PART 1.] Lydekker: Geology of Kashmir, Kishtwar, arid Pangi. 
35 
devoid of any signs of visible stratification, and forms bold massive cliffs, very 
different in appearance from tbe slates of the Pir Panjal. 
I cannot but think, both from the physical appearance, and from the composi¬ 
tion of these rocks (and more especially fr’om the presence of chrysolite and 
nodules or amygdala of chalcedony) that they are, in great part at least, of 
eruptive origin; although some of their upper beds may have been brought into 
their present state by the aid of metamorphism. 
Assuming then the, at all events, partly eruptive origin of these Sind valley 
rocks, it remains to see what relation they bear to the thin-bedded amygdaloids 
of the Pir Panjal. Now, these presumably eruptive Sind valley rocks underlie 
the carboniferous limestone ; they do not, however, penetrate into this Umestone, 
which must have been the case were they intrusive trap ; we can, therefore, only 
presume they are of contemporaneous origin with the rock series with which they 
are associated,—that is to say, that they are of i»?/ra-carboniferous age, or of the 
same age as the upper slates and amygdaloids of the Pir Panjal range. It 
may be observed in passing that, even regarding these rocks as eruptive and contem¬ 
poraneous, it is remarkable that no case of intrusion should have been observed in 
connexion with them. This important evidence is wanting to finally decide the 
question of their origin. 
The rocks of the ujjper Panjal series must be therefore contemporaneous with the 
trappoid rocks of the Lower Sind valley, and if, as seems to be the ease, the latter 
be of eruptive origin, it would seem probable that some of the amygdaloids of the 
Panjal are likewise of eruptive origin, although there is a gradual transition 
from the typical amygdaloids to the slates, which, in some cases, may perhaps 
be due to the effect of metamorphic action, or to the original commingling of 
detrital and eruptive matter. 
On the emptive hypothesis of the origin of the amygdaloids in the two 
areas, it remains to be considered why in one area they are associated with slates 
and in the other with rocks of more decidedly igneous characters. Now, I think 
the most probable explanation of this difference is that in the upper Panjal 
period, there were a number of small and intermittent flows of trap in the area 
of the Pir Panjal range, and that deposition of mud went on regularly in the 
intervals between these flows; moreover, these flows of trap seem to have been 
too thin to have produced greenstone-like rocks, all of them being more or less 
amygdaloidal or vesicular, and indicating no great pressure fr’om above. In the 
greater part of the Sind valley area, on the contrary, there seems generally to 
have been exceedingly little trap poured forth among the slate series which under¬ 
lies the carboniferous limestone, but in the Lower Sind valley and near Srinagar 
we have a vast mass of trap which was poured forth immediately before the 
deposition of the cai boniferous limestone, and which seems to have been extremely 
local, since higher up the Sind vaUey (— infra) we find pure slates underlying 
the carboniferous limestone. This Lower Sind vaUey trap was of such thickness 
as to have produced greenstone-like rocks in its lower portion, where the pressure 
was greatest; while in its higher portion, where the pressure was of course far 
less, we find amygdaloidal and vesicular rocks, like those of the Pir Panjal j 
mingled with rocks which may be altered slates. 
