1 28 KHASI HILLS. 



beds is not more than 50 feet. A similar cap of very similar sandstones 

 forms a long, narrow, flat-topped ridge, on which the villages of Maw- 

 sutai and Laidom are placed, about three miles North of Myrung. This 

 ridge stretches nearly East and West for about two miles, but with a 

 very irregular outline, and contrasts well with the wavy surface of the 

 adjoining country by its flat top and scarped sides, seen best from the 

 North. The extreme thickness of the beds of sandstone here does not 

 exceed 100 feet. No fossils were found in these sandstones, with the 

 ■exception of a few very imperfect impressions in one of the beds 

 near Nungbri, much too indistinct for identification, but which ap- 

 peared to be similar to those found in the Cherra Poonjee beds. They 

 were all vegetable remains. In the absence, therefore, of any fossil 

 evidence, and arguing only from the mineralogical character of these 

 beds, without the occurrence of any well-marked layer admitting of 

 identification at distant points, it is impossible to assert, positively, that 

 these sandstones at Nungbri and at Laidom belong unquestionably to 

 the same series as the Cherra rocks ; although I believe such to be 

 the case, and that these caps of sandstone are only the now detached 

 and outlying remnants of a once extensive series of beds which stretch- 

 ed continuously over these hills, and which have been subsequently 

 denuded. These patches remain as a measure by which we can estimate 

 the amount of matter which has been removed. 



Sandstones similar to those occurring near Cherra Poonjee are seen along 



-^ , ' , ,1, 17 ^ the Southern flank of the hill range, as far East- 



Extent toward the tast ° ' 



°f '""'*• wards as Burr-ghat, and from this they continue 



still further in the same direction. I have only had an opportunity of 

 visiting these districts to the East during two trips, in one of which I pass- 

 ed up from the plains to Joowai, and in the other went down from the 

 Mils by the ridge of Molih, Nonkradem, and Kuug-diab, to Lacat. 1 can 

 therefore only speak of the rocks exhibited in these two sections, although 

 there is no question that the same group of rocks continues all along. 



