18 HUGHES: WARDHA VALLEY COAL-EIELD. 



notice , as for many miles round there is no commanding elevation of rock 

 older than the Talchirs from which an ice-stream could have descended ; 

 and as the boulder bed itself presents characters quite unlike the ordinary- 

 moraine deposits of glaciers, one being its frequently well-marked lamina- 

 tion, the circumstances of the case lead to the supposition of ground-ice 

 as the agent by which the boulders were transported.* 



In the immediate vicinity of Irai the boulders are for the most part 



small, a few attaining a major diameter of 2 to 2^ 

 Boulders in museum. _ , _,. 



feet, lhree specimens are now m our museum, 



and they illustrate admirably the effect that the sort of attrition 

 they have undergone produces. The finest of them is of hard, dense, close- 

 grained syenitic granite, of which one side is polished and scored, and the 

 opposite one free from marks. The striae run parallel with the major 

 axis of the boulder. 



In this field no record of any organism has been obtained from the Tal- 

 chirs. Elsewhere, however, fronds of Gangamopteris 

 No Fauna or Flora. > , 



and seed vessels have from time to time been found ; 



and lately, my colleague, Dr. Feistmantel, by a happy blow of his ham- 

 mer on a cabinet specimen of Talchir shale,t disclosed the wing of a 

 neuropterous insect, that now has the distinction of being the earliest 

 animal remain known in the Gondwana series. 



Section VII. — Barakar Group. 

 In Bengal, where the coal-bearing rocks are most fully developed, they 

 are classed as upper and lower coal-measures, a series of ironstone shales 

 separating them thus : — 



1. Kaniganj group, or upper coal-measures. 



2. Ironstone shales group. 



3. Barakar group, or lower coal-measures. 



* See Fedden's paper for a fuller exposition. Records, Geological Survey of India, 1875, 

 Vol. VIII, Part 1, page 16. 



t The rock sample is labelled as coming from " Kumar, pergunnah Saruth-Deoghar, 

 Blrirbhum. 



( 18 ) 



