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



of augite, and that any of these crystalline minerals or all of them 

 may disappear, leaving a rock entirely composed of a saccharoid paste 

 of albite. At other times the quartz becomes very abundant, and 

 thick bands of white quartzite traverse the mass. Again, the augite, 

 which is sometimes wholly wanting and at others in very minute 

 specks only, may increase and at last predominate and form dark 

 rocks with a semi-metallic lustre, the augite being generally collected 

 in masses of aggregate plates having the lustre of iodine. It very 

 often happens that the minerals are arranged in bands or layers as in 

 gneiss, and this apparent foliation also varies much, and often it does 

 not exist at all, whilst in other instances it is extremely well marked, 

 thus gradually forming a passage to the clinkstone, described in the 

 beginning of this paper. 



13. — I have not visited the high summits of the Kaj Nag : indeed, 

 I have only seen a few spurs of this enormous centre of mountains ; 

 but, from the road between Nausherra and Ori, one can see on the 

 other side of the river, towards the tops of the hills, immense masses 

 of the white porphyry glaring in the sun through the underwood which 

 covers these mountains ; and Captain H. Godwin- Austen, Gr. T. S., 

 who assisted in the survey of this district, informed me that the white 

 porphyry of the Buddist ruin at Buniar forms the summits and 

 all the central system of the Kaj Nag range. From a coloured sketch 

 kindly made for me by this officer we are enabled to see that the 

 porphyry forms the whole of the main chain of the Kaj Nag, a portion 

 of the huge North- Western branch, and extends along the western 

 or Mozufferabad branch towards Hazara. The rock passes gradually 

 from the granitoid porphyry I have described to less and less crystal- 

 lized rocks, until it becomes the pencillated white and blue felstone 

 which we have seen at Baramoola, and finally the earthy, slate-like 

 felstone of the Atala mount.* 



The summit of the Sank or Sallar, on the left bank of the Jheelum, 

 I have also painted as volcanic porphyry, from my observing that the 

 valley of the Apaikey is strewed with blocks of porphyry to a 



* Captain Austen described the felstone as a hard slate, but as he said 

 that this. slate was identical with the "hard slate of the lofty cliffs over the 

 road near Nausherra," it is evident that what was taken for slate, was an 

 earthy slate-like felstone. At the time Captain G. Austen observed these 

 rocks, he had not yet begun to study geology. 



