106 Mr. Verchere on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 2, 



this be true, we may infer that the auriferous source is somewhere to 

 the north, and that by tracing the gold stream, so to speak, we might 

 arrive at a point where the drifted materials become coarser, and 

 where the gold, from its high specific gravity, has been deposited in 

 larger quantity."* 



That the miocene deposit of the Sub-Himalaya has been derived 

 from the mountains situated N. or N. E. of it, is evident from the 

 boulders contained in the conglomerates of the formation, these 

 boulders being mostly volcanic rocks, such as we have seen in the 

 mountains near the Baramoola, and such as we shall see in other parts 

 of Kashmir. We will see, by and bye, that these volcanic rocks extend 

 to the west, along the northern boundary of the Peshawur valley, as 

 far at least as Jelalabad, and to the east as far, at any rate, as 80° east 

 long., and probably much farther, though it appears from Captain R. 

 Strachey's memoir on the geology of part of the Himalaya mountains,! 

 that the volcanic rocks in the eastern portion of the Himalaya are 

 more intrusive than they are in the western extremity of the chain. 



If it is indeed true that grains of gold of some size are picked out 

 of the sand in Hazara, some valuable diggings might yet be found 

 in the valleys situated between the spurs of the Kaj Nag range or its 

 extension to the west. But I cannot help thinking that, with a 

 population everywhere anxious to wash gold even in very poor wash- 

 ings, auriferous sands of any economical value would have been worked 

 long since, especially as the sands formed by the decomposition of a 

 porphyry, similar to that of the Kaj Nag chain, and situated on 

 the eastern frontier of Kashmir are searched for garnets only. 



The magnetic iron ore is tolerably abundant in the pepper and salt 

 sand, and is at present wasted by the gold -washers of Kothair and 

 Mukud : but it has not been always so. In traversing the great 

 miocene plateau of Rawul Pindee, I noticed for many miles along 

 the road, between Pindeh Greb and Jubbie, small pieces of black 

 slag, often in some quantity and evidently very old, as many 

 pieces were seen where ravines had cut the ground, buried a foot 



* Ditto ditto, page 344. 



f On the Geology of part of the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet, by Captain 

 K Strachey, Bengal Engineers, F. G. S. Proceedings of the Geological Society of 

 London, 1851. 





