HELMAND SEKIES. 



25 



fVom slightly below the village of Siah-gird in Ghorband the hematite, 

 associated with a red limestone, runs all along the lower slopes on the 

 left side of the valley past Kaoshan to Ashawa, where the strike (N.E.- 

 S.W.) carries it across the lower spurs of the Hindu Kush to Parwan. 

 Thence it runs on up the Panjshir valley into the hills of Kohistan. 



In the Ghorband valley, the hematite bed is overlain by a crystal- 

 line series consisting of slate, schist and limestone, which presumably 

 represents the Hajigak series ; the only fossils found in it were crinoid 

 stems, which occur in profusion in the Waghzar ravine, but as the 

 limestone has been metamorphosed and is quite crystalline, the fossils 

 are not determinable. 



Helmand Series. 



Along the north-western side of the Paghman range, in the Sang- 

 lakh range throughout the upper reaches of the Helmand and again 

 in the Koh-i-Baba, there is a very extensive series of slate and 

 quartzite, the beds of which are often vertical or dip at high angles to 

 north or south. It is well seen in the Helmand basin between the col 

 at the head of the Kabul river (Kotal-i-Unai) and Kharzar at the foot 

 of the Kotal-i-Hajigak on the Kok-i-Baba and may be called for conve- 

 nience the Helmand series. In places intrusive granite has converted 

 the slate into phyllite with chiastolite and occasionally into well- 

 defined schist ; this has occurred between Gardan Diwal on the Hel- 

 mand and Jaokul. Here the series contains also limestone which has 

 been converted by the granite sometimes into calc-schist and some- 

 times into a grey saccharoid marble. On the west side of the Kotal-i- 

 Unai, on the water-parting between the Helmand and Kabul rivers, 

 a conspicuous member of the series is a dark greenish, compact but 

 fairly coarse conglomerate. 



The relationship of the Helmand series to other series in this area 

 is very obscure. On the Kotal-i-Hajigak, above Kharzar, it appears at 

 one time to overlie and at another to underlie the Hajigak limestone 

 which is probably of Devonian age. In the Ghorband valley, however, 



