360 LIEUT.-GEN. C. A. MCMAHON ON [^ a y I9OO, 



I have received the following specimens from Pakor : — a cream- 

 coloured, compact, very pure limestone, and a white crystalline, very 

 pure limestone. Prom Shenas : — a dirty-white calcareous quartz- 

 rock ; and a bluish-grey, compact, magnesian limestone. The last- 

 named specimen contains a trace of iron, but the colouring-matter 

 consists of 0*102 per cent, of amorphous carbon. The bulk of the 

 rock is made up of calcium and magnesium carbonates. 



About 1 or 2 miles farther on, at Barjagal, bluish- white to cream- 

 coloured quartzites, with a silvery micaceous glaze on the splitting- 

 surfaces, come in, with the same strike and dip. They are followed 

 near Imit by a siliceous ferruginous rock and a dark car- 

 bonaceous slaty rock containing numerous flakes of mica, red 

 in transmitted light. A biotite-gneiss follows, with intrusions 

 in it of a granulitic biotite-muscovite-granite, which appears to be 

 the Hatu P ir Granite. 



Beyond Imit a granite-dyked series crops up. The sample of 

 this granite that has been sent to me proves to be the Bait it 

 Hornblende-Granite. These intrusive dykes are so numerous, 

 and they have so completely altered the rock into which they 

 intruded, that the whole weathers and joints as an igneous rock. 

 The intrusion has produced a remarkable change in the character 

 of the scenery, rugged peaks and sharp ridges giving way to 

 rounded granite forms. 



The Gujhal Grey Limestone does not occur in situ between Imit 

 and the moraine of the Karunibar Glacier, but blocks of it are 

 scattered in the river-bed, showing its presence higher up the valley. 



Pakt III. — Conclusion. 



Prom Astor, on the extreme south, to Gilgit, the rocks are 

 mainly of igneous origin, and they are split up by irregular joints, 

 which have been mistaken by some observers for dip-planes. Prom 

 Gilgit northward to the Kilik Pass, leading to the Taghdumbash 

 Pamir, the strike of the rocks is approximately east-and-west, and 

 my son observed that the mountain-ranges run more or less in the 

 same direction ; as, for instance, the Rakapushi, Boiohaghurdoanas, 

 Irshad, and Kilik ranges. The direction of the strike, however, 

 has not exercised a predominating influence on the course of the 

 principal rivers. The Indus, indeed, has an easterly-and-westerly 

 direction through a considerable part of the Gilgit area, 1 and the 

 Hunza River runs more or less in a westerly direction from Ata- 

 abad to Chalt. But the Indus, from its junction with the Hunza, 

 runs as far as Ramghat ; and the Hunza, from the Kilik until it 

 flows into the Indus, with the exception of the portion above 

 mentioned, runs across the strike of the rocks in a southerly 

 direction. 



If we consider the lofty character of the mountain-ranges which 

 rise in peaks ranging from 20,000 to nearly 27,000 feet above sea- 

 level, and the fact that those on the northern boundary of Gilgit 



1 It resumes, and continues for a long distance, a nearly southerly course 

 before leaving Gilgit. 



