OF CENTRAL INDIA ANI> BENGAL. 317 



Blanford in the upper beds of the Ranigunj district,) have any animal 

 remains whatever been procured, save one solitary wing-cover of a beetle ! 

 We speak, of course, only of those districts which the survey has visited 

 and examined. In an unknown country like this, where we have in fact 

 no horizon as # yet fairly established, from which we can start, this limi- 

 tation must always render our conclusions more doubtful, and unsatis- 

 factory. But we shall endeavour to state them as clearly, as the un- 

 avoidable absence of the necessary illustrations and detail will permit. 



Up to the date of my brief notice of the geological structure of the 

 Rajmahal hills, (1854,) and for some time after, it had not been possible, 

 from the want of the necessary works for reference, as well as from the 

 pressure of other business, to undertake a full and careful examination 

 of the rich collections of fossil plants which we had at various times 

 brought together from the Rajmahal hills, and other localities.* The 

 discovery in 1856, by Mr. Jos. G. Medlicott in the Nerbudda district, 

 in his " Upper Damuda" group, of other fossils which appeared to resem- 

 ble, or to be identical with, those found in the Rajmahal district, com- 

 pelled however the taking up of this examination. I am indebted to my 

 friend, Professor Morris of London, for having very carefully gone over, 

 examined and described the majority of those from the Rajmahal hills. 

 And the remainder have been carefully examined and compared. Of 

 the group there found, I am therefore able to speak with considerable 

 certainty, and in some detail. The Upper Damuda plants of the Ner- 

 budda have also been gone over so far as the collections made by Mr. 

 Medlicott under some difficulties, enable this to be done. But we have 

 not, as yet, equally extended or equally valuable data for this group as 

 for the upper beds of the Rajmahal hills. 



The fossil flora of the Damuda group has been to a certain extent 

 investigated, but for this group our materials are daily increasing, and 

 we are therefore not able to do more than speak in a general way. 



* Indeed, until the formation of the Geological Museum in 1857, there was no place in 

 which this could have been done. 



