258 Report on the Geological Structure of the Salt Range. [No. 3. 



No indications of the existence of a vein of ore have been obtained 

 either in the shales or in any rock, superior or inferior to them. 

 In the thin beds of coarse white quartzose grit which occur in the 

 shales, disseminated grains of carbonate and silicate of copper are 

 occasionally to be noticed, but in small quantity. 



The ore is for the most part copper glance or sulphuret of copper, 

 one of the richest and most easily smelted ores. Its surface is 

 generally covered with copper, as the result of the action of air and 

 moisture ; indeed in a large number of the nodules, the copper glance 

 can only be detected in their centre — their circumference being 

 converted into carbonate of copper. 



The purer and undecomposed nodules present on fracture a dark 

 leaden-colour, and are sectile. Particles of the ore heated before 

 the blow pipe on charcoal yield a button of metallic copper. 



A pure specimen yielded, on analysis, the following results in 100 

 parts. 



Copper, 75.830 



Sulphuret of Soda, 8.155 



Sulphur, 21. 



Peroxide of iron and alluminse, .015 



Total,... 100.000 

 The above analysis shows a much larger percentage of copper, 

 than the concretions usually contain. This from a series of experi- 

 ments, we believe, to vary from 12 to 20 per cent. 



The quantity of ore seems insignificant, and is only interesting in 

 a minerological point of view. After heavy rain, which disintegrates 

 large quantities of shale, and leaves the green copper concretions 

 exposed to view, a man may, in some localities, collect in the course 

 of a day about an ounce of ore. It seems to be more abundant 

 in some localities than in others. The Nulee hill above Kuttha 

 yielding we believe the largest quantity. "We have detected it in 

 almost every deep ravine between Bayaar East of Moosakhail and 

 Kuttha, a distance of not less than forty miles, within which limits 

 the variegated shales are principally developed. 



The only indications of organisms we have detected in this forma- 

 tion are confined to the dark red, schistose sandstones and upper 



