118 Mr. Verehere on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 2, 



eight thick beds of this trachy-dolerite separated one from the other by the 

 following rocks : (a) A slaty basalt, hard when fresh, but very soon falling into 

 foliated debris. It reminds one somewhat of the earthy variety of the felstone 

 of Baramoola. It is grey in colour, (b) an ash of a dirty-looking felspathic paste, 

 full of rounded or oval nodules of dull augite or hornblende. These nodules 

 are probably amygdaloidal in origin, being due to a bubbling of a hot paste 

 of ash and water. It desintegrates very quickly into a yellow earth or a grey 

 gritty soil on which grass grows well, soon concealing the rock below. 



These beds of slaty basalt and ash are well stratified, and fill up all the 

 spaces left between the layers of trachy-dolerite ; this last rock forms promin- 

 ent ridges or saddles on which the several works of the fort are built. 



A marshy alluvial plain intervenes between the Hurri Parbut and the 

 Tukt-i-Suliman. 



Tukt-i'Suliman. The western extremity of this hill (as it appears above 

 the lacustrine deposit) is a little knoll which has received the name of Rustun 

 Ghurree. 



1. Rustun Gurree : Compact greenstone either greenish or bluish ; hard ; 

 fracture conchoidal. Either no amygdala or a few large ones, about the size 

 of a pigeon's egg, often irregularly shaped, composed of white opaque quartz 

 arranged in concentric layers and never crystallized.* Strike S. E. — N. W. j 

 Dip N. E. = 50°. This is a hard rock and forms a prominent boss of a barren 

 character. It is quarried for building purposes, but is too hard to be dressed, 

 and as it breaks in angular pieces, it is altogether a very unsatisfactory building 

 material. This bed has a thickness of about 60 ft. 



2. A dirty yellowish -grey felspathic ash, full of geodes of dark augite. 

 It decays fast, the nodules of augite, after partially decomposing and 

 colouring the whole mass ochre-yellow, drop out of their niduses and leave 

 a spongy mass of yellow earth somewhat resembling pumice, but not in its 

 hardness. It is used as a good clay for pottery. It is much better developed 

 on the northern than on the south-eastern side of the hill. In one section 

 it is no more than 10 ft. 



3. Resembling greenstone but much more amygdaloid. It is hardly seen on 

 the southern aspect of the hill, where it is covered by vegetable earth and a 

 cemetery ; but it is well seen on the lake side near the water gate,.. . 20 ft. 



4. Tukt-i-Suliman : A mass of amygdaloidal greenstone, sometimes 

 compact, as at the base of the Rustun Gurree, but more generally showing 

 dark specks of augite or hornblende in the mass. The amygdala of white 

 quartz invade it, either as large and scarce geodes disposed here and there 



* These amygdala of white quartz occasionally fall out of their matrices 

 and are to be seen in numbers, half-buried in the soft silty mud of the lake near 

 the village of Drogehand. Should this mud one day dry up into a rock, a false 

 amygdaloid will be produced, all the more difficult to distinguish from fused 

 amygdaloid, as the mud of the lake is entirely formed of the debris of volcanic 

 rocks. 



