place of Hindu 

 pilgrimage, there are high hills of hard greyish-white marls or clays, usually sandy, 

 often highly calcareous, and occasionally intersected with veins of gypsum. With this 

 clay or marl, bands of shaly limestone, dark calcareous grit, and sandstone are inter- 

 stratified. This raarl-formation extends for many hundreds of miles along the coast, 

 and is well seen at Eas Malan, Ormara, &c., at the entrance of the Persian Gulf. The 

 headlands of Ras Malan, Ormara, and Gwadar consist of great horizontal plateaux 

 surrounded by cliffs of whitish marl or clay, and capped by dark-coloured calcareous 

 grit, Eas Malan especially being a table-land rising abruptly to the height of 2000 feet 

 from the sea. These remarkable rocks are called the Makran Group. The Makran 

 group is purely of marine origin, and abounds in Mollusca, Echinoderms, &c., most of 

 the species apparently being the same as those found in the neighbouring seas at 

 present." The authors proceed to state that none of the characteristic Gaj fossils are 

 found in the Makran series, and that the latter deposit seems to be later than the Gaj. 

 It is then noticed that some of the soft argillaceous beds of Manchhar age in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Karachi closely resemble some similar beds in the Makran group near 

 Gwadar. 



The Echinodermata we have examined from the Makran series certainly have a 

 fades later in time than the Gaj collection. 



Again the Makran deposits, whence the Echinodermata we have examined came, 

 are not the same thing as the so-called Littoral concrete of the coast to the north of 

 Bombay, a deposit which is partly quite recent and partly since the Pliocene. 



The succession of the series appears to have been as follows : — The Nari or 

 Oligocene series, the Gaj Miocene, the Makran beds, the marine equivalents of the 

 Manchhar deposits, the Littoral concrete. 



The importance of this succession is enhanced by the consideration that the 

 Manchhars are of the same age as the Sivalik deposits on the flank of the Himalayas, 

 this great orographical system having attained its full development after the commence- 

 ment of the Sivalik age. The great Post-pliocene disturbance is of great interest, both 

 in the Himalayan region and in Sind. 



