KAHMARD. 



65 



tour, but the Saighan series and overlying Red Grits and Cretaceous 

 beds seem to persist for a long way down the valley and probably run 

 through Doshi and Khinjan into Andarab. The Red Grit series forms 

 a conspicuous hill on the left side of the river opposite Barfak. The 

 beds of red conglomerate have been cut into vertical cliffs, which, owing 

 to the peculiar character of the jointing of the rock, might easily be 

 mistaken at a little distance for beds of columnar basalt (see 

 Plate 16). 



The lower hills behind (south of) Barfak are formed of the Doab 

 series which here consists of dark needle-shales, sandstone and great 

 masses of volcanic ash. The ash, which is grey on fresh fracture but 

 weathers white, forms thick beds between the shales. On the left side 

 of the small stream to the south of the village, there is a prominent 

 peak, which, when viewed from a short distance away appears to consist 

 of granite but is in reality composed of volcanic ash, in which are 

 embedded blocks of all sizes up to six inches in diameter ; these appear 

 to be lapilli and are sometimes almost spherical, sometimes angular. 

 The bed in which they occur is about 200 feet thick, but this thickness 

 appears to be only local. In the hills between the river and the path 

 to Ishpushta, there is a good exposure of the junction between the Doab 

 and Saighan series. The base of the latter is the usual white sandy 

 ash ; below this is grey ash underlain by dark needle-shale like a 

 normal shale of marine origin. This part of the series contains bands 

 of amygdaloidal trap, but is also thickly penetrated by dykes of dark 

 grey trap and a fine-grained white felsitic rock which extend up into 

 the lower beds of the Saighan series. For convenience the white sandy 

 ash has been adopted as the basal bed of the Saighan series which is 

 remarkable for the bright colours of its component rocks, whereas all 

 the beds below the white ash are almost invariably dark. 



Above Doab-i-Mekkzarm, the valley of the Kahmard river is wide 

 where it passes through the soft beds of the 

 Saighan and Red Grit series, but at Tangi 

 Muyak the stream has cut a narrow gorge across the steeply dipping 



F 



