48 
SECOND YARKAND MISSION. 
North of the metamorphic axis of the Kuenluen range, the hills sloping clown to the 
plain of Yarkand consist principally of various forms of schistose rock, slates, and limestone. 
In the latter, north of Sanju, carboniferous fossils were found in some places, hut the rocks 
are, as a rule, destitute of organic remains. On the western route the only limestone seen 
was dolomitic and unfossiliferous. Towards the edge of the plain, formations of later date 
crop out ; and near Sanju red sandstones, capped by grey calcareous sandstones and chloritic 
marls, are found, the latter containing cretaceous fossils ; and upon these, again, rest gravels 
and clays of still later date. The cretaceous rocks were not observed further west. 
The ranges lying west of the Yarkand plain, and intervening between it and the Pamir 
watershed, appear to be composed chiefly of the same rocks as the Kuenluen, south of 
Yarkand. Only one section was examined, and this was traversed twice. Near the plain 
the prevailing beds are carbonaceous slates, sandstones, and conglomerates, probably palaeozoic, 
with which greenstone is associated. A few limestones were seen, and traces of the red 
cretaceous sandstones of Sanju : the latter, however, was not examined in situ. No fossili- 
ferous beds were observed, but the slates, sandstones, and conglomerates are probably palaeozoic, 
like the corresponding rocks in the Kuenluen. Further from the plain, in the district of 
Sarikol, the slates and their associated beds become metamorphosed, and pass into schist and 
gneiss, upon which, close to the frontier of Wakhan, near Aktash, rest black slates, and lime- 
stones of apparently carboniferous age ; and above these, again, other limestones with triassic 
fossils, and sandstones. 
The Pamir itself between the Yarkand frontier at Aktash and Panjah, the principal village 
of Wakhan, was twice crossed, the return route lying a little north of the other, and each 
following one of the two streams, which unite to form the head of the southern or main 
source of the Oxus. The geology throughout is of the very simplest description. The carboni- 
ferous and triassic limestones were only found for a very short distance west of the Yarkand 
frontier; and thence to Panjah the whole country consisted of black slates, occasionally capped 
by reddish slates and conglomerates, and resting upon gneiss, which forms the great mass of 
the plateau. The slates are, doubtless, palaeozoic ; but no evidence of their precise age was 
obtained. The gneiss is line-grained ; it contains biotite, and is, in places, traversed by veins 
of albite granite, and it altogether so much resembles the “ central gneiss ” of the Himalayas 
north of Simla, that it may be a continuation of the same rock. Immense accumulations of 
boulders and sand were observed on the Pamir, in all the river valleys and around the lakes. 
The two journeys made to the mountains north of Kashghar, which are a continuation 
of the Thian Shan range, and unite it to the Pamir or Bolor, scarcely extended beyond 
the southern skirts of the range, the greater portion of which lies within the Russian terri- 
tory. The first of these journeys extended nearly 100 miles in a direction north by west, 
from Kashghar to a lake called the Chadyr-kul ; the second, to a distance of about 120 miles 
north-east to the Belauti pass. After passing the gravel slopes on the edge of the Kashghar plain, 
and some ridges of sand and clays, which appear to be of tertiary date, and which Dr. Stoliczka 
calls the Artysh beds, the first range met with to the westward consists of dark triassic 
limestones, resting on greenish shales, and the next range of old shales, slates, and sandstones, 
with crystalline limestone. More to the eastward all the fossiliferous rocks are of carboniferous 
age : they consist of grey dolomitic limestone, resting on a limestone breccia, passing into con- 
glomerate, and locally interstratified with greenish shales. This series, probably, represents the 
old slates and their associates seen further to the west. On this eastern route the carboniferous 
limestones extend to the Belauti pass, where they are capped by darker limestones, on which 
