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



and the dip E. S. E. High up the spur, this dip forms a considerable 

 angle with the horizon, but it diminishes gradually as we descend 

 towards the plain ; at the bed of quartzite it is about 45°„ and at 

 the limestone it is generally 40°. But these rocks, that is from the 

 quartzite upwards, appear to have been upheaved by a narrow band of 

 hard rock catching them in the centre and pressing them upwards in 

 that central point, whilst the sides of the beds were unsupported. 

 Instead of yielding softly and shaping themselves into a carapace- 

 like coating, as slate and ash would have done, the limestone and the 

 shales have separated into thick bands or slices, and these bands have 

 spread themselves out like a fan. At the small end of the fan there 

 has been a considerable crushing of the beds one against the other, 

 and enormous blocks, indeed whole pieces, of the limestone courses 

 have been squeezed out of place ; whilst, at the circumference of the 

 fan, the beds have been parted from one another, and in some places 

 we can see the layers of limestone separated by open intervals two or 

 three feet wide. (See horizontal section, Sec. C.) 



25. I will now try to define the character of the Zeeawan bed of 

 carboniferous limestone : — Its lithological characters are, that it is a 

 rough, coarse and semicrystalline limestone of a dark bluish-grey colour, 

 weathering a rich grey. If we break it, we find it made of innumerable 

 irregular grains of a darker limestone united by a lighter cement more 

 or less crystalline. It is full of debris of fossils ; indeed I am not quite 

 sure that the darker grains are not the debris of the organisms or 

 excrements of animals. It is foetid. Portions of it are arenaceous or 

 rather shaly, and these, when exposed to the air, decompose partially, 

 becoming soft and crumbling. The stone is soft to work and cuts 

 with great ease, except where there are too many large fossils. It 

 contains an immense number of minute crinoid-stems converted into 

 spar : it breaks obliquely to the surface and gives flashes of light 

 at certain angles. It is interstratified with courses of rich-brown 

 calcareous shale, often of a bright rust-colour, and generally much 

 decomposed and with bands of a black, not calcareous, sandy shale : 

 it is also full of fossils, these being apparently converted into oxide of 

 iron. Finally, it contains limited short lenticular layers of a much 

 paler limestone, in thin-bedcled and false-bedded patches having 

 somewhat the appearance of a fine mortar or cement. 



