302 GEOLOGICAL RELATIONS OP THE ROCK SYSTEMS 



Oar earliest efforts were directed to the examination of the Rajmahal 

 hills, to the north of Calcutta. We hoped there, judging from the brief 

 accounts of the district which had been published, to find some fossili- 

 ferous bed, into correlation with which we could trace the coal rocks. 

 The result of the examination I shall give in greater detail below. In 

 that district, however, the base of the series is incomplete, and the rela- 

 tion of the upper beds are much complicated and obscured by the interca- 

 lation of vast masses of foreign matter, the outpouring of immense flows 

 of volcanic lavas, (a) 



A subsequent attempt to trace the coal-beds into connexion with the 

 nummulitic rocks of Eastern Bengal only proved that we had there coal 

 certainly, but coal occurring in rocks of a totally different character and 

 of a totally different age from the coal-bearing rocks of Bengal (b). A 

 similar attempt to trace their connection in the Sikkim country, at the 

 foot of the Darjiling hills also failed. Subsequently we have endeavour- 

 ed bv a careful investigation of the cretaceous rocks of Southern India 

 to ascertain whether there could be any connection between these most 

 interesting deposits, (the geological era of which is in a general way, well 

 marked) and the coal-bearing rocks : with what success will appear in 

 the sequel. Similarly in Central India the object has never been lost 

 sio-ht of to trace this very extensive, and to Indian geologists this most 

 important and interesting group of rocks, into connexion with some other 

 system of beds, which might afford us better evidence, on which to base 

 our conclusions as to their geological age. For the difficulty did not 

 arise from the fact that these rocks were devoid of the relics of organic 

 life, but that we had not been fortunate enough to find any remains, 

 save those of plants. And we were fully alive to the imperfection of the 

 testimony which such can give. The study of these fossils must at all 

 times be beset with difficulties, not alone depending on the broken and 



(a) Jour. Asiat. Soc. Eengal, 1854 p. 271. 

 (/.>) Memoirs cf Geological Survey of India, Vol, I, p, 165. 



