associated metamorphic rocks. Of fossiliferous systems there is a fine display of material ranging in age from Silurian to Upper Trias, and additional interest is added by the long-continued volcanic eruptions of the "Panjál trap." Students of recent phenomena have at their disposal interesting problems in physiography, including a grand display of glaciers, and the extensive deposits of so-called karewas, which appear to have been formed in drowned valleys, where the normal fluviatile conditions are modified by those characteristic of lakes. The occurrence of sapphires in Zánskar gives the State also an interest to the mineralogist and connoisseur of gem-stones.
Of this kaleidoscopic assemblage of questions the ones of most immediate interest are connected with the Silurian-Trias succession in the Kashmír valley, for here we have a connecting-link between the marine formations of the Salt Range area and those which are preserved in greater perfection in Spití and other parts of the Tibetan highlands, stretching away to the south-east at the back of the great range of crystalline snow-covered peaks.
In this interesting part of Kashmír the most important feature to Indian geologists is the occurrence of plant remains belonging to genera identical with those that occur in the lower part of the great coal-bearing formation of Peninsular India, known as the Gondwána system. Until these discoveries were made in Kashmír about ten years ago the age of the base of the Gondwánas was estimated only on indirect evidence, partly due to the assumption that glacial conditions in the Salt Range and those at the base of the Gondwánas were contemporaneous, and partly due to analogy with the coal measures of Australia and South Africa. In Kashmír the characteristic plant remains of the Lower Gondwánas are found associated with marine fossils in great abundance, and these permit of a correlation of the strata with the upper part of the Carboniferous system of the European standard stratigraphical scale.
Kashmír seems to have been near the estuary of one of the great rivers that formerly flowed over the ancient continent of Gondwánaland (when India and South Africa formed parts of one continental mass) into the great Eurasian Ocean known as Tethys. As the deposits formed in this great ocean give us the principal part of our data for forming a standard stratigraphical scale, the plants which were carried out to sea become witnesses of the kind of flora that flourished during the main Indian coal period; they thus enable us with great precision to fix the position of the fresh-water Gondwánas in comparison with the marine succession.
Spití.—With á brief reference to one more interesting patch among the geological records of this remarkable region, space will force us to pass on to consideration of minerals of economic value. The line of snow-covered peaks, composed mainly of crystalline rocks and forming a core to the Himálaya in a way analogous to the granitic core of the Alps, occupies what was once apparently the northern shore of Gondwánaland, and to the north of it there stretched the great ocean of Tethys, covering the central parts of Asia and Europe, one of its shrunken relics being the present Mediterranean Sea. The bed of this ocean throughout many geological ages underwent gradual depression and received the sediments brought down by the rivers from the continent which stretched away to the south. The sedimentary deposits thus formed near the shore-line or further out in deep water attained a thickness of well over 20,000 feet, and have been studied in the tahsíl of Spití, on the northern border of Kumáon, and again on the eastern Tibetan plateau to the north of Darjeeling. A reference to the formations preserved in Spití may be regarded as typical of the geological history and the conditions under which these formations were produced.
Succession of Fossiliferous Beds.—In age the fossiliferous beds range from Cambrian right through to the Tertiary epoch; between these extremes no single period was passed without leaving its records in some part of the great east-to-west Tibetan basin. At the base of the whole succession there lies a series of schists which have been largely metamorphosed, and on these rest the oldest of the fossiliferous series, which, on account of their occurring in the region of snow, has been named the Haimanta system. The upper part of the Haimanta system has been found to contain the characteristic trilobites of the Cambrian period of Europe. Over this system lie beds which have yielded in succession Ordovician and Silurian fossils, forming altogether a compact division which has been distinguished locally as the Muth system. Then follows the so-called Kanáwar system, which introduces Devonian conditions, followed by fossils characteristic of the well-known mountain limestone of Europe.
Then occurs a break in the succession which varies in magnitude in different localities, but appears to correspond to great changes in the physical geography which widely affect the Indian region. This break corresponds roughly to the upper part of the Carboniferous system of Europe, and has been suggested as a datum line for distinguishing in India an older group of fossiliferous systems below (formed in an area that has been distinguished by the name Dravidian), from the younger group above, which has been distinguished by the name Aryan.
During the periods that followed this interruption the bed of the great Eurasian Ocean seems to have subsided persistently though intermittently. As the various sediments accumulated the exact position of the shore-line must have changed to some extent to give rise to the conditions favourable for the formation at one time of limestone, at another of shale and at other times of sandy deposits. The whole column of beds, however, seems to have gone on accumulating without any folding movements, and they are consequently now found lying apparently in perfect conformity stage upon stage, from those that are Permian in age at the base, right through the Mesozoic group, till the time when Tertiary conditions were inaugurated and the earth movements began which ultimately drove back the ocean and raised the bed, with its accumulated load of sediments, into the great folds that now form the Himálayan Range. This great mass of Aryan strata includes an enormous number of fossil remains, giving probably a more complete record of the gradual changes that came over the marine fauna of Tethys than any other area of the kind known. One must pass over the great number of interesting features still left unmentioned, including the grand architecture of the Sub-Himálaya and the diversity of formations in different parts of the Frontier Province; for the rest of the available space must be devoted to a brief reference to the minerals of value.
Rock-salt, which occurs in abundance, is possibly the most important mineral in this area. The deposits most largely worked are those which occur in the well-known Salt Range, covering parts of the districts of Jhelam, Sháhpur, and Mianwálí. Near the village of Kheora the main seam, which is being worked in the Mayo mines, has an aggregate thickness of 550 feet, of which five seams, with a total thickness of 275 feet, consist of salt pure enough to be placed on the table with no more preparation than mere pulverising. The associated beds are impregnated with earth, and in places there occur thin layers of potash and magnesian salts. In this area salt quarrying was practised for an unknown period before the time of Akbar, and was continued in a primitive fashion until it came under the control of the British Government with the occupation of the Panjáb in 1849. In 1872 systematic mining operations were planned, and the general line of work has been continued ever since, with an annual output of roughly 100,000 tons.
Open quarries for salt are developed a short distance to the east-north-east of Kálabágh on the Indus, and similar open work is practised near Kohát in the North West Frontier Province, where the quantity of salt may be regarded as practically inexhaustible. At Bahádur Khel the salt lies at the base of the Tertiary series, and can be traced for a distance of about eight miles with an exposed thickness of over 1000 feet, sometimes standing up as hills of solid salt above the general level of the plains. In this area the production is naturally limited by want of transport and the small local demand, the total output from the quarries being about 16,000 tons per annum. A small quantity of salt (generally about 4000 tons a year), is raised also from open quarries in the Mandí State, where the rock-salt beds, distinctly impure and earthy, lie near the junction between Tertiary formations and the older unfossiliferous groups.
Coal occurs at numerous places in association with the Nummulitic limestones of Lower Tertiary age, in the Panjáb, in the North West Frontier Province, and in the Jammu division of Kashmír. The largest output has been obtained from the Salt Range, where mines have been opened up on behalf of the North Western Railway. The mines at Dandot in the Jhelam district have considerable fluctuations in output, which, however, for many years ranged near