664 Notes on the Geology of the Punjab Salt Bange. [No. 7. 



ing numerous fossils. (Terebratula, productus, spirifer, orthis, &c, 

 with corals tubular and retiforni, and bones of fishes.) The beds in 

 which these fossils are most numerous are thin beds of a shaly charac- 

 ter, but they also occur in the most compact limestone. These lower 

 limestones are much fissured, the cracks dividing fossils as neatly as 

 could be effected by a saw, and the surfaces being often re-cemented 

 by pure white calcspar. Above these dark limestones occur several 

 light yellowish limestones abounding in encrinites. The most common 

 colours are greyish, white or yellow, and some of the beds would 

 yield an excellent and beautiful marble. The very yellow varieties, 

 however, seem rather soft and impure, owing their colour to the 

 presence of argil and iron, and weathering into irregular holes filled 

 with a ferruginous yellow clay. The fossils in this limestone are 

 not numerous, with the exception of encrinites, and these are fre- 

 quently obliterated by the crystalline character of the stone. 



c. The third division is represented in the salt range by a series of 

 sandstones and arenaceous shales with a few beds of limestone. The 

 sands contain much iron and are of a reddish or yellowish white 

 colour, a few traces of plants being all the fossils they contain. At 

 Kotki, however, ten miles N. "W. from Kala Bagh, this division is 

 fully as thick as the lower, and besides shales and sandstones contains 

 many thin-bedded limestones, some of them oolitic in structure. 

 The most interesting bed is an arenaceous shale of a very peculiar 

 brown or greenish-brown colour. This bed altogether is not much 

 less than 100 feet thick, and contains the bones and teeth of some large 

 saurian (?), the remains of a few crustaceans, and some five or six 

 genera of bivalves including a gryphaaa ; but the most numerous 

 fossils are belemnites, which in places are absolutely more in bulk 

 than the including matrix. They swarm by myriads, and are accom- 

 panied by a few ammonites, usually in a bad state of preservation, 

 whilst the belemnites are in the most perfect state possible. The 

 fossils in this bed (except the belemnites, which occur throughout,) 

 are not found indiscriminately but usually associated, so that one 

 or two species constitute a marked band, though the lithological 

 character varies but little. The lower part alone contains fossils J 

 the upper half being quite devoid of them, even of belemnites. The 

 bones in this bed are rather friable, but not ill-preserved ; and the 



