GENERAL DESCRIPTION. O 



then Governor of Madras was making a tour in the Northern Cirears 

 the medical officer, Dr. P. M. Benza, toot the opportunity of looking 

 up points of geological interest which were published in the Madras 

 Journal of Literature and Science -, 1 and in these is, I think, the first pub- 

 lished notice of the now well-known occurrence of traps with inter- 

 calated and subjacent fossiliferous beds in the neighbourhood of Hajah- 

 mundry. The peculiar character and constitution of the gneiss in the 

 neighbourhood of Bezvada, and thence along the west to Vizagapatam, 

 were first noticed by the same writer. In 1887, Mr. J. G. Malcolmson 

 read a paper before the Geological Society of London, 2 wherein he refers, 

 incidentally, to some of the rocks of the lower Godavari region. 



Captain Newbold passed along the western edge of this area, some 

 four or five years later, in one of his tours across the peninsula, when 

 he made some further observations on the rocks of Bezvada and the old 

 diamond mines at Maleli, which were embodied in one of his many 

 ' notes/ 3 Mr. "Walter Elliott, M.C.S., then stationed at Rajahmun- 

 dry, worked at the inter-trappean beds of Kateru in 3 850; and in 1854 

 he sent a collection of the fossils obtained from that place, with notes, 

 to the Asiatic Society of Bengal. 4 In 1855, these Kateru beds and those 

 of Pungadi on the right bank of the Godavari were again brought to 

 notice 5 by the Revd. Messrs. S. Hislop and R. Hunter, and again, in 

 1860, a further paper 6 was contributed by the previous gentleman 

 which deals more closely with the same rocks. Mr. Hislop never person- 

 ally visited these localities, so that he had to dej>end on the old ob- 

 servations of Dr. Benza, and later information obtained for him by 

 Lieutenant Stoddard. Colonel Stoddard has since informed me that 



1 Notes, chiefly geological, of a journey through the Northern Cirears in the 

 year 1835, Vol. V, 1837, pp. 43—70. 



2 On the fossils of the eastern portion of the Great Basaltic District of India : Trans, 

 2nd Ser., V, p. 537. 



3 Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, Vol. XIII, 1844, pp. 984—1004. 



4 Journ. As. Soc, Bengal, Vol. XXIII, p. 397. 



5 On the geology and fossils of the neighhourhood of Nagpur, Central India — Quar. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc, Lond., Vol. XI, p. 365. 



6 On the tertiary deposits associated with trap rock in the East Indies— Journ. 

 Geol. Soc Lond., Vol. XVI, 1860, pp. 154—166. 



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