DESCRIPTIVE GEOLOGY : SLATE ZONE. 95 



represented on small-scale maps as a continuous ridge. The grander 

 scale and height of these hill-sides introduce a more temperate flora, 

 the zone from 6,000 feet to 8,000 feet and upwards being covered 

 in parts with north temperate coniferous trees, and with oak, chestnut, 

 elm and maple, often of fine dimensions, but not reaching the same 

 perfection that they do in the "gulees " of the Nummulitic zone, to 

 which reference will be made in due course. The slate formation 

 itself, on account of the hard beds of quartzite which are inter- 

 stratified, rises sometimes to great heights as at Mianjani andTaumi. 

 Tandiani is a hill station of a few wooden houses used as a summer 

 resort by the Abbottabad residents and others, but in the winter 

 months it and the rest of the higher ridges and peaks are a desola- 

 tion of snow and sombre conifers, the snow often lying on suitable 

 shady slopes up to the month of June. 



West of this mass of peaks and ridges come the semi-detached 

 masses of Bunyan hill, about 6_,ooo ft., Taumi, 8,025 ft, and Tope, 

 6,645 ft., with their side ridges and spurs trending N.E. and S. W., 

 and in the latter direction lowering gradually till they merge into 

 the low slate hills south of the Dore river near Rujoeeuh. 



These rocky thickly wooded mountain-crests averaging 6,000 

 ft., with a keen cold bracing air blowing round them, descend sharply 

 and steeply to levels of 5,000 and 4,000 ft. ; at which levels the slopes 

 swell out into broad foundations which are dotted with small hamlets 

 and covered with terraced fields, the retaining walls and banks of 

 which seen from a distance look like a natural system of approximate 

 contours drawn on the earth itself. They descend downwards to 

 the level of the gravel terraces which further broaden out the base 

 of the slopes. Below this again the same terraces are deeply cut 

 into by water-channels, and present steep disintegrating precipices 

 bordering the edges of narrow winding gorges where the ever-mur- 

 muring streams, out of sight from above, continue their work of 

 erosion. 



On the eastern side of the Tandiani-Mianjani watershed the level 

 of the country descends very rapidly. All the formations above the 



( 95 ) 



