SHIBAR PASS AND SHUMBAL. 



51 



the cliffs on either side of the valley, large blocks of a coarse conglo- 

 merate can be seen lying about up to three hundred feet above the 

 present valley-bottom. The rock is quite indurated, and is composed 

 of pebbles of gneiss, slate and quartzite. The blocks are so large that 

 one would not expect them to have travelled far, yet I failed to find 

 the rock in situ in the neighbourhood; the present stream is quite 

 insignificant, and certainly could not have transported them, and ice 

 suggests itself as the most probable agent of their distribution. It 

 must be admitted that the blocks show none of the characteristic effects 

 of glaciation, but the ridge behind the caravansarai at Shumbal is 

 exactly like a moraine, and at a higher elevation one would not hesitate 

 to regard it as such. The only undoubted moraines that I met with 

 in this area were near the top of the Chahardar pass (13,900 feet), 

 whilst there were no traces of glaciation below 10,000 feet in the 

 Dehtang valley, which is a typical V-shaped river-valley. When one 

 remembers, however, that at the present day glaciers descend in North- 

 Western Kashmir to about 8,000 feet, their existence in the Shumbal 

 valley (about 9,000 feet) at no very distant date in the past does not 

 seem impossible. 



At Shumbal I found, for the first time, completely determinable 

 fossils ; the limestone mass on the south of the road, at the junction 

 of the stream from the Shibar pass with the Shumbal river, contains 

 Fusulinida, including Fusulina uralica Krotow. The limestone on 

 the northern side of the pass is presumably the continuation of this 

 belt. Among Mr. Griesbach's collections from Afghanistan I found 



three pieces of limestone (-yjrj and n^p) the locality of which was 

 given as " 1 mile west of Kala-i-Ali Madat, western slope of Shibar 

 pass." I did not discover these specimens until after my return from 

 Afghanistan, and I have not been able to identify Ali Madat's house 

 from my notes. The only important house on the western slopes of the 

 pass, however, is perhaps a little less than a mile to the east of the mouth 

 of the Shumbal gorge, and the locality in question is probably on the 

 belt of Fusulina limestone near Shumbal. The specimens are rather 



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