240 VREDENBURG: SKETCH OF BALGCHISTAn DESERT. 



are no fossils or only very indistinct ones, but reasons have been 

 stated for regarding these rocks as tertiary. The mode of disturb- 

 ance is quite similar to that represented in figure 6, giving rise to 

 the same castellated and ruiniform appearances. The ranges gene- 

 rally trend a few degrees S. of W., but the strike is irregular. Along 

 the north-western border of the hilly tract are a few conglomerates 

 with volcanic pebbles such as were met with near Mekh-i-Rustam in 

 beds of Ranikot age (page 58). 



Near the south-eastern edge of the hills, where they border on to 

 the desert, the strata are cut through by dykes of quartz-felsite- 

 porphyry. 



The irregularity of the structure at this point is further exemplified 



The Laki Hills. * n the three mlIocks called the Laki hills 



("Laka" on the map) south-east of Mirui. 

 Here the strike is W.-N.-W. instead of W.-S.-W., the dip southerly 

 instead of northerly. West and north-west of the hillocks the 

 region separating them from the Mirui hills is entirely covered with 

 recent deposits so that the structural relations of the two groups of 

 hills cannot be made out. To the north, east and south-east of the 

 Laki hills, Siwalik strata are seen. This is the most westerly 

 outcrop of the band of those rocks which we have followed westwards 

 from the neighbourhood of Nushki ; beyond this point everything 

 is concealed by recent deposits. Immediately east of the Laki hills, 

 an anticlinal axis runs in an easterly direction through these 

 Siwaliks, showing that they also no longer possess so simple a 

 structure as further east. 



As to the Laki hills themselves, they consist of gypsiferous 

 shales and tuffaceous sandstones of bright colour, overlaid by a 

 coralline limestone. All these strata are highly disturbed and 

 crushed. Fossils are plentiful but distorted and badly preserved owing 

 to the shattered condition of the matrix. Dr. Noetling who kindly 

 examined them assigned to them a Ranikot age. The commonest 

 form is Astroccenia blanfordi, Duncan, a typical coral of the 

 Ranikot in Sind. 1 



1 Palseontologia Indica, Series XIV, Vol. I, Part I, p. 41. 



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