PART a.] 
Blanford: On the Geology of Sind. 
165 
in the shales. These olive shales and sandstones are highly fossiliferons, the most 
common and conspicuous fossils being Gardita beamnonti, the a£6nities of which 
are shewn by D’Archiac and Haime to be with a cretaceous form, and a Nautihis, 
which Mr., Fedden has, I believe correctly, identified with N. bouchardianm, a 
Gault species in Europe, but found in the upper cretaceous beds (Arialur) of 
Southern India. Another species of Nautilus also is allied to some cretaceous 
types. The first named species may be N. labechei of D’Archiac and Haime, 
from which it only differs in the siphuncle being median instead of interior, 
but this character sometimes varies with age in Nautili. Amongst the other 
fossils occuiTing is a species of Epiaster, a genus of Echinoderms almost confined 
to upper cretaceous beds. The only form in the olive shales hitherto identified as 
common to the Ranikot group is Corbula harpa. Besides the above, species of 
Gidaris and of anEchinoderm allied to I'ygorhynchus, Rostellaria, Cijpr^Ba, Natica, 
Turritella, Cardium and Ostrea occur, with two species of Corals. A few imper¬ 
fect Reptilian vertebree have been determined by Mr. Lydekker as belonging to an 
Amphicselian Crocodilian with distinctly mesozoic afiinities. 
AU the cretaceous beds abovementioned appear to be perfectly conformable 
to each other and to the overlying trap. It is premature to attempt correlation 
of these cretaceous rocks, but it may be remarked, that some peculiar olive 
shales, which underlie the nummulitic limestone of the Salt Range in the Punjab 
conformably, and which have been classed by Dr. Waagen as probably of creta¬ 
ceous age, may represent the very similar beds in Sind. 
Deccan trap. —Besides the bed of trap just noticed as occurring inter stratified 
with the cretaceous sandstones, the basalt first observed at Ranikot in 1863,^ 
and subsequently found further noidh at Jakhmari and other places,^ has now 
been traced throughout the whole distance, upwards of 20 miles, between 
Jakhmari and Ranikot, wherever the base of the Ranikot beds is exposed. The 
thickness of the trap vaiies from about 40 to about 90 feet, the average being 
60 or 70. The only rock is basalt, of which, in places, there appear to be two 
flows similar in mineral character; the upper portion of each flow is amyg- 
daloidal. 
In the previous paper on Sind Geology, it was stated^ that the relations of 
the trap were obscure, and although this was corrected in a postscript'll so far, 
that the interstratification of the trap flow was said to have been clearly ascer¬ 
tained, the most important point, the probable relation of the volcanic rock in 
question to the great Deccan and Malwa trap series, was left undetermined. The 
interest of this question and the possibility that the basalt seen for a few feet only 
in the bed of the stream at Ranikot might be a representative of the Deccan 
trap, were naturally mentioned in the first notice of the occurrence.® The trap 
series, it may be remembered, has been traced from the Deccan and Malwa 
throughout Kattywar and Cutch, to within about 160 miles of Ranikot, so that 
> Mem. G. S. I., VI, p. 5. 
2 Reo. G. S. I., IX, pp. 11. 22. 
3 Ib., p. 11. 
* Ib., p. 22. 
^ Mom. G. S. I., VI, p, 12. 
