154 KHASI HILLS. 



I have already alluded iucidentally to the occurrence of lime- 

 stone near to the station of Cherra Poonjee 

 Tertiary Limestone. 



and elsewhere in the Khasi hills, aud, the 



relations of the limestone to the coal at Lakadong in the Jynteah 



hills, will be pointed out. But the importance of these limestones, both 



in a geological and in a practical point of view, calls for a more detailed 



description. 



The limestone is well seen in the small isolated ridge bounding the 



station of Cherra Poonjee to the South-West. This 

 Near Cherra Poonjee. . t i 



little ridge rises with a steep and perpendicular 



escarpment from the level ground of the station. Along its base an 

 irregular talus of fallen masses of limestone, coal, and sandstone 

 conceals the actual junction of its lower beds with the sandstone beneath. 

 In one or two points this is indistinctly seen, and a bed of hard blue stiff 

 clay, only a few inches thick, separates the mass of the limestone from 

 the sandstone, on which it rests perfectly conformably ; and is like it, 

 therefore, nearly horizontal. The thickness of the limestone beds here 

 is at least 75 feet. In the texture and character of the beds slight differ- 

 ences are traceable, but these are not remarkable. As a whole, it is 

 similar throughout, compact, of a grey-blue colour, hard and splintery, 

 ■with an irregular conchoidal fracture. It is generally thin-bedded, but 

 some of the beds attain a thickness of two and three feet : these thicker 

 masses are, however, frequently divisible into others, the partings being 

 well seen when the rock has been weathered. The uppermost beds are 

 a little more earthy in composition, and between these beds and the 

 mass of thin bedded limestone below, there is locally a thin (from half 

 kn inch to one and half inch) layer of calcareous sandstone interposed. 

 This is not, however, constant." Throughout the whole of these beds 

 y fossils are found. In the compact layers, these do 



'^°^^^ not show on the fresh fracture of the stone, the 



shells or other remains being entirely replaced by the limestone ; while 



