TALCHIRS. 17 



ice in the formation of the boulder bed of the Talehir series, and thus 

 confirmed Mr. Blanford's original supposition (which was published in 

 1856 * in the Memoir on the Talehir Coal-field) that the boulders had 

 been transported by ground-ice. 



When this hypothesis was suggested, no direct testimony, such as 

 grooved and polished boulders or scored rock-surfaces, had been obtained 

 in confirmation of the general evidence, on the strength of which Mr. 

 Blanford had been led to infer the former existence of glacial conditions. 

 His theory, therefore, although affording an apparently satisfactory solu- 

 tion of the observed facts, was still not altogether beyond the limits of 

 discussion ; and after subsequent investigations in the Raniganj field and 

 other localities had failed to elicit the required corroborative evidence, 

 attempts were made to explain the formation of the boulder bed without 

 resort to the somewhat startling supposition of icy masses in a tropical 

 country. 



Mr. Fedden has, however, now removed all doubt, and shewn in his 

 paper ' ' On the evidence of ground-ice in tropical India during the Talehir 

 period," contributed to the Records, that Mr. Blanford's original view 

 was the right one. The observations confirming this were made near the 

 little village of Irai, on the right bank of the Pern River, not quite a mile 

 above its confluence with the Wardha, and 10 miles west-south-west of 

 Chanda. A boulder bed, containing some beautifully-polished and scored 

 boulders, rests upon a floor of compact Vindhyan limestones, which, when 

 freshly exposed, is found to be striated and grooved in long parallel lines 

 in the manner so familiar to glacialists. Some of the strise are concealed 

 by a thin crust of calcareous matter which has been deposited subsequent 

 to the removal of the boulder bed, but it can be easily' chipped off. It 

 helps to preserve the scorings, which appear to be soon obliterated if 

 without this covering. The surface features of the neighbourhood do not 

 offer any support to the view that a glacier ever reached the spot under 



* Memoirs, Geological Survey of India, Vol. I. 



( 17 ) 



