TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 87 
This series, so far as examined, proved of no great extent or thickness. We pass now 
to the Khasi Hills, which form a comparatively isolated range, rising suddenly from the 
great plains of Bengal in the south, and divided in the north by the valley of Assam 
Rois the great Himalaya or Bhotan range. On the southern face this range rises 
almost perpendicularly from the plains, which are continuous from the Bay of Ben- 
gal, with scarcely a perceptible change of level to the very foot of the hills, and, with 
the exception of a comparatively small thickness of metamorphic rocks at the base, 
are composed of nearly horizontal beds of sandstones, a few shaly layers, and limestone, 
long known for the abundance and beauty of the nummulites it contains. ‘These 
beds dip slightly to the south, and die out towards the north, when the metamorphic 
rocks come to the surface in the hills. Disregarding here any details as to the older 
rocks, the age of the sandstones and limestones is unquestionably fixed by their organic 
contents, and therefore, also, the epoch of the coal, which is associated with them, as 
belonging to the great eocene period of geologists. No newer group of rocks is defi- 
nitively seen in these hills. Along the southern face of the range there is evidence 
of a great dislocation extending for many miles, and possibly along the entire scarp, 
which has brought down to the level of the plains the rocks which are seen at the top 
of the hills. This line of dislocation has in all probability tended to give the nearly 
rectilinear direction of the escarpment; its date is fixed as at least subsequent to the 
formation of all the eocene rocks here seen. An older group of sandstones, consider- 
ably altered, is seen further to the north, within the hills, and also a series of highly 
metamerphosed schists and grits resting upon the gneissic and granite rocks; but the 
details of these are reserved. Passing thence still further to the north and east, at 
the base of the Sikkim Himalayas, under the hill station of Darjiling, another section 
was described. ‘lhe great mass of the lofty hills is here composed of schistose rocks 
of various characters, considerably disturbed and contorted. These, although hitherto 
‘coloured similarly, and considered as of the same age, were decidedly different from, 
and more recent than, the gneissose rocks of the greatest portion of India. Near the 
base of the hills, and faulted against these rocks at high angles, there is a small extent 
of sandstone and black shales, which coutain Vertebrata, Pecopteris, &c., similar to 
those occurring in the great coal-fields of Bengal. These fossils are peculiarly inter- 
esting, from the fact of their being changed into graphite, and occurring in beds 
which themselves have a very strongly marked graphitic character. They are of very 
limited extent; the greater portion of the sandstones, which in this section exhibit a 
thickness cf some thousand feet, belonging to a series of much more recent date, and 
which has been subjected to a much smaller amount of disturbance and alteration. 
The exact relation of these, too, it has not been possible to observe. This upper 
group contains many large stems, in all observed cases prostrate, and in most cases 
giving evidence of great wear and long exposure previously to being imbedded; and 
in some of the finer and more earthy deposits an abundance of leaves occurs, of the 
saine general character as those already noticed as occurring in Burmah and Tenas- 
sétim. This group was therefore provisionally referred to the same age (pliocene). 
No traces of the great nummulitic series had been observed in this district. In the 
more central portions of India three very large districts had been examined, to which 
he would now refer. One of these was to the south of Calcutta, in the district of 
Cuttack; the second included all the country between the great coal-field of the Da- 
moodah, which bad previously been mapped by Mr. Williams, and the River Ganges, 
extending northwards to Rajmahal and Bhagulpore; and the third extended along 
the valley of the Nerbudda from west of the Hosungabad to many miles east of Jub- 
bulpur. For the details of the first of these he was indebted chiefly to his able assist- 
ants, Messrs. Blandford; for the last to Mr. Jos. Medlicott, who had very zealously 
worked it out, having to carry on the formation of a topographical map at the same 
time. In all these cases the sedimentary rocks, to which he would refer, formed 
portions of a series ‘once more widely extended, and probably continuous over the 
whole country, now separated by denudation, from removal by which they have been 
‘in great part protected, by being faulted into and against the highly metamorphic 
gneiss, &c. which sutround them. The ‘Talcheer field extends for about 70 miles 
from east to west, with an average breadth of 15 to 20 miles, and is bounded both on 
the vorth and south by great parallel faults, the former of which has an aggregate 
throw of upwards of 2000 feet; these faults are not truly east and west, but to the 
