g2 MIDDLEM1SS: GEOLOGY OF HAZARA AND BLACK MOUNTAIN. 



catechu, Daranni ? wild olive, Olea europea, and mulberry, Morus 

 a/da, whilst the hill spurs are partly clothed with Sumbal ? and 

 Justitia adhatoda. The water on this side is all shed south- 

 wards towards the Hurroh river and the streams have cut down 

 their channel deeply into the slates. The whole of these slate hills 

 from their S. VV. extremity where they die away under the alluvium 

 to the neighbourhood of Huveliyan, present the same monotonous 

 features. 



From our outlook on Hureepoor fort in a westerly direction we may 

 see the gently sloping alluvial flat stretching away for ten miles and 

 then ending abruptly in the high scarped edge of the Gundgurh 

 rano-e. That range, mainly composed of slates and schistose slates, 

 has nevertheless a backbone of stout limestone, which gives it the 

 regular and ideal aspect of a small hill range. For the same reason 

 it rises to a considerable height above the plain. Its scarped edge 

 facing us is bare of vegetation and has but little water. Beyond this 

 range flows the changeful and rapid current of the Indus, and a short 

 distance beyond that comes the north-west frontier of the empire. 



Eastwards from Hureepoor on the north side of the valley of the 

 Dore we see the near end of a long low range, composed entirely of 

 slates without even any limestone bands to vary its uniform aspect. 

 It continues E.N.E. up to and beyond Abbottabad. 



At Hureepoor then we first find ourselves among the plains and hills 

 of Hazara, and the outlook, though tame and devoid of the grander 

 features of a mountain tract, brings before us very clearly the general 

 surface aspect of the Slate series, the most ancient of any in Hazara ; 

 and illustrates early, even among these much-worn and sculptured 

 remnants of a great formation, how dominating an effect the folding 

 of the rocks has had upon the three hill ranges before us and the 

 minor chains of hillocks, inasmuch as they all follow the direction of 

 the axes of the folds, that is to say, generally with the geological strike 

 of the country. 



Continuing in the Slate zone in the direction of Abbottabad, and 

 ( 92 ) 



