1867.] tlie Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 13 



At the northern end of the Rottah Roh, the carboniferous lime- 

 stone is immediately covered in by a Miocene sandstone and con- 

 glomerate. A little further south, some beds of reddish limestone 

 and some sandstones, grey and bituminous, are either the top of the 

 carboniferous or possibly Permian or Triassic beds. The fossils are 

 very scarce and mere debris. The sandstone contains thin layers 

 of a shale which is full of carbonized remains of plants, and from the 

 sandstone, near the shale, a black bitumen oozes out. It is a mineral 

 pitch or impure petroleum ; the quantity is insignificant. 



As we continue to travel south and west, we find the Weean bed 

 forming the top of the hill the whole way ; with here and there 

 patches of gypseous marls, red marl, grey sandstone and variegated 

 thin-bedded non-fossiliferous limestone, or rather dolomite, which are 

 in all probability Triassic, but which will require much more careful 

 study than I have been able to give them, before they can be satis- 

 factorily classed. I believe them identical to the red marl and gypsum 

 of the Saliferian formation of the Salt Range. Close to the village of 

 Paniala these supposed Triassic beds are well developed, and from them 

 issue some saline hot springs. Near Gunga, at the other (northern) 

 extremity of the little Range, a patch of these same gypseous 

 sandstones and marl appear at the end of a fault in the carboni- 

 ferous limestone, and from these supposed Triassic beds two or three 

 small hot and saline springs issue. It is a remarkable fact that 

 everywhere in the Himalaya and in the hills of the Punjab, where 

 these gypseous marls, reel marls, sandstones and dolomites appear 

 well developed, they are generally accompanied by saline springs, 

 usually hot. 



At the northern extremity of the Rottah Roh, over the village 

 of Kundul, we have seen that the Weean limestone forms the bulk of 

 the hill. Under it, at one place, is found a feldspathose sandstone 

 invaded by tortuous veins of quartzite ; it has acted powerfully on 

 the limestone near it, this being much metamorphosed, cellular, 

 traversed in all directions by thick bands of crystalline carbonate 

 of lime, and all fossils being obliterated or changed into a lump of 

 spar. The feldspathose sand has the appearance of having been 

 forced between the broken ends of the beds of limestone which is 

 thrown into an anticlinal ; it is generally white, occasionally coloured 



