PUJrjAB OIL EEGIOJSr. 



11 



and there are traces of it at yet two other places, making eight in all. Asphalt, or 

 dried oil, is found in small quantities at fom- of these places, and at four other places, 

 at two in notable quantities. At most of the asphalt places there are traces of rock 

 tar or asphalt melted in the heat of the sun ; and at one of them (Aluggud) as much 

 as 100 gallons. Besides these dozen places where oil or asj^halt is found there are 

 half a dozen places where there are small traces of one or the other, enough to attract 

 notice in .the minute examination of the country by its inhabitants. About half of 

 all the places are in the north-eastern corner of the region ; about half towards the 

 south-western corner ; and one or two in the north-western corner towards the middle. 



The Aluggud oil (now dried to asphalt) seems to have come from rocks of carbon- 

 iferous age, to judge by their fossils, though other things would rather show that they 

 were of later age. If they are carboniferous, then the nummulitic rocks are wanting 

 above them, and have thinned completely away from a thickness of 2,000 feet only 

 thirty miles distant. This oil is also the only case of oil outside of the older tertiary 

 rocks anywhere in the whole region. 



All the other oil springs or shows of oil in the southern part of the region are on 

 the northern side of the Salt Range and in the nummulitic lime rock or close above 

 it. The northern ones are either in the nummulitic lime rock, of the Choor Hills, 

 the same probably as that of the Salt Range ; or in the Gunda rocks (chiefly sand 

 rocks) that lie south of them, also accompanied by nummulites. 



In every case the oil seems to come from a deposit of very small horizontal extent, 

 sometimes only a few feet, seldom as much as a few hundred yards ; only in one case, 

 that of the Chhota Kutta and Buri'a Kutta oil springs, near Jaba does the deposit 

 seem to extend as much as half a mile. Here, too, the oil comes from a thickness of 

 about a hundred feet, and the natural springs yield at one place as much as three 

 quarts a day. At all the other places the oil comes from a much smaller thickness of 

 of rock, from forty feet at Aluggud and twenty at Gunda and Punnoba doAvnwards. 

 Scarcely do any two oil springs come from the same bed of rock. 



The oil is dark green in color, and so heavy as to mark 25° of Beaume's scale, or 

 even less. The Gunda oil has been burned a little by the natives with a simple wick 

 resting on the side of an open dish ; but the Punnoba oil is more inflammable, and 

 needs a special tube for the wick, though the main opening of the dish or lamp may 

 stay uncovered. The oil genei'ally, however, has been little used for burning except 

 at Punnoba; but has been sought for as a cure for the sore backs of camels. The 

 asphalt was also highly prized forty years ago by the natives as medicine, taken in 

 pills, especially for broken bones. It was carried far and wide, and was called 

 " negro's fat, " because it was generally believed to have dripped from the brains of a 



