1840.] 



On the Geology of Cutch. 



32.5 



The southern base of the Mhurr hills is now approached, and pre- 

 sents a most confused appearance, the country at their foot being shat- 

 tered in all directions. It is impossible to conceive ground in a more 

 disturbed state. The banks and ridges, varying from 20 to 60 feet in 

 height, are partly composed of a coarse, calcareous grit, full of the 

 marine shells already enumerated, and partly of a blood-red coloured 

 clay, which has apparently been altered by a trap dyke. One bank 

 exposes a section, 60 to 70 feet high, of horizontal layers of gravel, clay, 

 shelly rock, and iron clay, which in one spot appear to have fallen in bodi- 

 ly, dipping abruptly from both sides to a point. 



Fossils,— The principal deposit of fossil shells which came under my 

 inspection, was at the village of Soomrow, ju-t described. The speci- 

 mens which I collected have been examined by Mr. James Sowerby^ 

 and found to consist of 33 known genera. Of the 57 species belonging 

 to these genera, 47 are new, 6 are known, and 4 are doubtful. The 

 most numerous among the univalves belong to the genera Mitra and 

 Voluta : there are also great quantities of the genera Cerithium and 

 Terebra ; some of the latter being very beautifully marked. The 

 genera Solarium, Conus, and Strombus also abound. Among the 

 bivalves, the Pectens are most numerous ; and among the Radiata, are 

 great numbers of Clypeaster. Most of the fossils which I collected, 

 either lay closely on the gravelly bank, or were cemented into large ta- 

 bular slabs of rock. 



1 was informed by the natives, that, about the year 1834, great quan- 

 tities of large fossil shells, called by tlie country people Sonk or Con\ 

 being a species of Turbinella, were found in a land-crack, in a field 

 about two miles from this spot ; and so per.'ect, that they were given 

 to the priests of the different temples in the neighbourhood, who, by 

 inserting a metal tube into the apex of the shell, converted them into 

 horns, to call the devout to prayer. I could not, however, find any 

 ■when I visited the spot, the crack having been filled up by subsequent 

 floods. 



Exteiit of the Tertiary Formation. —These tertiary beds reach, in 

 one place, to the town of Mhurr, a distance of thirty miles from the 

 sea, and extend in a belt of, perhaps, a third of that breadth, through- 

 out the whole southern coast of the province. A narrow line should 

 also be drawn along the borders of the Runn, and around the islands ia 

 it, as the fossils, found on the immediate shores, belong to the tertiary 

 period. 



