The valley of the Tochi River is an outlying corner of the British Empire in India forming a portion of Waziristan, the boundary of which was delineated in 1894–5 by an Anglo-Afghan Commission from the Afghan provinces of Khost on the north and Birmul on the west. Mr. F. H. Smith, of the Geological Survey of India, accompanied this Commission as geologist, and his observations “On the Geology of the Tochi Valley” were published in 1895 in the “Records of the Geological Survey of India” (vol. xxxviii, pt. 3, pp. 106–110, pl. iii). On p. 109 he says:—“The range of hills between Idak and Mirán Shah is formed by an anticlinal ridge which approximately strikes north and south, and which is composed of these lower eocene beds. In the core of the anticlinal a considerable thickness of massive dark grey limestone is exposed, in which I could find no fossil remains; the age of this limestone is therefore doubtful, and there is no evidence of any kind to show whether it belongs to the lowest tertiary or upper mesozoic age.”