236 NATURAL SCIENCE. April. 



the country appears a continuous uninterrupted plateau, studded with 

 a low thorny jungle, but on closer examination it is found to be inter- 

 sected by countless tortuous ravines and gullies which offer consider- 

 able difficulty to anyone traversing the country. Owing to the soft 

 nature of the Tertiary rocks the ravines are generally rather narrow, 

 and the slopes steep, but to the geologist they afford in their barrenness 

 delightful opportunities for the study of the strata. For the greater 

 part of the year the ravines are perfectly dry, and if water is found at 

 some depth it is always brackish and extremely unwholesome. The 

 ridges left between the ravines vary of course in extent, owing 

 chiefly to the nature of the rocks which crop out on the surface, but 

 whether narrow or broad, not a drop of water is to be found on any 

 one of them unless it be collected in artificial tanks. There is hardly 

 any humus, and it may be doubted whether any crop worth speaking 

 of could be grown. Everywhere lumps, sometimes even large logs, 

 of fossilised wood may be found scattered all over the ground. 

 Where a conglomerate crops out, it may be followed often for a long 

 distance by a more or less broad band of white quartz pebbles. 

 Patches of diluvial river-gravel resting unconformably on the 

 Tertiary rocks may be seen here and there, topping the ridges. It is 

 important to note that it is often extremely difficult to decide, when 

 only a thin coating of scattered pebbles covers the ground, whether 

 it represents a disintegrated bed of Tertiary age or the last remains 

 of the diluvial gravel that has escaped being washed away. As the 

 chief constituent of both, white quartzite, is the same, and as it is 

 difficult to say whether the fragments of fossilised wood, scattered 

 among the pebbles, come directly from the underlying Tertiary beds, 

 or were already contained in the diluvial gravel, no definite distin- 

 guishing feature has hitherto been found. It is true that in the 

 diluvial gravel the fragments of fossilised wood are generally well 

 rolled, but it is not easy to distinguish them when lying scattered on 

 the ground. 



From the above remarks it will be seen why I have not 

 mentioned the second locality near Minlintoung. The conglomerate 

 comes here up to the surface ; its outcrop is marked by a band of 

 white pebbles, amongst which I found some fine fossil teeth and the 

 flints. Although I myself did not doubt for a moment that both had 

 been derived from the disintegration of the solid rock beneath, I left it 

 open to doubt, at least with regard to the flint-flakes (the teeth 

 belonged unquestionably to Pliocene animals) whether they might not 

 have been transported from some other locality to the place where I 

 found them, and which I pointed out to Mr. Oldham. I confess, 

 however, that not for a moment did I think that Mr. Oldham would 

 so entirely misunderstand this fact as to say, " the implements are not 

 confined to the outcrop of the fossiliferous ferruginous bed, but are 

 scattered over the surface of the plateau above." It is a mistake to 

 say that the implements are scattered over the surface of the plateau ; 



