1867.] the Western Himalaya and Afghan Mountains. 27 



the summits of nearly all the highest hills of the Salt Range. It is 

 continued to within two miles of Maree on the Indus where it thins 

 out, but reappears near Kalabag, and is very well developed in the 

 Chichalee Range and in the Speen Ghar. Near the Indus, all the 

 beds of the Salt Range, excepting the Saliferian marl itself and the 

 secondary strata where much locally disturbed, dip towards the N. E. 

 On the western bank of the Indus, that is in the Chichalee Hills and 

 the Speen G-hur, the dip is W. N. W. or N. W. This last dip is gene- 

 rally that of all the strata of the Kuttuk hills. 



The nummulitic formation appears in the Salt Range as a thick 

 belt which, beginning at the Mount Tilla near Jheelum, is continued 

 to near Maree on the Indus, where it disappears for a little space, but 

 reappears on the other side of the river, and is to be seen forming the 

 bulk of the Speen Grhur to near Esokhel. The formation keeps a 

 remarkably similar aspect the whole way. It is, from below upwards, 

 composed* of — 1. Sandstone often coloured by iron, but generally 

 dirty white or pale grey. 2. Very arenacious, thin bedded or lumpy 

 limestone, with gasteropods, few and small nummulites and innumer- 

 able debris of oysters or gryphea3. 3. Shales of various colours, with 

 beds of lignite and of alum carbonaceous shales. The alum shales 

 are only developed where the lignite is situated close to the Saliferian 

 formation, and appear to be patches of lignite metamorphosed. 4. 

 Argillaceous limestone, full of large nummulites, chama, cardita, 

 crassatella, ostrcea, many gasteropods, very large echinodermata, &c, 

 &c 5. Shales often replaced by a clay-slate containing nummulites. 

 The shales contain sometimes lignite and Rol (alum-shale), but the 

 seams are made less well defined than in the lower shales. 6. Argilla- 

 ceous limestone, extremely white in some places and containing the 

 same fossils as layer 4 ; in the eastern portion of the Range it 

 contains flints ; it is often foetid. 7. Chert, hard limestone, weather- 

 ing rough and pitted ; pale yellow or flesh-colour, brittle and 



* Occasionally a bed of white soft fragile limestone is seen to form the base 

 of the nummnlitic formation. It is characterized by a planorbis which is 

 tolerably abundant ; but it contains neither nummulites nor any other fossil. 

 It is found in lenticular beds of little extent, and rarely more than two or three 

 feet thick. It suggests to the mind beds formed in pools or creeks among 

 sandy islands and promontories at the mouth of a river. Whenever it occurs, 

 I have found in the nummulitic limestone above it a great number of teeth 

 and bones of fishes (sharks). 



