14 TRAPS AND INTERTRAPrEAN BEDS 



10. — Distincimis between iMertrajopeans of Bomlay and those of 

 Central India. — It is worthy of remark that this fauna (the plants are 

 but ill preserved''^) comprises but one species {Ci/pris cylindrica, Sow.) 

 found in the intertrappean beds of Central India, although the latter, 

 throughout an immense tract of country, the extremes of which are 

 further from each other than some of them are from Bombay, contain 

 ^ remarkably persistent fauna, mainly molluscan. The exception is a 

 species which is said to have survived to the present day, and is there- 

 fore worthless as an indication of geological age. Both formations 

 have, however, been generally assumed to be identical, and although 

 Dr. Carter oncef suggested that the Central Indian beds were older, 

 his views were founded on a supposition that the traps of Bombay 

 belong to a distinct series to those of the Deccan,J which is not correct, 

 and on the fossil condition of the shells in the Nagpoor intertrappeans 

 being different from that of laud and freshwater shells in the European 

 eocene, scarcely an admissible argument. 



The truth is^ (and, so far as I am aware, it has not been clearly 

 pointed out before,) that the Bombay strata, although a part of 

 the same series as the traps of the Deccan, are the highest beds of the 

 traps exposed, higher probably even than those of Mahableshwar, while 

 the Nerbudda, Nagpoor, and Berar intertrappeans, wherever I have met 

 with them, are never more than 200 or 300 feet above the base of the 



* They are, however, considered by Mr. Hislop distinct from those found in the inter- 

 trappean beds near Nagpoor. Quar. Jour. Geol. Soc, Vol. XI, p. 365. 



+ Geological papers on Western India, p, 744. 



X Dr. Carter considered the Bombay traps as belonging to a more recent series than 

 those of the Deccan. I can find no evidence in fivvor of this view ; but as I have already remark- 

 ed, I am compelled to dissent entirely from Dr, Carter's views on the mode of eruption of 

 the Bombay traps. 



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