PBEPACE. IX 



In the accompanying reports no attempt, tlierefore, has been made 

 to introduce any uniform system. Names of places have been given as 

 they were spelled on the ordinary maps of the country. 



It could scarcely be anticipated that in the few years we have been 

 working in this country much could have been ascertained regarding 

 the detail of its Geological Structure. Several results of great import- 

 ance have, however, been arrived at. Among those now published, 

 I may mention the separation into several distinct groups, of the rocks 

 associated with coal in India, hitherto considered to belong to one series. 

 Of these, the "Talcheer" group (the lowest) was first established by 

 the brothers Blanford, from enquiries in the district herein described, 

 and subsequent researches in other parts of the country have fully 

 confirmed the justness of this separation, and established the constancy 

 and importance of the subdivisions. The true value of the group, and 

 its relations to the overlying rocks, as regards its fossil contents are not 

 yet fully made out. 



The " Damuda" series containing almost all the coal beds of Bengal 

 Proper, Orissa, and Central India, was first separated from the rocks 

 which overlie it, by myself, from investigations in Bengal, and in the 

 Nerbudda district. At the same time I established the existence of a 

 totally distinct series (? formation) of rocks above these coal-bearing 

 beds, which had been previously classed with them. To these I gave 

 the name of the Mahadeva, from the hills, so called, in the valley of the 

 Nerbudda, where these rocks are well seen. Other series or formations 

 also connected with these Damuda rocks, have been established ; as the 

 " Vindhyan" formation, first separated by the Brothers Medlicott, and 

 so called by me. The Rajmahal group, &c., &c., all which will receive 

 detailed illustration in future reports. Our data as yet, being only 

 remains of plants, although numerous and well preserved, are, I regret 

 to say iiisuflicient to establish with certainty the parallelism of these 

 groups with acknowledged European classifications. In addition to the 



