1G2 Mr. Vercherc on the Geology of Kashmir, [No. 3, 



The rocks which are above this spring form a little knoll very insigni- 

 ficant geographically, but interesting for its fossils. These are often 

 converted into haematite, sometimes crystalline, sometimes powdery. 

 The rock of the bed is mostly a -hard, cherty, pinkish limestone, and 

 in this are lenticular beds of a soft, granular, pale french-grey lime- 

 stone, with innumerable minute black dots which are the crystallized 

 stems of a very slender crinoid. These minute rings are sometimes a 

 round plate and sometimes a five radiated star. The rock is sometimes 

 coloured pink by iron, and then the crinoid-rings are dark red instead 

 of black. It is foetid and it contains the large Anthracosice (PI VI. 

 fig. 3,) and the Aviculo-pectens mentioned before, and also the 

 little shell PL VIII. fig. 5. This spur contains also a very com- 

 pact, dark, nearly black limestone, with a very fine grain, but with 

 only a few fossils and encrinite -rings. It is a similar bed which has 

 furnished the blocks of which the beautiful black marble pillars 

 of the Shalimar Bagh are made of. It takes a fine polish, and is 

 evidently very durable. It is probable that this bed of black 

 limestone crosses over to the valley of the Arrah river, and has been 

 quarried there for these pillars.* 



The remainder of the little spur is made up of calcareous, micaceous sand- 

 stone without fossils (?). The thickness of the beds forming this spur, ia 

 about 60 ft. 



Then we have again beds of limestone, shaly and sandy, much cracked and 

 fissured, and with only the debris of fossils. The harder portion of the rock is 

 blue, and is traversed by innumerable white lines cutting one another in all 

 directions. It dips E. S. E. 20°. 



It is succeeded by a bed of blue argillaceous limestone, weathering rugose, 

 and traversed by thin streaks of yellow, ochrous limestone, and containing 

 fossils in abundance, amongst others a plaited Spiriferina, which appears 

 common in some layers, whilst it is rare in others. Crinoid stems are also 

 very abundant, occurring as it were in patches. 



The above mentioned bed is covered in by a grey micaceous sandstone, 

 weathering pale brown and containing the fragments of fossils, but no Spiriferince, 



The total thickness of the three last beds mentioned is above . . . 150 ft. 



Crossing the dry bed of a torrent and a great deal of rubbish which 

 apparently covers a fault, the sixth spur is reached, and presents the 

 following layers : 



* These pillars are generally described by travellers as black porphyry, a 

 mistake which a very little attention would have prevented, as the sections of 

 fossils are to be seen on the polished surface of the columns. 



