MIAN11 f1LI DISTRICT
3r7
Jhelum. It includes two distinct tracts. Along the Indus lies a
strip of riverain land, locally called the Kachhi, which is flooded by
that river, and is of great fertility, though the action of the floods is
often capricious, fields and hamlets being sometimes swept away in a
few hours. About half the area is cultivated, the rest being covered
with tall Saccharum grass and tamarisk scrub. The other tract is the
vast barren upland known as the THAL, a desolate waste of shifting
sandhills on a level surface of hard clay. On this upland brushwood
grows sparsely, and the only cultivation is that round the scattered wells
sunk amid the sandhills. A great part of this tract will be commanded
by the projected Indus Canal. The monotony is unbroken by hills or
rivers ; but its north-eastern corner runs up into the western flank of
the Salt Range and the south-western slopes of the Sakesar hill, on
which stand the summer head-quarters of the officials.
The Indus issues from the hills at Kdl,7tbdgh in a narrow channel,
but rapidly spreads till above Isa Khel its width from bank to bank is
nearly 13 miles. The whole of the Kachhi is intersected with straggling
branches of the Indus, chief of which is the Pazal.
The District is of considerable geological interest, for it includes
both cis-Indus and trans-Indus portions of the SALT RANGE. The
chief points of interest in the series as exposed here are the disappear-
ance of the older palaeozoic beds, and the development of Jurassic
and Cretaceous rocks. The salt marl and rock-salt still form the lowest
member of the series; but as a rule all overlying formations, found in
the eastern part of the range between the salt marl and the boulder-bed,
are absent. The Jurassic beds are well seen in the Chichāli pass, where
they contain ammonites and belemnites, and are overlain by rocks with
Lower Cretaceous fossils. Coal of fair quality occurs in the Lower
Tertiary beds in the Isa .Khel tahsil, and salt is quarried at Kalabā,gh 1.
The flora is in part that of the Western Punjab, but there is a strong
admixture of West Asian and even Mediterranean forms. Trees are
scarce, except where planted; but the tdli (Dalhergiā Sissoo) is frequent
along the Indus, and the Mesopotamian aspen (Populus euphratica) is
reported from the south of the District. The Salt Range at Kālābdgh
has a flora of its own, corresponding to that of like situations on the
ranges east of the Indus. The Thal sandhills are an extension of
the Great Indian Desert, and their flora is largely that of North-western
Rdjputdna.
An occasional leopard on the Salt Range and a few wolves are the
only representatives of the fiercer beasts. Urikl are to be found on
i See Manual of Geology of India, passim; Wynne, ' Geology of the Salt Range,'
Memoirs, Geological Survey of India, vol. xiv, and ° Trans-Indus Extensions of the
Salt Range,' ibid., vol. xvii, pt. ii ; C. S. Middlemiss, ° Geology of the Salt Range,
Records, Geological Survey of India, vol. xxi, v, pt. i.
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