190 Mr. Verchere on the Geology of Kashmir. [No. 3, 



perfectly black when fresh-fractured, lustreless like a clay and with 

 a strong earthy smell ; it weathers much paler, becoming covered 

 with an incrustation which is bright pale blue, yellowish or whitish ; 

 the surface being at first velvety or satin-like, and so fine-grained in 

 some specimens, that drops of rain or of clew falling from grasses 

 leave small blots or stains, which after a while becoming frosted. The 

 fossils of this limestone are well brought out on the weathered sur- 

 faces, as outlines or sections which are slightly in relief. The shales 

 when ochrous, are very sandy, sometimes calcareous, oftener not so ;. 

 they contain beds of clay iron-stone in irregular and wavy tabular 

 bands or ribbons of an iron black and bluish black colour, and also of 

 yellow carbonate of lime, and iron in a more or less friable condition. 

 These shales have a well-marked slaty cleavage cutting the strata 

 at a right angle. The slate is black, thick and massive and contains 

 no fossils. It often becomes pale green and unctuous, and is then very 

 thin-bedded and exfoliating. The sandstone is composed of rounded 

 grains of transparent glassy quartz which are brittle, and break across 

 when the rock is fractured, and each broken grain reflects the light, 

 so that the sandstone has somewhat the aspect of a micaceous sand- 

 stone. 



The fauna of the Kothair bed is more remarkable for the abun- 

 dance of certain animals than for any species that I can well define. 

 Gasteropoda, generally small, and corals of the " Cyathophyllidce" 

 are nearly the only animals seen. A few bivalves, small and 

 thin-shelled, also occur, but they are rare, compared to the quantity 

 of gasteropods. A few roots and stems, generally small, have been 

 observed in some beds, but could not be recognized. 



The following fossils are the most usual in the Kothair bed. 



Naticopsis f 



Macrochilus f 



Ghemnitzia f 



Loxonema ? 



Nerincea f 



The fragments of Gasteropoda in great number. 



Cyathophyllum ? sp. PI. VIII. fig. 2. 



? sp. PI. VIII. fig. 3. 



? sp. PI. VIII. fig. 4. 



