660 Notes on the Geology of the Punjab Salt Range. [No. 7. 



or fossil of any description. One curious exception however, must 

 be mentioned, which is the occasional occurrence of small angular 

 fragments of trap at Kiura and elsewhere. The trap is the same 

 that occurs altering the marl in various parts of the range, and 

 every fragment is enveloped in a thin coat of fibrous gypsum, 

 which has evidently separated from the marl and ranged round the 

 trap nucleus as a centre. This gypsum coat is not one-twentieth of 

 an inch thick and the fragments of trap vary from the size of a pea 

 to that of an apple. In the lower part of the red marl occur a few 

 thin bands of a fine compact argillaceous shale and fine argillaceous 

 sandstone, having a few dark filmy partings of a black colour and 

 seemingly carbonaceous character. The shale is compact of a pecu- 

 liar ashen colour and contains crystals of selenite, which in parts 

 being decomposed give this curious rock a singular honey-combed 

 aspect. The sandstone is fine and thin bedded in the extreme, the 

 strata resembling in arrangement sheets of paper, but the whole is 

 firmly cemented by infiltrated selenite, the crystals of which, form 

 partings between some of the beds and impress a peculiar character 

 on the whole. These beds are singularly contorted, for instance on 

 the left hand side entering the Kiura gorge, and though of very 

 insignificant thickness (some few feet) appear traceable wherever 

 the red marl is much developed. 



No. 2. Eed sandstone. Above the red marl occur several feet of 

 dark red thin bedded marly sandstones, forming a link between the 

 marl and superincumbent sandstone. This sandstone is greatly 

 developed throughout the range, more so if any where, towards the 

 eastern end where it is fully 600 feet thick. Its colour is dark brick 

 or plum red, and it is generally thin bedded. The upper beds 

 become grayish white, and white and red, but retain the same fine 

 uniform character as the lower. This stone is much used for build- 

 ing, owing to the facility with which it splits into slabs of the 

 required thickness, but is rather soft and its applicability thereby 

 decreased. It absorbs water also readily and is sometimes subject 

 to a saline efflorescence. The pale upper beds, or freestones, though 

 less fissile, are not so faulty in either respect. The red sandstone 

 is rarely, if ever, seen ripple-marked, but the atmospheric action 

 creates curious rugosities in the surface of some of its beds, 



