10 
liecords of Hie Geological Surveg of hulia. 
[vOL. Xf. 
found in tlie Laki range had remained somewhat doubtful, the country in which 
the rock occurs being difficult of access, the geology complicated by faults and 
disturbance, and the topographical map very imperfect. It lias, however, now been 
clearly ascertained that a band of contompoivaneous volcanic rock, from 40 to 90 
feet thick, intciwenes between the base of the Ranikot gi’oup (lower eocene) and 
the cretaceous beds, and there can be no reasonable doubt that this thin lava-flow 
represents the great naas.s of the Deccan traps. The geological position of these 
trayj.s below the eocene group, as inferred from their relations in the lower Nar¬ 
bada (Nerbudda) valley, has thus been confirmed from independent evidence. 
The cretaceous bcd.s between Ranikot and Laki have been found to be above 
1,000 feet thick, their ba.se not being exposed, and they are sub-ditdded into three 
groups marked by dilferenees of mincr’al charactei’ and of fossils. The lowest 
group is the limestone in which a JHfpv/rita was found last year. 
In the Laki range and the country around Jhirk and Tatta, the nummulitic 
Khirtbar limestone rests upon the Ranikot group, the latter being about 2,000 
feet thick where most fully developed, and overlying the traps and cretaceous beds 
above noticed. But west of the Khirtbar range, in Upper Sind, Mr. Blanford 
found, in a traverse which he made for a short distance beyond the frontier on the 
upper Gaj river, a thicknc.ss of at least 10,000 feet of beds underlying the Khirthar 
limestone, and having no resemblance to the rocks in the same position to the 
south-east. These lower beds on the west of the Khirthar range consist of shales, 
limestoucs, and sandstones; and fossils were detected in jilaccs throughout the 
upper 4,000 or 6,000 feet, the lower portion being apparently unfossiliferous. All 
the fos.sils found were nummulitic and shewed the rocks to be of eocene age. 
Somewhat similar beds w’erc observed on the Habb river, where the great mass of 
Khirthar limestone, so conspicuous throughout the greater part of Sind, completely 
thins out and disappears in the course of 20 or 30 miles. The ciilcareous shales 
and sandy beds which replace the limestone, and the very similar rocks seen 
beneath the tyjiical Khirthars on the upper Gaj, are identified by Mr. Blanford 
with the beds which he traversed in Western Makran, between Gwadar and Jalk, 
in 1872. 
Both Mr. Fcdden and Mr. Blanford have found that all the tertiary groups of 
Sind, although well marked and distinct in places, pass into each other elsewhere, 
thus repeating, in the extreme west of India, the pheiromena already noticed in 
the Himalayas. It has been found very difficult in many cases to map the dis¬ 
tinctions between the different groups. In parts of Lower Sind near Karachi the 
Gaj (miooene) and Mairchhar groups appear to be completely irrtermingled, tyjrical 
representatives of both being interstrati lied. This shews that the connexion 
between these two grotrps is closer than was at first sttpposed, and further evidence 
tending to a similar conclusion, and adding greatly to orrr previous knowledge 
of the later tertiary Vertebratn, has also been derived fi'om the collections of 
mammalian remains made in the Jlanchhar beds. 
A few mammalian teeth and bones were found by Mr. Fedden in 1875-76 in 
the beds of the Manchhar gi'orrp, and, on examination by Mr. Lydekker, were 
found to comprise some forms lonnd also in the Siwaliks, together with others 
unknown elsewhere, but having a somewhat older facies. Itr the coirrse of the 
