() W. BLANFORD, WESTEUN INDIA. [PaUT I. 



The Taptee valley in Khandeish has attracted scarcely any observer, and 

 indeed presents few features of geological interest. 



1, Nerbudda valley. 



The earliest observer of the western part of the Nerbudda valley, who 



has left any account of its ffeoloffv, appears to 

 Dangerfield, 1818. . h SJ> .1 



have been Captain Dangerfield, whose appendix 



to Sir J. Malcolm's " Memoirs of Central India^^ has already been re- 

 ferred to by Mr. Medlicott in these Memoirs. In a paper previously 

 published in the transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay {a) entitled 

 " Some account of the caves of Bagh called the Panch Pandoos/^ Captain 

 Dangerfield briefly described the rocks occurring there, and mentioned the 

 iron manufacture then existing in the town, but which has since been 

 given up on account of the want of fuel. In his description of the 

 " Geology of Central India" {b) Captain Dangerfield treats principally of 



regions lying to the north and east of those 

 Dangerfield, 1823. , ^ . . _ . , . 



now under description, and comprised m the area 



formerly surveyed by Messrs. J. G. and H. B. Medlicott. He, how- 

 ever, examined a portion of the more western country, and has made some 

 excellent observations on its geological features. He describes somewhat 

 minutely the characters of the southern scarps of the Malwa plateau, 

 north of Mundlaisur, and the horizontal trap beds of which it consists ; 

 of these he counted 14. He thinks that the several beds increase in 

 thickness below, the uppermost being 15 to 30 feet thick, the lowej-most, 

 300. This is in the main correct, though the increased thickness of the 

 beds below is partly apparent, and due to the sharp lines which mark the 

 separation of the upper beds, being, towards the base of the cliffs, much 

 concealed by talus. Nevertheless the bottommost bed is very often of 

 great thickness, a circumstance due probably to its having filled hoUows 

 in the pre-existing surface of the country. 



(a). Vol. II, p. 194. 



(S). Malcolm's Central India, Vol. II, p. 318 : Geol. papers on Western luilia, p. 231. 

 ( 168 ) 



