THE GEOLOGY OF WORLI HILL. 



591 



patches It is very brittle and easily detachable from the rock, and owing to 

 Its brittleness It is riot possible to secure it except in a powdery state, or loosely 

 attached to the rock. ^ ^ > vij 



Coming to the organic deposits fomid in the sedimentary beds we must 

 acknowledge the great assiduity and not less the good fortune of'ors Leith 

 and Carter m securmg several interestmg specimens of vegetable and animal 

 remams described m the latter's paper previously quoted. That there must 

 have been amvmg at the place a large amount of vegetable detritus is clear 

 from the extensive deposits of carbonaceous shale and the strong naphtous smell 

 of the freshly broken rock. It is a remarkable fact that, though extensive 

 quarr^-ing of the fresh water beds is at present going on, no fossil remains of the 

 marsh tortoise, " testudo (hyaraspis) Leithu " or any definite impressions of 

 stems, leaves, etc., have been met with by me. Speaking of the specimens 

 of plants presented by Dr. Carter to the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic 

 Society, Mr. Wynne in writing on the geology of Bombay says in a footnote 

 " Leaves, stems and seeds, all more or less, indistinct, or wood, chiefly dicotyle- 

 donous. The cormiform and globose roots described and figured by Dr. Carter 

 and of which the original specimens are preserved in the museum of the Bombay 

 Branch Royal Asiatic Society have very much the appearance of concretions, 

 arid their organic origin must be considered extremel}- doubtful." Having 

 come across a large area covered over by objects which had the appearance of 

 the " cormiform" root, the impression left on my mind is that Wynne is quite 

 correct in his Anew. It is a pity that the interesting specimens of Dr. 

 Carter's cannot now be traced in the museum , as I am informed. 



I shall now proceed to describe the fossil organic remains I have come across : 

 Vegetable : — (1) Embedded in the coarser shales there occur small bits of 

 charcoal. These are heavily charged with iron and carbonate of calcium. 



(2) Interspersed in the mass of the rock there are found small patches of carbo- 

 nised vegetable matter. They are e\adently traces of leaves but they cannot 

 be resolved into any definite shape or structure. When a piece of rock of this 

 kind is exposed to strong sunhght a tarry liquid oozes out. 



(3) Then there are larger pieces of rock showing on their sm-face a distinct 

 network of nervatures formed of calcite with globules of coal spread all over. 

 These impressions are probably of large leaves. 



(4) Embedded in the upper layers of the sedimentary beds were found a 

 few logs or planks of wood in a highlj' carbonised condition. These pieces 

 of wood were lying horizontally from east to west. The coal is bright and 

 brittle and has the appearance of anthracitic coal. It bums with a yellowish 

 smoky flame leaving an ash about four times the size of the original piece 

 of coal and having the appearance of coke. The ash is very brittle. 



Anim al :— (1) Of the animal remains found in these beds the most plentiful 

 and at the same time the most interesting are the fossillized skeletons of frogs, 

 Rana pusiUa of Prof. Owen. The earlier investigatajs Drs. Leith and Carter, 

 and those that based on them thought that the frog fossils were found only in 

 the two lowest bands of the dark shale. This was due to lack of opportunity 

 and certainly not to the want of careful inquiry as these pioneers had only the 

 small cut at Love Grove sewage outfall to go upon. As a matter of fact the 

 fossils are found throughout the thickness of the aqueous deposits in all kinds 

 of shale. The only difference is that in the two lowest bands of the dark shale , 

 which can be made to spht easily mto very thin layers, the frog remains occur 

 in very large numbers. The coarser shales are more difficult to split and the 

 fossils cannot be easily recovered in them in a clear outline. Moreover the^e 

 shales must have been deposited durmg heavy floods when the frogs would bo 

 considerably less in numbers being carried away by the waters. 



The frog fossils are from about 5i lines to about 11 hues m length as 

 measured from the top of the head to the symphysis pubis and are m a very 



