254 MIDDLEMISS: GEOLOGY OF HAZARA AND BLACK MOUNTAIN - . 



and Kotkai, there are in addition a large number of huge boulders of 

 gneissose-granite, sometimes as much as 20 feet in diameter. These 

 are scattered about among the alluvium, and a view of them from 

 the hill-sides is rather peculiar, as they seem to litter the ground 

 as if thrown there in sport by some supernatural agency. I could find 

 upon them no evidence of the action of ice, nor does there seem much 

 difficulty in rationally accounting for them without that agency 

 when we know that the high ridge immediately above the valley 

 near Pailam has the gneissose-granite in situ in great thickness. 



Well-rounded river-boulders occur in horizontal beds at certain 

 places on the hill-sides and at great heights above the present river- 

 bed. For instance, at Diliari and on the hill-skies at Bimbal these 

 beds are 2,000 feet above the river. They are uridistinguishable 

 from the similar gravels now in the process of formation by the 

 Indus R. The amount of erosion of the present river indicated by 

 them is therefore enormous. As a parallel case further down the 

 river I may here refer to the very similar gravels situated at the 

 summit of the hill behind Kalabagh in the Salt-Range. 



Blown sand in the form of gentle dunes occurs in the wider parts- 

 of the valley as at Towara. 



If we ascend the hill-sides to the east of the Indus by a series of 

 _ . .. E.N.E. — W.S.W. parallel routes such as those 



Sections across the r 



main ridge of the Black from Kotkai to Tilli, from Ghazikot to Mak- 



Mountain. . .».<■ f t-» i • r-. " ■ 



ranai and Abu fort, from.Bakrai to ben, or fronv 

 Darbanrai to Kand, we pass directly across the strike of the various 

 rock elements of this crystalline zone. They all exhibit a foliation dip 

 in towards the higher crest of the ridge, at the usual fairly steep 

 angles in the lower part of the valley, and slackening off towards 

 the crest of the ridge. The lower slopes are a continuation of the 

 rocks as we saw them in the valley of the Indus. But as we ascend, 

 the rocks first become a more pure and simple mica-schist, sometimes 

 garnitiferous, and then there follow a few thin bands of gneissose- 

 granite which are a prelude to the in-coming of a very broad and 

 massive band or sill of the same \ mile in width, and which, outcrop- 

 ( 254 ) 



