Chap. 3.] w. blanford, western india. 21 



II. — The same want of information existed as to the relations of the 

 cretaceous rocks of Bagh to the traps. As the traps had already^ by- 

 several writers^ been classed with the older tertiaries, chiefly upon palseon- 

 tological evidence, there was here, in the known co-existence of rocks 

 both of older tertiary and of cretaceous age, with the traps, within a 

 comparatively limited area, a probable test of the accuracy of that opinion. 



III. — Another important matter was to endeavour, if possible, to 

 ascertain some connexion between the Bagh cretaceous rocks and the several 

 great sandstone groups of the Nerbudda valley, described in Mr. Medlicott^s 

 report as Mahadeva, Lameta, Damuda, &c., but which, from the rarity 

 of fossils, and the almost complete absence of remains of animals, it had 

 been impossible to assign with certainty to their true geological horizons. 



These were the most pressing questions, but a host of less prominent, 

 though scarcely less important, matters also called for enquiry. Amongst 

 these were the mode of eruption, source and nature of the traps, the posi- 

 tion of the intertrappeans, the nature and origin of the alluvium of the 

 river valleys, and of the low ground at Guzerat, the western extension of 

 the Vindhyan system, the relations of the peculiar rocks found in the 

 Nerbudda, west of Hurda, to the Vindhyans, &c. 



In a previous paper in these Memoirs {a) the principal questions re- 

 lating to the traps themselves have been treated; the solution of the re- 

 maining difficulties, so far as they have hitherto been elucidated, will be 

 found below. 



Chapter 3. — Physical Geography and its relation to the Geology. 



The whole of Western and Central India from Malwa to Belgaum 



„ „ , , may be looked upon as a great table land of 

 Characters of Central i. o 



and Western India gener- horizontal, or nearly horizontal, beds of trap, into 



ally. _ ^' 



which a few deep valleys have been cut. In the 



latter, in places, intertrappean beds are exposed, while to the west, the 



(a). Vol. VI, p. 137. 



( 183 ) 



