From this fauna it appears therefore that the limestone of Sheikh Bodeen is equivalent to the Oxfordian formation of England, and that the uppermost beds are contemporary to the English Coral Rag or rather to the Calcaire a Néimaes of the Zena. We shall see presently in the country of the Wuzeerees, beds which are, in all probability, the equivalent of the Coral Rag. Some of the Oolitic shells collected by Dr. Gerard in Spiti are represented in Dr. Royle's Illustrations of the Botany and other branches of the Natural History of the Himalayan mountains; the drawings are by T. Sowerby and are remarkably good. The form numbered 17 in Royle's plates and described as an Arca or Cuculloa is found at Sheikh Bodeen; the Rhynchonella 20 and 21, described as Terebratulæ or Atrypæ, are common at Sheikh Bodeen; the two species of Ammonites, figs. 22 and 24, are also found at Sheikh Bodeen, as well as the two species of Belemnites represented figs. 25 and 26 and fig. 27. The fig. 23, called a Delthyris, has also been found at Sheikh Bodeen, I believe, but I do not possess a specimen of it.

The Rhynchonella represented by Royle and which is common at Sheikh Bodeen, has also been found in Rukshen by Captain Austen.

The Jurassic limestone of Sheikh Bodeen rests in variegated dolomitic limestone without fossils (?), red marls, gypseous dark marls, and feldspathose white sandstone extremely friable; and this formation appears identical to the Saliferian formation of the Salt Range. From these lower beds issue a few small springs of brine, and it is, probable that masses of salt exist here and there in the marl, as it does in the Salt Range, but nowhere does the salt crop out. Some beds of massive gypsum occur on the southern side of the hill near its base, but are not extensive. The Oolitic and Saliferian formations conform in all their folds, faults and twistings most perfectly, but there is a slight nonconformity between the Saliferian and Oolitic beds and the Miocene sandstone and conglomerate. The Saliferian and Oolitic formations had been upheaved to some extent before the Miocene began to be deposited, as boulders of gypsum and Oolitic limestone are found in the Miocene conglomerate in company with boulders of volcanic rocks, of nummulitic limestone, of carboniferous limestone, and with rolled Producti brought from the Bilote Range. But the

* A few fossils of Sheikh Bodeen are sketched at Plate XI. figs. 2 to 6.

hills formed by the first upheaval were so low, and their beds probably so near the horizontal position, that the non-conformity of these beds and of the Miocene beds is not now very apparent, both sets of beds having been redisturbed to a great extent by the final great upheaval of the Himalayan mountains.

62. In the country of the Wuzeerees, lat. N. 32° 15′ to 32° 45' and Long. E. 69° 45′ to 70° 15', we find the continuation towards the north of the Soolimanee Range to be formed of a chain of mountains of which the Pir Gul (11,583) and the Shewy Dhur (10,998) are the highest summits. These high summits were not ascended by the expeditionary force against the Mosood Wuzeerees in 1860, but the army marched along the fine plateau of Rusmuk (7,000 ft.) which skirts the main chain; and by collecting the pebbles of the torrents which descend from these high peaks I was enabled to estimate to a certain extent the mineral nature of the central ridge. These pebbles were all volcanic, trappean and metamorphic, and none of a granitic nature were found. The following specimens of rocks were collected in ravines descending directly from the Shewy Dhur: basalt, having the appearance of hard jet; it is divided by joints and by innumerable cracks filled with carbonate of lime. It fuses quietly before the blow-pipe into a black bead. Some varieties do not shew the cracks filled with carbonate of lime, but are schistose in appearance, and the joints, which are large, are lined by quartzite. Half inch thick plates of volcanic ash, composed of a central layer of a pale dirty-greenish and compact mineral, and external layers of a brownish granular substance. The central layer fuses very easily before the blow-pipe, boiling up into a swollen and blistered surface; it has the appearance of tremolite, the outer layer appears to be a mixture of tremolite with grains of augite; the augite here and there forms little masses, and these fuse partially, the assay becoming studded with minute dark globules. Hornblende rock with grey mica. The paste appears to be an intimate mixture of felspar and hornblende, and is invaded by irregular and small plates of grey mica; the rock is divided by a series of well-marked joints, an inch apart. An augitio porphyry; the paste is perfectly black and apparently composed of chatoyant augite; it is invaded by closely set and minute prismatic crystals of dull white albite; it is more like a porphyritic lava than like a true prophyry.

A metamorphosed micaceous limestone, schistose, the foliation being extremely wavy. It has the appearance of a thin-bedded micaceous and calcareons shale which had been both crumpled and highly metamorphosed. It is nearly entirely composed of exfoliating mica imbedded into grey bands of magnesian (?) carbonate of lime, which effervesces feebly, and other bands of white felspar. The felspar forms bands by itself, a quarter of an inch thick and free of mica. The rock exhibits a foliation or stratification which is thin-bedded and wavy. Greenish, soapy, spotted chlorite schist. Jaspery flint, bluish and transparent, with veins and patches brownish and opaque, and occasionally threads of milk-white quartz. Quartzite with well formed crystals, six-sided prisms, at one end terminated by a six-sided pyramid.

These rocks are therefore mostly volcanic; the four last are, however, metamorphic, and such rocks are not seen in Kashmir; but they are extensively developed in the most northern portion of the Himalaya, as in Skardo, Zaskar, &c.

63. Between the range of the Pir Gul and Shewy Dhur and the plains of the Derajat, is a thick belt of low hills which are nearly entirely made up of nummulitic limestone, slate and shales, and of Miocene sandstone and conglomerate. At Palusseen, however, (see map) under the nummulitic limestone is discovered a rock of a very hard and dirty appearance and not forming beds, but huge masses of flesh-coloured limestone which are imbedded either in a grey sandstone or in the lower beds of the nummulitic limestone. These masses are most evidently old coral reefs, once rising from the bottom of the sea and ultimately covered by sand and calcareous mud; they are a confused agglomeration of corals of many species, imbedding shells, but unfortunately neither corals nor shells are in a good state of preservation. I am not sufficiently familiar with the forms of the Coral-Rag of England to say whether this bed is its representative in India, but it is not unlikely to belong to secondary strata, for the following reasons. * 1. It is situated under the sandstone, which generally forms the base of the nummulitic formation. 2. It does not contain any of the

A coral reef formation, apparently closely analogous both in lithologic characters and mode of occurrence, occurs at the base of the Ootatoor division of the cretaceous rocks in Trichinopoly. See Mem, Geological Survey, Vol. IV, Pt 1, pp. 52-72.-Ed.

fossils found in the nummulitic limestone above. 3. It appears much disturbed and dislocated by local movements, whilst the nummulitic limestone is to be seen in regular, though much tilted-up beds above it. 4. It rests immediately over beds of red marl and gypsum which are always found, in the Punjab, where Oolitic beds occur much disturbed. 5. Some of the corals appear identical with some species found near Maree on the Indus, in a limestone containing the same fossils as those of Sheikh Bodeen which is decidedly an Oolite.

I have therefore, in consideration of these reasons coloured these beds as Oolitic, but there is a doubt about it. The country was so dangerous at the time we were encamped at Palusseen, that I could collect but very few fossils, and I have not yet had the good luck to discover a similar bed in British territory.

These coral reefs reappear in many places in the country of the Wuzeerees at the entrance of the plateau of Rushmuk a great quantity of this bed was again seen, but the rock was different, though the fossils were identical; the limestone was extremely impure, full of small rounded grains of gravel, and so much invaded by iron that it is often quite brown, and often also spotted by the iron forming little dark nodules in the mass.

Again, near the hot spring of Sir-Oba, similar beds were seen resting on red marl, with here and there masses of gypsum. This gypsum is opaque, white and compact, and contains a great number of crystals of quartz, very fine in their form, and terminated at both ends by a six-sided pyramid. The same crystals occur at Maree and Kalabag in the gypsum which accompanies the rock-salt of these localities, and are there collected and sold to natives as ornaments, under the name of Kalabag diamonds.

One of the members of the nummulitic genus in the Wuzeeree Hills requires notice on account of its economical value. The Wuzeeree iron is obtained by the smelting of a brown shale, extremely rich in brown hæmatite; the beds of the shale are situated under the nummulitic limestone, and seem to replace the extensive beds of slate, with nummulites, seen in other localities. The quantity of the ore is enormous, whole ridges being formed of it. It is not quarried, as far as I could discover, but merely broken off the surface of the beds. It