102 MALLET, VINDHYAN SERIES. 



and it would seem that the higher members thicken considerably to the 

 westward. 



The Vindhyan area surveyed up to the present tim.e north of the 



Sone and Nerbudda rivers is nearly 30,000 square 

 Area. 



miles, and there is further a large tract of more than 



10,000 between Sipri andNeemuch not yet surveyed, but known to be oc- 

 cupied by the same formation, so that the whole superficies, where the 

 Vindhyans appear at the surface, is about 40,000 square miles. Besides this, 

 however, the trappean area north of the Nerbudda and east of Neemuch 

 and Burwai, is, as shown by occasional inliers, underlaid, probably entirely, 

 by the same strata. This adds another 25,000 square miles, and brings up 

 the entire area in the NorthrWest and in Central India, where Vindhyans 

 occur, either at or beneath the surface, to some 65,000 or 70,000 square 

 miles. In addition to this again must probably be included very large tracts 

 on the Mahanuddee, the Godavery, and in Southern India, where rocks 

 occur which most likely will hereafter be correlated with the Vindh}'ans, 



As yet no reliable fossils, or indeed anything that can be asserted to be 

 a fossil at all, has been found in either the upper or the lower Vindhyans, 

 although more than one writer has noticed markings of various kinds 

 which they either believed or suggested to be such. It is very doubtful, 



however, if any of these be organic. Captain 

 Fossils. 



Dangerfield"^ notices in the "Sue grained yellowish- 

 brown sandstone slate" of Jirun near Neemuch, the occurrence, 

 "between the slaty fracture, of numerous vegetable remains or 

 impressions of a species of fern, appearing to be in a carbo- 

 nized state.'"' If the above' were really vegetable remains they would be 



* Malcolm's Central India, Vol. II, p. 332. 

 ( 102 ) 



