IS MIDDLEMISS: GEOLOGY OF HAZARA AND BLACK MOUNTAIN. 



movement, I prefer to speak of it as a conglomerate ; a term perfectly 



applicable, whether we consider it as a petrological definition, or as 



implying its mode of origin. The deposit is essentially composed 



of fragments of the underlying slates and quartzites set in a fine 



purple sandy clay, or shale. The size of the fragments average 



about that of a cricket-ball, but they vary from mere pebbles to large 



lumps that one could barely move with both hands. The pebbles or 



boulders are generally sub-angular, and in this respect they have a 



certain resemblance to the material forming a glacial moraine or 



boulder-clay ; but I was unable to discover on them any scratches or 



striae by which the agency of ice as a transporting power could be 



deduced with certainty. The conglomerate is roughly but distinctly 



bedded, layers of finer and coarser material alternating with one 



another. The lowermost bed is very much coarser than the higher 



ones, the latter gradually becoming of less importance and of finer 



material ; until by the complete disappearance of the finer pebbles 



the next stage of the series is entered upon. 



The total thickness of the conglomerate in its most typical 



development at the south-west end of the 

 Thickness. 



Sirban hill-mass is 50 — 100 ft. 



In common with the whole of the Infra-Trias series the basal 



conglomerate has a small visible lateral exten- 



tenlioT "^ ^^ ** sion ' This is P artl ? owin S to the overlapping 

 of the next higher series (Triassic), and partly 

 to the want of good exposures in the country to the north-east of 

 Abbottabad. In a northerly direction this conglomerate, and also the 

 whole of the Infra-Trias, have become considerably metamorphosed. 

 They, with the metamorphic representatives of the Slate series, will 

 be described at the end of the chapter. 



No palseontological evidence is forthcoming as to the age of this 



conglomerate, nor of any of the succeeding 

 No fossil remains. 



stages of the Infra-Trias. As in the case of the 



Slate series we have one direct fact only to go on, namely, that they 



( 18 ) 



