64 ball: geology of the hajmehal hills. 



No great lengths of these stems have been met with ; but this may be due to 

 the pressure and the consequent fracture to which the stems have been subjected 

 since they have been covered.* 



As already noticed, the immense amount of trap debris which has fallen in many 

 places conceals these rocks and prevents their continuity from being traced out. 

 These beds, however, are sufficiently distinct and characteristic to enable us to assert 

 that they exist throughout the Bajmehal Hills, and it is pi'obable that the upper 

 and more important of these two groups of beds is co-extensive with the entire trap 

 area. As already alluded to, this is not entirely established for the portion of hills 

 lying south of the Brahmini stream, although they do occur in places there also. 



The beds are, however, unquestionably thicker in the northern portion of the 

 hills, and it was from this portion that the best and finest specimens of fossils were 

 obtained. The main characteristic of these beds, whenever seen, is the abundance of 

 impressions of leaves of Cycadeous plants. 



Passing downwards in the section, the next sedimentary deposit met with (No. 8 

 in general section) is a thin unfossiliferous bed, which has been observed only in two 

 or three localities. 



The bed is thin, and from its nature is not very conspicuous, and where the 

 ground is covered by debris and jungle, it is most highly probable that it may occur 

 over a very much larger area than that over which it has been actually observed. It 

 presents no marked peculiarity. Near Lohundia it has been converted into a hard 

 lydian stone by the overlying trap-rocks, and here also it seems to rest immediately 

 on the next bed, without the intervention of any flow of trap. It is never of any 

 great thickness. 



No. 10 of the section, the next bed in descending order, is a coarse ferruginoua 

 sandstone, some 30 to 40 feet thick, and forms a well-marked deposit, which becomes 

 of much interest from its great resemblance in mineral character to the beds which 

 underlie all the traps elsewhere in the hills. The two groups have nowhere been 

 actually observed superimposed on each other, and it is therefore possible that they 

 may be the same. But from other considerations, which would seem to lead to the 



* These silicified trunks are often jointed by plains of fracture which pass more or less at right angles 

 to the grain of the wood, and which open up when the trunks are exposed to the atmosphere. Where two 

 adjoining plains are slightly inclined, a wedge-shaped mass of the wood with clean faces often falls out, 

 giving rise to an appearance which might be mistaken for a cut effected by human agency. 



The phenomenon is not uncommon, and has probably been noticed by most people who have carefully 

 examined any large number of such silicified trunks. In fact, I only allude to it here in consequence of 

 a recently published paper by Dr. C. Marchesetti (Bombay Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XII, p. 215), 

 where the author attributes a similar appearance in the trunks from a petrified forest near Goa to the 

 operations of pre-historic civilised people. The civilisation is deduced from the sharpness of the cuts, 

 which indicate, in the author's opinion, the employment of iron tools. The age of these silicified trunks i» 

 probably the same as that of the laterite ; but if they are older than the latest volcanic effusions as stated, 

 then these civilised people would be indeed of extreme antiquity, belonging to about the oldest tertiary epoch. 



V. B. 



( 218. ) 



