74 CRETACEOUS ROCKS OY S. INDIA, [ParT II. § 1. 



deposit. To the North of these villages limestone bands become inter- 

 calated in the lower or Western part of the group, and sands, grits, and 

 conglomerates in the upper or Eastern part; these changes in mineral 

 character being accomjaanied by a great enrichment of the fauna in the 

 one case, and an impoverishment in the other. Conglomerates are of 

 rare occurrence in the lower part of the grouj). Indeed, except in the 

 immediate neighbourhood of the coral reefs scarcely anything that can 



be called a conglomerate is to be met with in the 

 Conglomerates rare. 



bottom beds which consist of soft shales formed of 



the finest sediment, and resting at varying angles and with most irre- 

 gular stratification, on the uneven gneiss bottom. 

 At one point on the Southern boundary between Paroovalapoor and 

 Boulder-bed not of Oo- Seraganoor, again to the West of Agarara, and 

 '" ■ at Cullygoody a boulder-bed occurs, resembling in 



all respects that at the base of the plant-beds. There is, however, no rea- 

 son to believe that the boulders have been transported from any distance, 

 and the absence of all conglomerate, and the immediate sequence of 

 the usual fine shales, would lead us to conclude that the bed is a pre- 

 viously formed accumulation of boulders, probably of the age of the 

 plant-beds upon which the Ootatoor beds were quietly deposited. 



Gypsum occurs in most of the argillaceous beds, and is to a certain 

 Gypsum not contempo- ^^^ent characteristic of the Ootatoor Group. I 

 raneous. have never met with any interstratified bands 



of this mineral, or any that could be regarded as of contemijoraneous 

 formation. It either forms plates of irregular thickness intercalated in the 

 beds, and filling cracks in the clays and shales with which it is associated, 

 or it is found segregated in concretions, and occasionally replacing the 

 orio-inal shells around casts of Nautili, Ammonites, and some of the thick 

 shelled Mollusca. In all cases it appears to have crystallised out subse- 

 quently to the formation and partial desiccation of the enclosing strata, 

 and has probably been introduced by waters infiltered from the surface. 



