part 4.] Lydekker: Geology of Pir Patijal and neighbouring Din!riels. 
159 
Mr. Mallet has kindly examined a specimen oP this gneiss for mo, and says that it is 
composed of the four following minerals, viz., orthoelase forming the large crystals, frequently 
twins, of a dead white colour ; milk-white quartz ; and two species of mica, probably biotite 
and muscovite. This appears to be the same gneiss as that described by Dr. Stoliczkaas con¬ 
taining albite veins. 
The limestone band continues to underlie tbe metamorpkic series from T T 'ri to the Suran 
River, where I have taken another cross section ; on the Bitarh River, between these two 
points, the green amygdaloidal rocks are intercalated with the slate series, a short distance 
from the limestone. 
The section up the course of the Suran River towards the Pir Panjal Pass gives the fol¬ 
lowing series of rocks. Leaving the red rocks of the Sirmur group at the village of Draba, 
we come upon a thick band of dark-blue limestone (without polychroic shales) similar to 
that of Bn; the limestone is rather more altered and slaty than to the west, and is soon 
succeeded by thick-bedded flaggy shales, and then again by a variety of the peculiar amygda¬ 
loidal rocks noticed hy Mr. Medlicott (sup, eit., p. 52). 
Before noticing these latter rocks, I must refer to a statement of Major Godwin-Austen, 
asserting the existence of nummulitic limestone on the southern face of the Pir Panjal 
(G. I., G. S. L., vol. XX, p. 385). The outcrop of limestone noticed above must, I presume, 
be the limestone referred to, as no other exists on the Pir Pan jal. When Major Godwin-Austen 
speaks of the sandstone as overlying the limestone, he must imply a normal overlie with 
inversion, for the apparent relations from dip would place the sandstones of the Sirmur 
group below the limestones ; in reality the two are separated by a fault. 
The passage of the limestone into the overlying slates, however, is so clear, that there 
can be no doubt but that they belong to this series. The only remaining question is—does 
the limestone contain nummulites ? In answer to this, I can only say' that after a very 
careful search I never met with any ; and, moreover, Major Godwin-Austen himself makes no 
mention of having found nummulites in these beds; apparently, he only placed this lime¬ 
stone in the nummulitic group from its apparent association with the red rocks in the 
same manner as he at first supposed the limestone of the Dal Lake in Kashmir to he num- 
mulitic, which afterwards turned out to be carboniferous. This limestone is serially continu¬ 
ous with that of Urf, in which both Mr. Wynne and myself have carefully hunted for 
nummulites without success. 
Returning now to the so-called “ amygdaloidal traps,” we find these rocks of very 
common occurrence all along the Pir Panjal range. They were considered by Dr. Verehere to 
be of volcanic origin—a supposition which does not appear to me to be borne out by their 
mode of occurrence; unfortunately, I have mislaid the specimens which I had intended to 
bring down for examination. 
These amygdnloids always occur interstratified with the slates of the metamorpliic series, 
the passage between the one and the other being gradual. They generally also seem to be 
locally continuous in extent with tbe slate series,—not thinning out, as should be tbe case if 
they were contemporaneous traps; neither are there any beds of trap-ash in the series. There 
is no sign of any greater alteration in tbe slate beds which lie below them than in those above 
them, and tbe amygdaloids themselves are very distinctly stratified. The base of the rock 
is either green or purple in colour, and the amygdala either green or white, varying in size 
from that of a pea to that of a small walnut; they are frequently irregular in shape; the 
base is very hard and fine grained, and appears to be partly silicious. 
In places, as on the Banihal Pass, these rocks pass imperceptibly up or down into almost 
unaltered earthy sandstones and grits, without amygdala; of these sandstones there can be 
