66 
Records of the Geological Survey of India. 
[VOL. YU. 
these, so as to form the cricket-ground at “ the Flats,” three miles below the station on the 
Kashmir road, and for the croquet or archery ground south-west of Pinacle hill. Both of 
these localities are situated on the very hack of the ridge ; near the former rises the summit 
ot Topa; but the hitter, at a much greater elevation, is commanded by no greatly higher 
ground in its immediate neighbourhood. The clay in Both cases is evidently water-washed 
detritus, and it is not easy now to suggest where the ground was once situated which formed 
the catchment area to cause these deposits, though they indicate clearly enough a former 
different configuration of the hills, and point to adjacent masses above them having been 
entirely removed by meteoric denudation. Such facts as these, and the constant occurrence 
of landslips on the slopes ot these steep ridges, all more or less ‘ dressed’ to a uniform in¬ 
clination, force upon the observer a recognition of the slow but enormous atmospheric 
erosion by which these khuds and ridges have been formed, here doubtless largely aided by 
the periodic rains and winter snows.* 
The rocks of which the Mari ridge itself is formed, and all those for a long distance 
southwards, present a sameness amounting to monotony. They belong to a vast series of 
alternating gray or purplish sandstones and deep purplish-red claj’s, with occasional finely 
concretionary pseudo-conglomeratic bands. The series forms one of the lowest sub-divisions 
of the great outer tertiary zone of sandstones, clays, and conglomerates, coincident and 
co-extensive with the southern frontage of the Himalayan mountains. It is evidently the 
same group of rocks as one of the lower divisions of Mr. Medlicott’s sub-Himalayan series, 
in the Simla country, apparently corresponding to the Dagskai beds of that section ; but 
this being still debateable, it has here been called provisionally after the station—‘The Mari 
Group. Its thickness is difficult to estimate owing to the contorted positions of the beds, but 
it must he very great; indeed, trom an observation where the same rocks were locally less 
disturbed in Kashmir, the group may considerably exceed 5,000 feet. 
To the south the Mari rocks are succeeded by very similar red clays and grayer or bluish 
sandstones passing upwards into soft light gray sandstones, having local strings of lignite, 
and alternating with rusty orange clays. The latter are succeeded by conglomerates as 
described in a previous paper in these Records (Vol. YI, part 3). 
The strata composing that half of the Mari ridge descending towards the Rawal Pindi 
plateau are either contorted or present a steep inclination towards the north-west, as though 
to pass beneath the limestone hills forming the opposite side of the khud in that direction. 
This feature is nowhere more marked than towards the south-west end of the Mari station, 
where it may he seen in sandstones aDd clays all round and over the observatory hill, the 
outcropping edges of other strong sandstones underlying these beds being traceable along 
the adjacent side of the khud to the south-east; and the same strongly marked dip being 
plainly visible from side to side of the ridge in the height overlooking the Lawrence Asylum 
and the Mari brewery. It occurs again on the road to Kashmir aud in other parts of the 
station; hut is not universal, for towards Kashmir point there are many inclinations to the 
westward aud southward of west, chiefly on the northern side of the ridge, while over the 
continuation of this, towards Hewal and Kashmir, the latter and other dips in different 
directions indicate the contorted state of the beds. It is perhaps owing to this circumstance 
* The well known. Himalayan feature of the forests being confined to one aspect of hills, particularly those in 
which the Paluder tree, ( Pindrao , or Pinas Smithiuna ?) predominates is well marked about Mari. Here the densely 
Avooded slopes are those presented most to the northwards or north by ivest, the opposite or sunny side being often 
nearly bare of trees. The forest at Mari ends sharply at the summit of the ridge, and yet Paluder forest may be 
seen creeping down the south-western slopes of Chumba peak above Khairagali on the upper road to Abbottabad 
as if the exception were necessary to prove the rule. 
