252 GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA. 



of calcareous, earthy, and arenaceous deposits, chiefly marine, but 

 possibly in part of fresh water origin — a series comprising thirteen 

 main divisions, of which nine are distinctly referable each to one of the 

 thirteen principal formations known to geology, and the ages of four 

 are less accurately ascertained. The development of the whole range 

 is not at any place complete, the groups changing along their 

 outcrop in thickness if not also in character ; from the fourth to 

 the seventh group in ascending order the series extends westwards 

 across the Indus. 



For the four years ending 1871 the receipts of the Inland 

 Customs Department were Bupees 38,81,440 per annum, and as the 

 rate at which the salt is sold at the mines is Us. 3.1 per maund, an 

 idea may be formed of the out-turn. Notwithstanding the enorrnous 

 waste that goes on, especially in regard to carriage, the salt being 

 reduced to rough spherical lumps to prevent the corners being 

 rubbed off during its transport in open nettings or hair cloth bags, 

 the supply seems practically inexhaustible. Coal is also found in 

 the range, the Kalabagh coal or lignite, which is of Jurassic age, 

 being the best, as well as petroleum, building and ornamental 

 stones, and gypsum. 



The trans-Indus extension of the Salt range is also described by 

 Mr. A. B. Wynne, in Vol. XVII. of the " Memoirs." Its geological 

 structure repeats in a great measure that of the western portion of 

 the Salt range proper, but with some important differences, the 

 purple sandstone, for instance, of the latter disappearing at 

 Kalabagh. Kalabagh itself is an interesting place, which has 

 always attracted the attention of visitors. It is thus referred to by 

 Thorburn, who states that the town was devastated by the Indus, 

 on the western bank of which it is situated, in 1841 : — 



•' The houses rise one above the other on the hill side, nestling close packed in an 

 abandon of dirt and confusion amid the glistening carnation-coloured salt of the recks, 

 li hasa municipality and an old standing grievance : for as Government levies a duty of 

 about 8s. \d. on every hundredweight of salt quarried in the range, andas half the town 

 is built of salt and on salt, the people are fined heavily should they attempt to cat their 

 houses : and '.heir cattle, when they loiter by the way in order to lick the rocks or the 

 house walls, are ordered to move on by stern-visaged constables whose mud and salt- 

 built sentry-boxes are perched about on every commanding knoll."* 



Both orographically and geologically the Salt range is continued 

 through the trans-Indus of the Bannu and Derajat districts to the 

 Sulhnan mountains, both sections including with many variations 

 palaeozoic, mesozoic, and cainozoic formations. The salt all belongs 



* " Bannu," p. 8, note. 



