1849.] Trip to Pind Dadud Khan and the Salt Range. 671 



but having through an accident broken my thermometer was unable to 

 ascertain it exactly. There is a good deal of moisture in the mine, and 

 probably to this cause may be assigned its comparative coolness. The 

 salt appears quite inexhaustible, and to be deposited in strata with their 

 partings of red marl, and dipping to the N. at an angle of 35° or 40° . 

 The roof of the mine is here and there rent and cracked in an extraor- 

 dinary way, and is incrusted with a salt efflorescence as well as with sta- 

 lactites of salt, which with the dim light in which they are seen, pre- 

 sent a most striking appearance. Some of these were upwards of a foot 

 in length and much resembled the stalactites of carbonate of lime so of- 

 ten seen under bridges or in caves. Goolab Sing is the last individual who 

 has visited this mine from curiosity, which is considered rather unsafe 

 from the loose state of the rocks forming its roof and sides. It is howe- 

 ver by far the most wonderful of the mines in the neighbourhood. Got 

 back to Pind Dadud Khan late in the evening. 



March 27th. — Pind Dadud Khan to Baghanwalla, 10 fros. — Left 

 Pind Dadud Khan this morning and marched to Baghanwalla, a dis- 

 tance of fully 10 kos, to the east of the former town, the road leading 

 through a well cultivated plain running parallel to the salt range. With- 

 in about 2 miles of Baghanwalla the road becomes very stony and bad, 

 and the soil in its neighbourhood studded with bushes of Salvadora, 

 Capparis, Aphylla, Asclepias gigantia, Zizyphus, &c. &c. which reach 

 up to the very foot of the range. When these have been removed good 

 crops of barley are raised, water being abundant for the purpose of ir- 

 rigation. The village is situated at the foot of a valley, and is built on 

 the sandstone forming the base of the hills. No salt is got here, al- 

 though the ground is in many places incrusted with a salt efflorescence, 

 and the red gypsum marl prevails, but not nearly to the extent that it 

 does to the east. The comparative absence of salt in the rocks around 

 the place is evinced by the much greater amount of vegetation prevail- 

 ing on their surface, which in many places is covered with trees of small 

 size, so as to give a green appearance. In the afternoon visited some 

 of the heights to the east of the village, but saw no traces of coal or 

 other minerals of importance. The red saliferous marl is succeeded by a 

 series of bluish grey soft argillaceous fissile sandstones dipping to the 

 N. N. W. at a considerable angle, and on which rests a blue calcareous 

 sandstone. Above this is a fawn colored siliceous fine grained lime- 



