644 ANCIENT FLUVIATILE DEPOSITS 



former, in his annotations on the ' Amaracosha,' interprets 

 the words ' Graha ' and ' Avahara ' as meaning Hippopo- 

 tamus ; and the latter not only follows this version, but gives 

 two other words, 'Kariyadus' and ' Vidoo,' which he supposes 

 to signify the same animal. It is therefore in the highest 

 degree probable that the ancient inhabitants of India were 

 familiar with the Hippopotamus as a living animal ; and it is 

 contrary to every probability that this knowledge of it was 

 drawn from the African species, imported from Egypt or 

 Abyssinia. Assuming that the quadruped was a contem- 

 porai'y of man in India, a very complex question is involved, 

 which is beyond the scope and limits of the present commu- 

 nication, namely, the ancient vocables above referred to as 

 the groundwork of the argument being of Aryan derivation. 

 Did the Aryan emigrants see the animal living on the northern 

 rivers of India, or was their knowledge of it derived from the 

 traditions of the more ancient indigenous races whom they 

 subjugated or displaced? After reflecting on the question 

 during many years, in its palseontological and ethnological 

 bearings, my leaning is to the view that Hippopotamus Na- 

 madicus was extinct in India long before the Aryan invasion, 

 but that it was familiar to the earlier indigenous races. I 

 may add that remains of the species have nowhere as yet 

 been observed in recent or comparatively modern deposits 

 in India ; they have only been met with in a petrified con- 

 dition, deep in the alluvium of the Jumna, or in ancient 

 deposits in the Valley of the ISTerbudda. 



3. Fossil Mollusca. — I have already stated that our infor- 

 mation regarding the Mollusca occurring in the ancient allu- 

 vium of the Jumna is almost nil ; until lately, this would have 

 applied to the fossil shells of what I have designated through- 

 out as the Pliocene deposits of the Valley of the Nerbudda. 

 But the operations of the Geological Survey of India have 

 already extended to that district ; and I have been favoured 

 with a communication from Professor Oldham, dated Jan- 

 uary 8, 1858, in which he informs me that the evidence as to 

 the age of the formations is now becoming tolerably con- 

 clusive. A large collection of shells, comprising a consider- 

 able assemblage of species and a great quantity of individuals, 

 all proved to be of existing forms. 



But there was this remarkable in the group, that of many 

 of the commonest, living species some were exceedingly rare, 

 or even absent. Of Planorbis Coromandclianus, one of the 

 most prevalent Indian species and abundant in the Nerbudda 

 district, only two specimens were found in the fossil state ; 

 while of Melanidce, M. variabilis, and M. spinulosa, also com- 

 mon living forms, were not met with. The species, none 



