1 842.] of the Himmalaya Mountains, cvii 



This quartz rock is permanent for a long distance, but assumes various 

 changes of colour. It occasionally appears to pass into a tender 

 green slate, occasionally to oscillate towards the greenstone, and 

 even to hornblende rock. It is sometimes so hard, as to defy the ham- 

 mer completely. One type appeared to contain felspar, another, 

 a schistose fissured grey rock, containing a few amygdaloidal cavities. 

 It passes into a greenish grey rock, with rombohedral cleavage, and fine 

 granular composition. These several changes extend as far as Hurkon- 

 da glen, in the neighbourhood of which argillaceous schist is again met 

 with, and occasional masses of calcareous tufa and local conglomerate, 

 shewing the proximity of limestone. The schist continues nearly to 

 Soocet, near which a mass of quartz rock occurs. It is seen to descend 

 to the river bed and across it, rising on the other side in strata nearly 

 vertical, the direction E. and W. and the dip if any thing South. The 

 slate again appears, and in the immediate neighbourhood of Soocet, where 

 the valley narrows, it is exchanged for limestone of a very cherty type. 

 It contains crystals of dolomite, (macrotypous lime haloide.) At Soot, 

 the schist is once more established, but appears to have changed its 

 character. 



236. It may be seen in the bed of the small Nullah which runs below 

 Soocet, of a perfect talcose aspect, the colors bluish grey, the structure 

 straight laminar, the lustre metallic pearly, and so soft, as to be scratch- 

 ed by the nail. It dips S. 5° E., at an angle of 48°. It is succeeded, in 

 proceeding towards Sreenuggur, by a greenish grey talco- argillaceous 

 schist, approaching to the character of chloritic schist. The laminae are 

 sometimes very much contorted, being in one particular instance bent 

 up into a saddle-shape, even within the compass of a specimen. This 

 rock is always recognisable by the minute wave-like undulations with 

 which the laminae are marked, and which are peculiar to it. The dip 

 is South along the whole line to Sreenuggur, but the rock so seldom 

 visible that much stress cannot be laid on this determination. 



237. Enormous beds of diluvium, or rounded stones and gravel, 

 may be observed here, forming the floor of a valley remarkable in this 

 rugged country for its extent and beauty, though it be but five or 

 six miles long, and no where a mile wide. These accumulations rest on 

 different sides of the river in different parts of this line, so that small as 

 it is, it is not even continuous. Their height above the river bed is ge- 



