PREHISTORIC ROM HA) . 149 



acacia (Acacia Catechu), known to the nativesas khair. [t, of course, 

 never grows al any spot below high water mark, and is now Pound 

 in greal quantities in the jungles about Badlapur, on the lower spurs 

 of the western ghauts, at a considerable elevation above the sea. 



Here, then, is a very clear record of a decided upheaval and subse- 

 quent subsidence. Judging too from the nature of the trees bund in 

 it, it would seem that the brown earth deposited by the sea must have 

 been pushed up considerably higher than the present level of the 

 littoral concrete which overlies the blue clay above, and have been 

 allowed there to rest undisturbed for a time sufficient to allow the 

 growth of these trees, the largest of which was 46 feet long, and 4 

 feet 8 inches in girth. 



Then followed a subsidence sufficient to allow of the trees beintr 

 completely covered by the muddy silt of the harbour. This was 

 apparently effected rapidly, but without any great or sudden rush 

 of water. For all the fine twigs were found preserved in position in 

 the clay, the lower portion of which contained no shells, as the uprjer 

 did,* while the borings of the teredo worms that had perforated the 

 standing trunks were found to extend for only about a foot down- 

 wards, and the rat-holes at the roots of the trees, though filled with 

 mud that exactly preserved their shapes, yet contained no remains of 

 drowned or smothered rats. 



None of the trees bore any marks of having been felled or cut, but 

 among them was a log certainly charred by fire. The burnt portion 

 showed by its shape and position that it had been laid with its centre 

 across the fire. What the makers of the fire were doing there does 

 not appear. Certainly not cutting wood, though they might have 

 been gathering the pods to get catechu, if its properties and uses were 

 known to them. Nor do they seem to have been permanent dwellers 



•This shelly upper portion is also much darker in colour, and very offensive in 

 smell, so much so indeed that on being first dug into, both at the time of the first 

 excavation of the Prince's Dock and of its subsequent extension, many of the work- 

 men sickened, and fever was very prevalent among them. Apparently the upper or 

 later part of this clay deposit was charged with the sewage of the city, which, since 

 the construction of the railway embankments at the north end of the harbour, has 

 been deposited more rapidly and in greater quantities than when the openings there 

 allowed a through " scour " in a free passage for the sweep of the bide and the creek 

 currents round the north of the island. 



