2 BLANFORD : (iEOLOGY OF WESTERN SIND. 



in the recently published Manual of the Geology of India 1 further than 



Difference between to recall the circumstance that there is a wide dis- 

 peninsular and extra- ,.,.-,, ,i i • i o j- c i 



peninsular areas of India, tmction between the geological iormations round 



in the Peninsula of India and those occurring in the neighbouring 



regions, and that the two areas have had a very different geological 



history, the peninsula of India having probably been land ever since 



middle palaeozoic times at least, whilst the extra-peninsular regions have 



frequently been covered by sea. In several parts of these extra-peninsular 



regions — in Burma, the Assam hills, the Himalayas, the Punjab, and 



Sind — tertiary rocks occur in great profusion, and in most of the regions 



named some of these tertiary beds contain marine fossils. This is pre- 



Importance of Sind eminently the case in Sind : not only are fossils 

 geology. abundant, but it has long been known that more 



than one formation is represented, and it has for years past been 

 suspected that a much fuller series of marine tertiary beds exists in 

 Sind than in other parts of the British possessions in India. This 

 suspicion has been fully verified by the examination of the province. 

 Two other advantages are offered by the country west of the Indus — 

 the absence of the forest, which renders surveying so difficult and uncer- 

 tain in many parts of India and Burma, and the circumstance that large 

 collections of fossils from this region have been carefully examined and 

 described by competent European palaeontologists. 



The fossils, however, although well figured and described, have hitherto 



Horizon of Sind fossils been almost useless as a guide to the relations of 



hitherto described un- .. . . 



certain. the beds containing them in various parts of India, 



because the formations in Sind remained unclassified, and it was uncer- 

 tain from what part of the series particular species had been obtained. 

 In the great French work, to which numerous references will be found 

 in the following pages, the " Description des animaux fossiles du groupe 

 nummulitique de flnde," by Viscount D'Archiac and M. Jules Haime, 

 Sub-divisions of ter- ^ was c l eari y shown that fossils from, several 

 tuny series numerous. sub-divisions of the tertiary series were represented 



1 introduction, pp. ii, vii, xi, &c. 

 ( 2 ) 



