3-22 



On the Geologrj of Cutch. 



[Oct. 



through the southern ridge, made for the purpose of connecting two 

 tanks, the same beds dip from 40° to 50"^ due south. In the centre 

 ridge the section is not quite so perfect, but the beds are nearly, if not 

 truly, horizontal, forming an anticlinal axis to the other two. 



This elevated tract of the nummulitic limestone extends only three 

 miles to the eastward of Luckput, the ground there descending abruptly 

 into a plain, composed of various clays, a coarse ferruginous stone and 

 sandstone, with quantities of selenite scattered about, the whole present- 

 ing a confused appearance, as if it had been the site of an igneous out- 

 burst. Patches of ground, every here and there, have also an aUered ap- 

 pearance, and are covered with small fragments of igneous rock. The 

 plain is bounded to the south by a low range of basaltic hills. From 

 Luckput southward to the village of Punundrow, the same nummulitic 

 rock continues, but varies in hardness from a compact limestone to a 

 white marl. It is also very well exposed t)etween the villages of Eyeraio 

 and Wage-ke-Pudda, at the southern limits of the formation. To the 

 S. W. of Eyeraio is a plain, composed of a white calcareous marl, and 

 flanked to the south by a low range of hills of the same material, sendiiig 

 off into the plain numerous small projections, with rounded terminations 

 precisely like headlands. Numerous isolated hillocks, or high banks, 

 with sides worn in the same way, and resembling islands, are scattered 

 about the plain, and the whole surface looks as if it had only lately been 

 deserted by water, or as if a violent flood had swept over it. The banks 

 of the small nullahs, which intersect the plain, are composed of gravel, 

 containing rounded masses of a variety of the calcareous mark Advanc- 

 ing westward, the ground rises a little, and the surface consists of a hard 

 rock, which contains oysters and other bivalves, whilst in some places 

 large patches are entirely composed of silicified corals. I also found in 

 this place fragments of fossil bone, said by Messrs. Clift and Owen to 

 be parts of rib-bones, like those of the Manatus, but flatter. To the 

 north, this plain is bounded by a river, the perpendicular banks of which, 

 60 or 70 feet in height, consist entirely of nummulitic marl, capped by a 

 thin stratum of gravel. In one part, the bed of the river is subjected to 

 the action of a small stream of water, so strongly impregnated with saline 

 ingredients, that large lumps of salt are formed in the hollows worn in 

 the rock, which here assumes the character of a hard limestone, probably 

 In part due to the quality of the water that passes over it. The beds 

 are horizontal, except where they have been disturbed and shattered. 



Characteristic Fossils.— The. most characteristic fossils of this forma- 

 tion, next to the Nummulites and Fasciolites, are Echini, Galerites, 



