SUPERFICIAL DEPOSITS IN CUTCH. 379 



The section west of Bhachau, which appears to show a third type, I have 

 not seen, as at the place where alone I was able, from lack of more time, to 

 examine the trap, it was lying directly on the Jurassic rocks, showing, as 

 pointed out by Mr. Wynne, the very local character of the subtrappean 

 group, I therefore copy here the description in the memoir (p. 13G) of the 

 beds referred with a query to this group, as taken from Mr. Fedden's note- 

 book : — 



Feet. 

 "7. Brecciated and conglomeratic bed, lower part almost wholly of pink 

 lava(?) ... ... ... ... ... ... 3 



6. Yellow sandstone ... ... .. ... ... 2 



0. Conglomeratic and concretionary bed of pale lavender and piok lava (?J, 

 with large pebbles of hornstone, fragments of yellow clay, and tine 

 sandstone ... ... ... ... ... ... 1-4 



4. Hard, yellow and pinkish, gritty sandstone ... ... ... o" 



It will be seen from this description that the only ingredients which could 

 not be derived from the Jurassic^rocks are the fragments of " pale lavender 

 and pink lava (?) " I think it is very doubtful whether these are really 

 volcanic fragments, Even Mr, Fedden queries them, and as the large area 

 south of Bhachau, mapped as trap, is now seen in the cuttings of the new 

 road to be entirely lateritic, it is more probable that the fragments here noted 

 are also of that character. Perhaps, however, it comes to the same thing if 

 laterite is derived from trap, in which case the basalt of Bhachau must be 

 one of the later flows. The stratification also of these deposits indicates the 

 agency of water, so that we may perhaps sum up as follows : — 



The subtrappean rocks are all superficial deposits on the pretrappean land- 

 surface, those at Artara and Sanosra, being the ordinary results of weather- 

 ing ; those at Bhachau, the washing-down of similar debris on to a lower 

 water-covered level j and those of Bhujia Hill, etc., ^i^olian drift. 



Taking this last in connection with the subrecent concrete, we have thus a 

 record of the constancy of the meteorological conditions in Cutch from 

 recent times as far back as the Cretaceous epoch. 



(4) THE LA.TERITK. 



The deposits hitherto dealt with are on a small scale and more or less 

 peculiar to Cutch, but those which remain to be discussed are widely dis- 

 tributed in this part of India. 



The various deposits which in different parts of India have gone by the 

 name of laterite are, with exceptions, superficial in origin. As however the 

 term has been so widely applied that the only definition which will cover all 

 the varieties is that it is a very ferruginous rock of peculiar character, it 

 follows that the rocks included under this definition may be of many 

 origins and of many ages. All the laterites of Cutch are classed and mapped 

 by Mr. Wynne, as " sub-Nummulitic," so that they stand, with those of 



