Or CENTRAL INDIA AND BENGAL. ' 325 



Rajmahal beds. The " Upper Damuda" group appears in fact to represent 

 more fully in the Nerbudda district than it is seen in the Rajmahal hills 

 the lower portion of our Rajmahal Series. 



We now turn to the most important and valuable series of rocks, to 

 which we have given the name of the Damuda Series. 



Incidentally I have mentioned above (in a note page 176 J that there 

 does not exist in the collections in our Museum in Calcutta a single fossil 

 common to both the " Upper Damuda," and the " Damuda" series 

 of the Nerbudda district. It will be seen on a reference to my notes 

 on the Rajmahal hills, published in 1854, (a) that, at that time, while 

 fully recognizing the marked difference in the contained fossils be- 

 tween the upper and lower groups into which we divided the whole 

 series, we still thought that at least two genera — Vertebraria and Glos- 

 sopteris were represented in each group, by common species. More 

 careful and detailed examination of greatly extended collections have 

 however, satisfied us that in this we were in error. The fossils mistaken 

 for Vertebraria were imperfectly preserved fern stems ; nor have we 

 been able to trace, among several thousand specimens, a single repre- 

 sentative of the genus Glossopteris from any part of these upper or 

 " Rajmahal" beds. 



So far, therefore, as we know, up to this date (1860) not only are the 

 " Rajmahal" beds separated by a marked break in physical continuity, 

 from the " Damuda" beds below, but also by a marked and total change in 

 the vegetation, remains of which are so well and so numerously preserved. 



All these facts seem to point to a great lapse of time between the 

 period of the deposition of the Damuda beds, and that of the formation 

 of the Rajmahal group. 



If then it be admitted that we have above satisfactorily established 

 our argument that the Rajmahal series must be taken as representative 

 of some portion of the lower Mesozoic system of Europe, (probably 



(a) Jour. Asiat. Soc. of Bengal 1854, p. 272, 



