part 3 .] Wynne: Tertiary zone and underlying rocks in N.-W. Pan jab. 127 
“ Metamnrphic and Silurian.” —Over a considerable area outside the Hazara granitoid 
rocks, slightly metamorphosed, dull, talcose, silky slates were traversed, representing the 
local “ Attock slates” of Nowshera, Abbottabad, &c. Some of the altered beds (on the road 
from Mansera to Oar hi Hahibiilla, for instance) weather to a substance resembling porcelain 
clay. Greenstone dykes and masses intersect the inner portion of the slates, and syenitic pro¬ 
trusions occur, but no stratified or foliated gneiss nor any mass of quartzites or mica schists 
was met with, though such were known to Dr. Fleming among these mountains, probably 
at places which I did not visit. 
In the Upper Haz&ra slates and those of Miaujani mountain limestones are absent or 
uncommon, but occur extensively in the Gandgarh mountain north of Hassan Abdul, in the 
Attock hills and towards Mirkulan. These limestone bands have varied textures, from 
pseudo-brecciated to compact, and are often magnesian: one remarkable bed, though unaccom¬ 
panied by other local metamorphism, resembles a clear sub-crystal Hue and compact white 
altered marble ; it is slightly affected by acid. It stretches along the southern face of the 
Attock and Mirkulan hills. It is not improbable that several of these limestones, though closely 
associated with the dark slates, do not belong exactly to that series, but to some newer group. 
Others are undoubtedly interstratified. 
In none of the slates or intercalated limestones have I been able to find a single organism; 
but in the bal'd limestones near Dakner, I found obscure traces of small gastropods and 
other shells, barely recognisable as organic : further west, at Mirkulan pass, these traces 
are stronger, and a few fossils can be distinguished. 
The stratification of the slates is often obscured by a number of cross-cleavages, which 
render their furnishing slate of economic value unlikely. As a rule, they are very thinly 
laminated, this structure enabling slab or bedding slates to be raised where the cleavage is less 
prominent or coincides with the bedding; the material, however, is soft and weathers easily. 
Bands of dark-greenish, gritty, fine-grained sandstone are not uncommon. The whole group 
often shows intense folding and compression. 
A possibly Silurian age for these slates has been chiefly inferred from the discovery of 
Silurian fossils by Dr. Falconer and Major Vicary in the Peshawar district, apparently not 
in situ, hut traced to the Khyber mountains in Afghanistan. These fossils are stated to have 
been of lower Silurian age. Major Vicary mentions Spirifer, Orthis, Terebratula (?) and 
Polyparia in limestone. Similar genera occurring in the carboniferous and secondary rocks 
of the other parts of the country, the evidence as to Silurian age is limited, so far as any 
information at present available extends, to Dr. Falconer’s fossils, as referred to by Major 
Godwin-Austen (in Quar. Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond. Vol. xxii, p. 29). 
The slate group is perhaps older than carboniferous,* and may he a continuation of the 
azoic slates of Dr. Stoliczka’s Himalayan sections. 
“Infra-Triassie.” —Besting upon the Attock slates with complete unconformity is the 
series of Sirban mountain in Hazara (see Memoirs, No. 12 of List). The unfossiliferous red 
sandstones, haematitic and silicious magnesian beds, there underlying the triassic formation, 
are of unascertained age, and have not as yet been found elsewhere. 
“ Triassic.” —The triassic formation of the whole northern region consists largely of 
limestones often so slightly fossiliferons as to he very difficult to distinguish from those of 
* Last season Mr. Lydekkcr found in ft detached block near Hassan Abdal a specimeu of Productus Humboldti, 
common in the Salt. Range carboniferous formation. I have since searched the place in vain for any evidence of the 
existence of carboniferous rocks in the locality. It is possiblo that some may occur among the limestones on the 
south side of Gandgarh mountain to the north, though I failed to find a fossil of any kind in the only traverse of 
the mountain I have as yet been able to make. 
