40 MIDDLEMISS: GEOLOGY OF HAZARA AND BLACK MOUNTAIN. 



goes, is another argument for placing the Grey limestone with the 

 Cretaceous rather than with the Nummulitic. Such a conclusion would 

 carry with it the necessity of believing in a considerable overlap of 

 the upper part of the series beginning at stage (2). 



(2) Variegated sandstone and coal. 



This thin band of rock has already been alluded to as the direct 

 cause of my original presence in Hazara, on account of the coal or 

 carbonaceous clay which accompanies it. 



In colour it is a pale French-grey, with veinings and concentric 



markings of pink, yellow, brown, and purple. 



Sometimes it weathers into a white powdery 

 sand : at other times the rock is a somewhat coarse-grained grit and 

 weathers into irregular lumps which are fairly hard under the 

 hammer. A sugary texture is characteristic. What is apparently the 

 same rock on Srikot hill east of Gurhee Hubeebooluh, and forms the 

 base of the Nummulitic series there, is conglomeratic in its lower 

 part where it rests upon Infra-Trias limestone. 



In the southern parts of Hazara, and on its borders in that di- 

 rection, as at Hassan Abdal, the variegated sandstone is underlaid by 

 a coarsely pisolitic ferruginous band. In the event of the Grey lime- 

 stone being Cretaceous the above pisolitic band would very reasonably 

 represent the similar rock at the base of the Nummulitic series at 

 Sabathu and in western British Garhwal. 



In certain places in the Slate zone this variegated sandstone 

 contains a band of carbonaceous clay containing 



ce?u°s a day and Carb ° na * C ° aL 0win S t0 the S ° ftneSS ° f this rock and 

 its enclosing sandstone, as compared with the 

 great limestone series above and below it, we find the coal and clay 

 have become crushed and sheared, one might almost say kneaded 

 together, so that although the richer carbonaceous bands may have 

 been formed originally in a continuous bed, they are now unrecog- 

 nisable as bands, except locally, the richer and poorer material 



( 40 ) 



