GKNEKAl, GKOLOCIV Ul I'lIK AULA. 19 



pigeon eggs. These beds then form low hills of rounded outline, but 



easily distinguished in appearance from Mahadevas. 1 have included this 



rock in the Panchets, though I have no fossil evidence to support my 



view, whereas in the Panchets proper I have found several characteristic 



forms of plants. 



The thickness of the Panchets in the Tatapani sections is estimated 



at from 1,200 to 1,500 feet, but it thins out con- 

 Thickness. -Ill 



siderably towards the west. 



Mahadevas. 

 Rocks, chiefly sandstones, belonging to this series occupy by far the 



largest extent of ground. Unlike the rest of the 

 Escarpments. r^ ■, / i • i t 



Gondwana rocks, which do not rise above 1,500 



feet above sea level in my area, the Mahadevas form bold escarpments, 



many of them perpendicular, even overhanging sometimes, and plateaux 



of from 2,000 to 3,000 feet above the sea. 



Whereas the Barakars are remarkable for the dryness of soil, which 

 is very sandy, and consequently the rivers of which rarely contain much 

 water during the dry season, the Mahadevas by decomposing, as they do, 

 into a heavy clay soil, give rise to perennial streams. Owing to this 

 circumstance is also the freshness of the sal and mixed jungles on ground 

 composed of Mahadevas, whereas Barakars and Talchirs invariably only 

 can boast of dry thorns and species of Mimosa trees. 



I could not divide the Mahadevas farther in this area. Nearly the 

 Lithological cliarac- whole mass is composcd of thick beds of reddish- 

 ter of Mahadevas. brown, ferruginous, gritty sandstone, generally 



false-bedded and remarkable for hard ferruginous partings, which cut 

 up the beds in a most singular manner, and, after the rock has undergone 

 disintegration by denudation, remain standing like thin walls and long 

 ridges in the mass of sandstone. 



Sometimes these partings make a network in the sandstone, and 



after the latter has been worn away, they form 

 Ferruginous partings. 



a cellular mass oi striking appearance. Here 



( 147 ) 



