372 Scientific Intelligence. 



An accurate survey of these extensive and valuable deposits seems to be 

 called for, by obvious considerations of the most important public advantage. 

 *' The principal rocks that compose this formation are varieties of sand- 

 stone, clay slates, and shales, with occasional dikes and veins of trap and 

 green-stone ; the shale immediately covering the coal abounds with vege- 

 table impressions, and some animal organic remains ; amongst these Dr 

 Voysey distinguished a phytolithuSy a calamite, lycopodium, and one speci- 

 men of a gigantic species of paletia. The shale passes into clay-slate, above 

 which succeeds a soft, but gritty, micaceous yellowish-grey sandstone, here 

 and there becoming indurated and slaty. This forms the surface rock all 

 over the coal district, rising into low round-topped hills and undulated 

 grounds. On the coal pits, (three in number), which have yet been sunk 

 to a depth of only eighty-eight feet, seven seams of coal have been met 

 with, one of which exceeds nine feet in thickness ; the quality of the coal 

 has proved excellent, resembling the Sunderland coal, but leaving a larger 

 proportion of cinders and ashes. 



" Proceeding northward and westward from Bancora and the Dummoda 

 river, the road to Benares passes over granitic rocks, of which the ranges 

 of hills on the left, and the whole country as far as the Soane, and round 

 Skeergatty and Gya, is probably composed. On approaching the Soane 

 river, crossing the hills behind Sasseram, sandstone begins to appear, and 

 continues to be the surface rock, with probably only one considerable in- 

 terval all the way to Agra, forming, as before noticed, the southern barrier 

 of the valley of the Ganges and Jumna. That interval occurs in the low 

 lands of Bundlecund, where the remarkable isolated hills, forming ridges 

 running S. W. and N. E., are all granitic, the high lands being covered 

 with sandy stones. This brings us back to the rocky plains of Hindoo- 

 stan, and to the last of the three principal mountain ranges first alluded 

 to; viz. the Vindya Zone, which,crossing the continent from east to west, 

 may be said to unite the northern extremities of the two great ranges al- 

 ready described, which terminate in nearly the same parallel of latitude, 

 forming, as it were, the base of the triangle that elevates the table-land 

 of the peninsula. The Vindya belt, yielding little in classical character to 



, the Himalaya, intersects the heart of the country, and is distinctly trace- 

 able, even in our very imperfect maps, running south 75° west, from the 

 point called the Ramgurh hills towards Guzerat. This great zone has nu- 

 merous divisions, and a multitude of names, almost every district giving a 

 change of denomination ; but to the eye of a geologist, who considers things 

 on an extended scale, there is a parallelism in the disjoined parts, and a 

 general connection and dependence on the central range. The substrata 

 prove this fact, for in every case they preserve a parallelism to it. The great 

 surface formations of Central India and the Deccan are granite, sandstone, 

 and the overlying rocks, the latter exceeding in their extent those of any 

 other country. The basaltic trap formation extends northward all over 

 Malwa and Sanger, Sohagpore, and Omercantoe; thence, proceeding south- 

 ward by Nagpore, it sweeps the western confines of Hydrabad, nearly to 

 the 15th parallel of latitude, and, bending to N. W., connects with the sea 

 pear Fort Victoria, as already noticed, composing the shores of the Con- 



