DESCRIPTION OF SECTIONS. 233 



old; unfortunately I received this information after leaving the 

 region, and on the only day that I could dispose of, I found the hour 

 so advanced that I returned northwards when within one^mile from 

 Jalawar, where the inscription is to be seen. 



This inscription (a Mahomedan one),^ is one of the numerous 

 remains that indicate a previously flourishing condition of this region 

 now absolutely uninhabited except for six weeks during the [spring- 

 time when small companies of men with pack'animals come and 

 encamp amongst the hills to collect asafcetida. In all'the valleys 

 south and south-east of Zard, the walls called "G6rband," those 

 remains of terraced fields which I mentioned in a previous chapter, 

 are met with in countless numbers. In another part of the Kharan 

 hills, in the "Nimik Pass," Mahomedan tombs were met with 

 built in exactly the same style as these old walls. I have already 

 referred to these structures (page 37) as showing that the complete 

 dessication of the country as we see it at the present day must be 

 of a very recent date. 



West of the Pir Puchi Pass the ranges that we have followed 



Western termination of fr0m the neighbourhood of Nushki gradually 



the Kharan ranges. decrease in height, and about longitude 64 



they sink beneath the recent deposits of the desert plain. I have 

 not examined this western termination of the mountains, although 

 there are no doubt many points of interest, for instance, the curiously 

 rectilinear ridge called " Irani Thai Gar ". It is quite possible that 

 the folded structure continues beneath the alluvial deposits of 

 the plain surrounding the Hamun-i-Mashkhel, and that the low 

 ranges south-west of the K6h-i-Sult£n are structurally the continu- 

 ation of the Kharan hills, this time with a N. W. strike. They will 

 be described in a future paragraph. 



Incomplete as they are, the observations made upon the range 

 which has just been described, are sufficient 



Conclusion. . ,. . . . . 



to show that it possesses a very irregular struc- 

 ture. Its northern edge is particularly abrupt and shows nowhere 

 the regular band of Siwaliks which form so conspicuous a feature 



( 55 ) 



