NATUBALIST IN INDIA. 131 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Excursion to the Salt Mountains of the Punjaub — Wild Sheep — Ravine Deer — 

 Geology — Ornithology — Scenery. 



DuEiNG the months of March and April the climate of the 

 Northern Punjaub is delightful. If the heat at mid-day is 

 oppressive, the morning and evening are always cool and 

 pleasant. Having despatched our tent and baggage to Eanou- 

 thera, a village 32 miles south of Eawul Pindee, on the 21st 

 March 1853, we started very early, and rode through an almost 

 barren country, intersected by ravines and water-courses — now 

 floundering through a stagnant pool, now cantering on a level 

 space, covered with pebbles or rough and hard kankur. This 

 substance, already mentioned, is extensively distributed over 

 the Northern Punjaub, either as a surface deposit, or in heaps 

 along the sides of river-beds and ravines. It is usually met 

 with in the form of tufaceous nodules, but not unfrequently 

 also in large irregularly-shaped concrete masses. When broken 

 up and mixed with brick-dust and lime, it forms a durable 

 cement. It is also used in road-making, and even building 

 purposes. Professor Ansted is disposed to consider the kankur 

 referable to the drift period.* I have, however, observed a 

 similar deposit in course of formation on the surface, and 

 throughout the alluvium of rivers and streams both in the 

 Punjaub and banks of the Nile in Egypt and Nubia-t 



* Professor Ansted's analysis is as follows : — 72 per cent carbonate of lime, 

 15 per cent silica, 18 per cent aUuinina. 

 t Proc. Oeol. Soc. of London, 1863, p. 8. 



