446 Report on the Geological Structure oftlw Salt Range. [No. 5. 



The ridge is entirely formed of a coarse brown ferruginous quart- 

 zose sandstone alternating with beds of a greenish quartzite, which 

 in many places passes into a siliceous clay slate. These beds are 

 all distinctly stratified and dip to the north-west at an angle of 

 from 40° to 45°. 



The sandstone is traversed by numerous veins of white quartz 

 containing masses of rich haematite iron ore, which do not seem to 

 have attracted at all the attention of the natives as a source of iron, 

 although it can be obtained in considerable quantity, and ought to 

 yield from seventy to eighty per cent, of metal. 



rilling small cracks in the sandstone some small specimens of 

 pyrolusite or peroxide of manganese were obtained. This, when 

 powdered and treated with hydrochloric acid, gave out chlorine in 

 abundance, and when fused with borax in the oxidating flame of the 

 blow-pipe gave an amethyst-coloured glass. It occurs in thin de- 

 tritic laminse of a steel-grey colour with a strong metallic lustre, and 

 which exhibit a black streak. This valuable mineral was not detect- 

 ed in any of the quartz veins ; but as it very generally occurs asso- 

 ciated with haematite, it is not improbable that it may be found. It 

 is nowhere an abundant mineral, and as it is in great demand for 

 the manufacture of glass and for bleaching purposes, and fetches a 

 high price in the market, it would be of great importance were a 

 workable lode of it discovered. 



No fossils could be detected in any of the strata which, from their 

 mineral character, we are disposed to reckon as lower Silurian or 

 Cambrian, the lowest of all fossiliferous rocks and subordinate to the 

 salt formation of the Salt Eange. 



From the general parallelism of the Korana ridges to the Salt 

 Eange we think it most probable that at one period, the latter had 

 extended in breadth across the plain of the Punjab, from which, by 

 disturbing agencies and extensive denudation, the softer strata have 

 been removed, leaving only the harder and quartzose sandstones of 

 Korana as monuments of its former extent. 



From Korana eastward to the foot of the Himalayas at Eoopur 

 we are not aware that a single rock occurs ; nay, we believe that a 

 traveller might search in vain even for a pebble in the sun-baked 

 alluvial plain of the Punjab Doab. 



