420 Reviews — Prof. Duncans Indian Geology. 



Strachey, Falconer and Cautley, D'Arehiac and Haime, as well as by 

 the valuable Memoirs and Eeports of the Geological Survey under the 

 direction of Dr. Oldham, the result of the arduous and exhausting 

 labours of himself and colleagues in the field-work of the Indian 

 Survey. In this Abstract the geology of India is considered under 

 two heads, — the Himalayan and Peninsular types ; the former com- 

 prising the Himalaya, the Salt-range, the hills on the west of the 

 Indus to the sea, and the great alluvial districts through which the 

 Indus and Ganges with their tributaries flow ; the references to this 

 district are nearly restricted to the details of the Himalayan and 

 Indo-Gangetic area. The Peninsular province is bounded on the 

 north-west and north-east by the alluvial plains, and elsewhere by 

 the sea. The successive geological formations, when they occur, are 

 treated of in descending order in the above two provinces, and thus 

 their differences and resemblances may be compared ; but the same 

 formations are not invariably present in both geological provinces, 

 and it appears that the remains of former land surfaces are much 

 more common in the Peninsula than in the Himalayas, where the 

 marine deposits preponderate. 



There are many interesting and peculiar points of Indian geology 

 concisely described, as to their occurrence and origin, such as the 

 " Eigar, or cotton soil," the Kunkur and Laterite. The Sub-Hima- 

 layan rocks are noticed, and also their rich mammalian fauna, so ably 

 described by the late Dr. Falconer and Major Cautley, who obtained 

 the bones from the Sivalik strata occupying many thousand feet in 

 thickness, and also from the Nahum series, both of Miocene age, and 

 which include remains of Primates, Carnivora, Proboscidea, Kuinin- 

 antia. The Monkeys are all old-world types, and in all probability 

 there is no satisfactory specific distinction between the forms and the 

 recent species of Asia. The Loxodons are allied to the African 

 elephant. Hippopotamus, no longer Indian, is an African form, and 

 the Cameleopards are African in their present distribution. The 

 Sivalik fauna had therefore Asiatic and African members ; and whilst 

 the majority of its species are extinct, many exist at the present day 

 in India. In the Peninsular province the Malwa and Deccan traps 

 occur ; they are post-Cretaceous, of great thickness, and form a very 

 important feature in the geology of India, for they extend over 

 200,000 square miles of Western and Central India, and formerly 

 covered a much larger surface, as they have suffered from denudation. 

 In this province also is the Damuda Coal-bearing series, which, with 

 the sub-divisions and plants, are fully noticed at pp. 44-48 ; and a 

 detailed account is given of the five zones of rocks of which the 

 Himalayas appear to be formed, as derived from the sections given by 

 Medlicott and Stoliczka. 



Most of the chief European strata appear to be more or less fully 

 represented by equivalent formations, with the exception of the 

 Cambrian, Devonian, Carboniferous Coal, Lower Oolite, and Neoco- 

 mian. The oldest fossiliferous rock is referred to, the Bhabeh series 

 or Lower Silurian, which may be newer than an important formation 

 called the Vindhyan, of unknown age, and which occupies a very 



