OTHER FORMATIONS. 63 



CHAPTER VI.— OTHER FORMATIONS. 

 (1). — Rajmahal Plant Beds. 



The merest traces of some plant shales of this series were discovered 

 by Charles Oldham on the northern edge of this area, which he afterwards 

 earned on into the Kistna District, where they have since been thoroughly 

 worked out and reported on by Mr. Foote. 1 Indeed, it was after all by 

 Mere traces of Upper ^he merest chance that the first indications of these 

 Gondwanas in this area. Rajmahal plant shales were found in the debris 

 thrown out of some wells which had pierced the laterite and sandstone 

 plateaus of Nellore and Kavali. I myself found pale-yellow and buff 

 clayey and sandy shales, very similar to those of the plant-beds of the 

 Trichinopory district, but unfossiliferous, at three localities — Chumuru- 

 gunta, about 6 miles south-south-west of Nellore ; Kalavakonda, 7 miles 

 east-south-east of Giidur, and at Shengapetta, 17 miles north -north- east 

 of Nellore, all in well-excavations. About the same time I heard from 

 Oldham of his having found fossiliferous shales of the same kind, and 

 thus it became evident that the Trichinopoly and Madras belt of Rajmahal 

 rocks extended nearly all along the Carnatic. Oldham subsequently 

 found many little patches, so small that they can only be represented 

 very generally in the map attached to this memoir, and concerning 

 which he furnished the following notes in 1862-63 : — 



" In the north-east quarter sheet, in the Kavali Taluq of the Nellore 

 district, I have discovered and secured some specimens of plant remains 

 from sandstones which from their similarity to, or identity [with, plants 

 discovered elsewhere, possess considerable interest. 



" The sandstone and shales in which they occur are confined, as far 

 as I could determine the* within the limits of sheet 77, to a few square 

 miles west and north-west of the town of Kavali. I have noticed them 

 close to the villages of Timmasamudrum, Kun Korepolliam, Ramanja- 

 puram, Corny Mutumarpolliam, and Sodawaram. Beds of similar charac- 



1 Mem. Geol. Surv. of India, Vol. XVI, part 1. 



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