212 GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OF THE ROCK SYSTEMS 



of view, wiser and better to adopt the same course with this group as 

 with the others, and to give to it a name derived from some marked 

 locality where it occurs. And, inasmuch as the bank and the imme- 

 diate neighborhood f the Barakar river exhibit excellent and character- 

 istic sections of this group, I would substitute for " Lower Damuda" 

 the name " Barakar group." 



To prevent any misconception, I would add here that the excellent 

 remarks of my colleague on the value of the coals from this e Lower 

 Damuda' group, must be taken as applicable only to the field imme- 

 diately under consideration, in which the almost universal intrusion of 

 trappean rocks into these lower coal beds would alone be sufficient to 

 account for the inferior quality of much of the coal. The Kurhurbari 

 coal beds, are, however, all in ' Lower Damuda' rocks, and the coal 

 is fully equal to any found in the Raniganj field, while at the same 

 time there is evidence of the occurrence also of the lower beds of 

 the upper series in the same field. 



I would also take advantage of the present opportunity to state that 

 more recent researches have given to Mr. Medlicott from his " Upper 

 Damuda" rocks of Central India, many varieties of fossil plants, of 

 which no specimens had been procured from these beds up to 1860, and 

 which go far to prove that these groups in Central India must be 

 referred to the Damuda system, and not to the Bajmahal. So marked 

 indeed is the resemblance of the flora of these rocks from the vicinity of 

 Sohagpur to the true Damuda flora, ( Glossopteris, Phyllotheca, fyc.,) 

 that I am almost led to suspect, although the fact may not at first be 

 traceable, that these will be found to be a different group of beds from 

 those first called Upper Damuda, and the plant remains in which 

 were so markedly different from those known in the ordinary coal- 

 bearing rocks of India. While, therefore, I think it will be desirable 

 to get rid of the term ' Upper Damuda,' as applied to a sub-division 

 of a series or system, the true limits of which are not yet known, I 



