236 VREDENBURG : SKETCH OF BALOCHISTAN DESERT. 



strata consist of friable shales and sandstones, very much contorted 

 but without any indications of slaty cleavage such as occurs in 

 the Kharan hills. Fossils are found in an excellent state of preserva- 

 tion, but unfortunately I had no time to collect ; nummulites^ alveo- 

 Unas, operculinas, cerithiums and other fossils of Ranikot age were 

 found. Here also conglomerates of volcanic pebbles were met with, 

 such as have already been noticed in other instances amongst beds 

 of that age (page 46). 



The Mekh-i-Rustam is an igneous intrusion. Owing to the com- 

 paratively small dimensions of the plutonic 

 mass, the structure is not a granitic one as in 

 the case of the Ras Koh syenites, but it is porphyritic, the rock being 

 a felsite porphyry. Being a highly siliceous rock it successfully resists 

 weathering, while its compact nature explains why it has withstood 

 denudation so much better than the friable sandstones and shales 

 that surround it. The curious conical hill rendered so conspicuous 

 by its contrast with the insignificant hills that surround it does not 

 by any means represent the original shape of the intrusion, for up to 

 a distance of one mile north of it, the same rock still appears in situ % 



Not far from the southern shores of the Lora Hamun stands 

 chapar range and its another conspicuous hill of conical shape, at 



neighbourhood. one time an i s i an d before the lake had dried up, 



probably still so in time of flood. This hill, the Gaukoh, does not 

 consist however of igneous rocks, but of high dipping, in fact verti- 

 cal limestones. West by south of it the smaller K6h-i-Gav is 

 similarly constituted, and from there, in a direction a few degrees 

 south of west, a continuous outcrop of the same limestone forms hills 

 gradually increasing in height and culminating in the tall scarped 

 mountain called Masanen Chapar or the u Great Hill." Still further 

 west these rocks again decrease in height forming the Kasanen 

 Chapar or "Small Hill/' 1 No fossils were found in this great lime- 

 stone, save a few indistinct corals. The rock certainly resembles 



1 Since these lines were written, the author has again visited the Chapar hills. The 

 uppermost beds of the Kasanen Chapar limestone contain the C rdica beaumonti fauna. 

 The age of the limestone is therefore upper cretaceous. 



( 58 ) 



