I1AYDEN : GEOLOGY OF NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN. 



is F. clongata Shumard, which had previously been recorded onlv from 

 Texas and Afghanistan. On the other hand, the fauna of the Afghan 

 Fusulina limestone has no apparent affinities with that of the Productus 

 Limestone of the Salt Range, but this may quite well be due merely to 

 our very meagre knowledge of its contents. The late Dr. von Krafft 

 also found Fusulina limestone extensively developed in Darwaz, but 

 here again the Fusulina were apparently unrelated to Salt Range 

 types (19, 58). At the same time there seems to be equally little 

 relationship between the respective faunas of the Fusulina limestones of 

 Darwaz and Bamiiin ; this, however, may also be due to the smallness 

 of the collections from Afghanistan and Darwaz. 



Fusulina limestone has not been recorded from Western Afghanistan, 

 but Mr. Griesbach regarded the fossiliferous limestone of Herdt 

 and Khorasan 1 as equivalent to that of Bamian. It is found again in 

 Baluchistan (31, 162) where, however, it has not been examined in detail 

 and the affinities of its fauna are unknown. 



After the formation of the Fusulina limestone, important change s 

 took place in Afghanistan. Except in the hills to the east of the Kabul 

 plain, no Lower Triassic rocks have been found. The Khingil series, 

 which appears to have been deposited in a bay of the Tethys running out 

 from the Himalayan area, is in its upper part only a westerly extension 

 of the Himalayan Trias. Whether this extended further into Western 

 Afghanistan and Afghan Turkistan, it is impossible to say, since no 

 trace of Lower Trias has been found in any part of that region ; if it 

 had ever existed, one would expect to find a certain amount of it pre- 

 served, yet neither Mr. Griesbach nor I have met to the north or west 

 of Kabul with anything resembling the Lower Trias of the Himalaya.2 



1 Among his collections are a hard dark limestone with Producti, which exactly 

 resemhles the hand with Productus in the Fusulina limestone of the Khwajagar dara 

 in Bamian ; other specimens from Khorasan are very like the brachiopod-bearing lime- 

 stone of the Kotal-i-Hajigak, which I regard as Devonian. The latter specimens have 

 been sent to Mr. F. R. Cowper Reed, who has confirmed my views as to their age 

 and identity. 



2 Mr. Griesbach's so-called " anthracite series and lower trias " of Saighan has 

 already been shown to be in all probability at least as old as Carboniferous {supra, p. 57). 



