280 RECENT DEPOSITS OP NERBUDDA VALLEY. 



Ascending section of alluvial deposits in the Nerbudda valley. 

 Lower group (a). 

 Sandstone and conglomerate, finer towards the top. 

 Coarse conglomerate. 

 Stiff reddish clay. 

 Bones throughout this group. 

 Upper group (b). 

 Pale brownish alluvium passing upwards into Regur, or the black cot- 

 ton soil of Western India. 



Bones very rare in this group, and these probably derived from the 

 abraded beds of the lower group. 



Group (a). 

 In a number of beds of mixed fluviatile, and lacustrine, origin such as 

 these beds are, but little uniformity of mineral character can be expected 

 for any distance even in the same bed, any more than in the accumulations 

 in the channels of existing streams ; and we accordingly find that the 

 only bed which is at all continuous and exhibits every where the same 

 aspect, is the reddish yellow clay at the base of the series. This is in 

 many respects a bed of considerable interest, from its apparently lacus- 

 trine origin. 



It is not often that the base of this bed is cut through by the river, but 

 towards the west, both above and below Hosungabad, it is seen resting 

 on the gently inclined beds of sandstone of the Vindhyan group, which 

 there form the bed of the river, with the intervention only of a thin 

 band of shingly conglomerate^ of variable thickness, which everywhere 

 forms the basal member of the group. 



In the bend of the river below Murdanpur this last bed consists of 



a layer of gravel, from a few inches to a few feet 

 Conglomerate at base. 



in thickness, containing a few small fragments of 



bone ; but about Bareta, 12 miles above Hosungabad, it assumes the 



form of a hard conglomerate, containing bones and numerous shells of 



