CHAPTbEE IX. — Roots IN OTHEE PAETS OF InDIA POSSIBLY BELONGING TO 

 THE ViNDHYAN SeEIES. 



In the foregoing ^ages we have confined ourselves exclusively to the 

 description of the Viiidhyans north of the Sone and Nerbudda ; in other 

 parts of India, however, far removed from the above area, immense spreads 

 of rock exist, which there is more or less probability or certainty will 

 hereafter be found to represent the Vindhyan series. Except in Madras, 

 however, these have as yet been visited only in the most cursory manner, 

 and as little is yet known regarding them with certainty, it will suffice to 

 allude to them in a similar way. 



Mr. Medlicott in 1866-67 came upon such beds in the Mahanuddi 

 valley, which may eventually be proved to represent the Vindhyans. The 

 sandstones are strong-bedded, often coarse and rusty, often pure and fine 

 quartzite-sandstones. There are massive, fine, homogeneous clays, often 

 affecting a flat nodular structure (resembling somewhat the splintery 

 clays of the Talcheers) ; there are also finely laminated silicious shales ; 

 these are often calcareous and pass insensibly into finely laminated 

 silicious limestones, in the manner so common with some of the lower 

 Vindhyan bands of the Sone and Bundelkund. These shales seem also 

 connected with fine flaky silicious and quasi-felspathic bedsj very hard 

 and compact (porcellanic) on a fresh fracture, but betraying their 

 flakiness by weathering ; these beds too find their exact analogues in the 

 lower Vindhyans. 



Limestone is perhaps the commonest rock at the surface all over the 

 plains of Chutteesgurh. It is seldom a pure homogeneous rock, being 

 often flaky and earthy-silicious ; often also the silicious matter is dis- 

 tributed in strings or in irregular concentric concretions. 



It would seem to be only in the most general way that these several 



rocks observe any order of position. It would appear that all three 



types may be observed as a bottom rock, resting upon the metamorphics^ 



but there is a decided preponderance of the sandstone in this position, 



Q ( 123 ) 



