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



from a letter to me, is describing, I think, volcanic rocks, especially 

 agglomerates and ash full of lapilli and volcanic conglomerates. " It 

 (the lacustrine deposit of the valley of Kashmir) rests unconformably 

 on trapean rocks, quartzite, quartz conglomerate, very hard and 

 forming a compact mass." And again, further to the S. W. on the road 

 through the Pir Punjal Pass, he says : " The rocks are principally 

 mica-slate, with thick beds of a hard conglomerate having a very fine 

 dark blue matrix ; this, in some places, was a mass of water-worn 

 pebbles ; but in most of it these are scattered through the mass, and are 

 often in that case angular and small. Up to the Pir Punjal Pass the dip is 

 N. with a high angle ; having crossed the ridge N. E. this continues 

 all the way to Barangulla, giving these altered sandstones, slates and 

 conglomerates an enormous thickness."* The excellent observer who 

 wrote the above remarks did not think, it appears, that the rocks 

 were mostly volcanic in origin, but I cannot help imagining that 

 his description applies, in great part, to stratified ejecta of volcanic 

 eruptions, and the passage I have put in Italics is, I think, a very 

 fair description of ash with lapilli. Again, I must also remark that 

 the felstone of Baramoola has always been described by travellers, 

 and by geologists also, as mica- slate, though it contains no mica 

 and is nearly wholly made of felspar ; what has been taken for mica, 

 being minute spindles of glassy albite. It certainly has a slaty 

 cleavage, and the most earthy varieties have a close resemblance to 

 metamorphic slate, and it is probably this fact which has misled most 

 people as to the nature of the rock. It is not therefore impossible that 

 some of the " mica-slate," mentioned above, is in reality earthy felstone. 

 16. The position of the Pir Punjal chain is rather peculiar, abut- 

 ting as it does at both ends against enormous centres of volcanic rocks, 

 and being separated by a great fault (the valley of Kashmir) from moun- 

 tains also composed of the same rocks. In the enormous accumulation 

 of amygdaloidal ash, agglomerate and conglomerate which we shall 

 see, by and bye, on the other side of the valley, there is abundant 

 proof of the existence of open volcanoes in this part of the Himalaya, 

 at the time the porphyry was in a fluid or viscid state. The extreme 



* I do not give the name of the person who kindly gave me the information 

 quoted, as I do not agree with him on the origin of these rocks, and believe 

 that he missed appreciating their true value, though his description is 

 accurate. 



